Debates of Oct. 7th, 1996

Canadian Armed Forces

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, we intend to do everything necessary in order to restore the confidence of the armed forces. I am not as certain as the hon. member that the men and women in the armed forces are all in disarray.

We admit that we have major problems, but this extends well beyond the scope of the Somalia inquiry. This is necessary, and my predecessor was in the process of taking decisions that might improve the situation of the armed forces, for example with respect to the purchase of new equipment and all sorts of other measures to be implemented in the coming weeks.

We will do everything necessary to restore to the Canadian Armed Forces the reputation they have earned over the years. It will not be an easy task, but we will give it our all.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

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

The new Minister of National Defence also stated that the problem would not be solved by assigning responsibility to a single individual but by tackling the whole system.

Can the minister, who wants to take all necessary measures, make a commitment to ask the Somalia inquiry to submit an

interim report as soon as possible so that light can be shed on the cover-up operations within the Canadian armed forces following the Somalia incidents?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I think one must be very careful in trying to tell the Somalia inquiry how it should run its business.

I take good note of the hon. member's suggestion, which was also raised by other members in this House, that there should perhaps be an interim report on certain issues that have already been looked at by the inquiry.

I am sure the hon. member will agree with me that we should avoid doing anything that would bring into question the Somalia inquiry's integrity and impartiality.

[Pierre Brien, Bloc, Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, could the minister's refusal be due to his fear that a specific, early interim report might reveal the role and responsibilities that should be assumed not only by General Boyle but also by the former Minister of National Defence?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the new defence minister in his new position. He has been the prime minister's firefighter and he is going to be busier than Smokey the Bear at national defence.

Reform wants to see morale restored in the Canadian Armed Forces. On Friday the former defence minister caved in to pressure and threw in the towel, but he left behind his hand-picked chief of defence staff, General Jean Boyle. Will the new defence minister prove his commitment to restoring morale in the Canadian Armed Forces and fire General Boyle?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, my predecessor is an honourable man and he chose a course of action which was made very clear when he reviewed a situation which he has thoroughly explained and which was covered by the rules of conduct for ministers of the crown.

I want to assure my hon. friend I am convinced that many members of the House on all sides and from all political parties, have one objective in mind and that is to try to do what is right and what is responsible with respect to protecting the reputation of the Canadian Armed Forces, a reputation gained through great trials and tribulations over this past century.

I intend-and I have given this undertaking-to do everything I can, and I hope that he will join with us, to make sure that everything we do is designed to try to improve the conditions of work for the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces and to make sure they do the job which Canadians expect of them.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I take it that was a yes.

The minister's resignation highlights another Liberal double standard. The last defence minister wrote a letter to the Immigration and Refugee Board. He screwed up. He admitted it and he quit. It was the only thing he could do. General Boyle should not be far behind. Boyle signed a letter authorizing the release of altered documents. He screwed up and he admitted it.

Will the government explain why mea culpa is okay for General Boyle when the defence minister lost his job over it?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, if the objective of the exercise in which we are involved is simply to attach blame to one or two individuals or to indicate that there were problems such as the hon. member describes, then surely the inquiry at some point will tell us what it thinks is the appropriate remedy.

I want to suggest respectfully to my colleague that the armed forces and Canada are faced by a major crisis. One person or two people being involved or being singled out for special attention, especially when they are in positions of leadership, is understandable. But I believe the problems in the Canadian Armed Forces go far beyond just a couple of people who, for whatever reason, are being singled out for special attention today and have been for some weeks. I am not going to be drawn into that at this point.

I began my work this morning by meeting with the chief of the defence staff and the deputy minister. What I have said to them and will say to my hon. friend is that what we do will have one objective. I hope that together we can make sure that the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces work in an environment where they have a mandate and the people of Canada through Parliament give them the resources to carry out that mandate.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Similkameen—Merritt, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his answers. There is a culture of cover-up at national defence, and the Liberals have not only condoned it, they have fostered it by refusing to take any action to remedy it.

Documents have been shredded, the military police have been lied to, the public has been misled, the spirit of the Access to Information Act has been broken and the morale of the good people in our Canadian Armed Forces has been dragged through the mud.

Yet one of the major players in this whole affair still has his job. Will the minister take action today and fire General Boyle?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, one of the principal reasons we have been involved during the past several months in the process of determining what went wrong in Somalia is because the government and my predecessor had the will power, the commitment and the courage to institute a commission of inquiry.

I want to point out something to my hon. friend that I believe is very important to Canadians. It is not just what went on in terms of communicating information and indicating whether or not appropriate information was being made available on inquiry, as important as that is. What is far more important, what I believe after some 72 hours of having been asked to do this job, and what I believe my hon. friend believes as well is that Canadians find out what happened in Somalia. What went so wrong that Canadians have been shocked and disgusted by what took place in Somalia?

We are going to find out what happened in Somalia.

Immigration

[Osvaldo Nunez, Bloc, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Immigration or another government representative.

The death last week of a woman who was trying to enter the U.S. revealed an illegal immigrant smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S. Worse, according to a U.S. border patrol official, this kind of activity has been on the rise since 1994. Yet the RCMP assures us that they have no information to this effect and no investigation is under way. In a word, there is no problem, according to the RCMP.

Is the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration aware of this illegal immigrant smuggling via Akwesasne and did she ask her colleague, the solicitor general, to investigate, since the RCMP are obviously ignoring the problem?

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

Mr. Speaker, the tragedy that occurred last week demonstrates there is illegal activity going on. With a border the length of ours with the United States it is not surprising that there is illegal activity.

Over the past three years, with the investment the government has made in the anti-smuggling initiative, every available effort has been made to try to reduce the extent of illegal activity.

I should also draw attention to the fact that the Prime Minister and the President of United States recently entered into an accord with respect to patrolling the border pursuant to which authorities in both countries share information and meet regularly to develop co-ordinated strategies to diminish illegal activities across the border.

They will never be entirely eliminated but last week's tragedy demonstrates the urgency of our continued effort. It is to that continued effort that this government is committed.

[Osvaldo Nunez, Bloc, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in spite of the efforts described by the minister, the situation is deteriorating. Since this illegal immigrant smuggling has been going on for years and the minister is still not taking her responsibilities, are we to understand that the federal government is not acting because the smuggling ring is operating on aboriginal territory?

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

Mr. Speaker, no, that is not so. A lot of the success achieved in the last year or two has resulted directly from the integrated efforts of the Akwesasne Mohawk police, the RCMP, the Sûreté du Québec, the Ontario Provincial Police and the New York state police. Together, those five forces have combined efforts to make real progress in intercepting and diminishing the extent of smuggling.

The government accepts its responsibility and takes it very seriously. I assure the hon. member that its efforts to reduce and diminish the kind of illegal activity to which he has referred will very much continue.

Somalia Inquiry

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

Mr. Speaker, I too would like to congratulate the Minister of National Defence on his appointment and wish him well in his quest to restore the pride and morale in the armed forces that they deserve.

General Boyle was appointed as chief of the defence staff in January 1996. That means that he has now been in the seat for 10 months. When he was appointed, there was a question as to his suitability for the job because of his involvement with Somalia. Whether it is fair or not, there is concern about his leadership.

Would the minister consider, because of this questionable leadership, asking General Boyle to stand aside until the facts are brought to the surface?

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, first let me thank my hon. friend for his congratulations. I look forward to working with him and with other members of the the House who have the best interests of the Canadian Armed Forces at heart.

As I go through this phase, let me suggest to him, to a lot of people at national defence headquarters, to a lot of people across the country in the forces themselves as well as to all the public servants, I do not expect to be able to master all of this in a very short period of time but I am going to work very hard at it.

I want to assure my hon. friend that we will take into account all of the suggestions, all of the recommendations. I will be very careful in doing that. I want to make sure that I am fair and as equitable as possible.

I do not have any prejudice or axe to grind in any of this. I look forward to working with those members of Parliament who believe, as I do and as I can tell my hon. friend does from his question, that the objective of the exercise is to make sure that the men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces know what is expected of them, that we provide them with a mandate they can understand and work within and that we provide them with the financial and human resources to carry out that mandate.

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

Mr. Speaker, the question is still one of leadership. To be fair and to see that justice is done to all concerned, I ask the minister that he consider asking the commission to provide an interim report which would provide him with the information regarding whether General Boyle is or is not fit to continue his job, and then take the appropriate action, whichever way it falls.

[Douglas Young, Liberal, Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, that question was put to me earlier. I will address it again because it is an important one.

I want to be very careful about not appearing to interfere in any way in the work of the commission of inquiry. We will look at whether there are some approaches that might be appropriate and considered that way by members of the commission. We will take into account all the suggestions that are made.

There is one thing I want to stress today. The hon. member made reference to the length of time the chief of the defence staff has been in office. I ask him to consider, and I ask Canadians generally to consider, whether we can envisage the commission of inquiry working on a very lengthy agenda into six months, a year, a year and a half and what impact that also might have on the morale and the capacity of the armed forces to function.

There are a couple of questions that are implicit in the one the hon. member has just put which we will have to address. I will certainly take his views into account as we come to a final determination.

Air Transportation

[Pierre De Savoye, Bloc, Portneuf, QC]

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

On July 12, the Minister of Transport wrote, in a letter attempting to justify the withdrawal of Air Canada's privilege to fly to Prague, that he was the one who decided that Canadian Airlines International would become Canada's carrier to the Czech Republic.

On Friday, in answering a question from the Bloc on the same issue, the minister said in this House, and I quote: "I made no decision. That is how it works. It is automatic".

There is a problem. The minister is contradicting himself. My question is very simple. Who is right: (a) the minister, in his July 12 letter; (b) the minister in the House, on October 4; or (c) none of the above?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is showing the traditional confusion of the Bloc with respect to government policy which has been in place for somewhat over a year.

The policy is this. One or other of the major airlines is assigned the right to exploit a new route. If within the time given, in this case 365 days, it fails to establish the service, the option then goes to another airline. In very rare cases the other airline is neither Air Canada nor Canadian International. Basically it is automatic, it goes to the other airline.

The hon. member is simply confused in this respect. He is confused in thinking that the established policy of how new routes are divided, the so-called use it or lose it policy, requires the intervention of a minister in any substantial way.

As I indicated last week, essentially it is automatic. It is a minor question of issuing a letter. There is a minor question of determining whether one of the many other smaller airlines might be considered, but basically it goes to either Air Canada or Canadian International.

[Pierre De Savoye, Bloc, Portneuf, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is very confusing indeed. The minister just alluded to the rule of 365 days, or 12 months.

He says it is for this reason that Air Canada lost the Prague route. If so, why did the minister give Canadian almost two years to choose its destinations to India, Malaysia and the Philippines? Why the double standard?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my response to the earlier question, this is a relatively new policy of the government.

The previous policy was the so-called division of the world. If it is the desire of the Bloc to go back to the so-called division of the world, where Air Canada has no routes in Asia and where Canadian has its routes severely limited in Europe, that is its policy.

I would like to know what the Bloc proposal is. We adopted a new policy 18 months to two years ago where we allowed competition on routes such as Hong Kong and the Japan route. Air Canada was allowed to dramatically expand its flights to Asia in particular and we are now in the process of waiting until the year 1998 to see how that new policy works out before making any change to it.

National Family Week

[Sharon Hayes, Reform, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the beginning of national family week, a week co-sponsored by Health Canada.

There is a record of government programs for the past quarter century that have spawned increased child poverty, teen suicide and more, surrounded by epidemic marital breakdown.

Could the Minister of Health please tell the House what his department has planned to highlight National Family Week and what, if any, new strategies he has to change the existing confusion over meaningful family policy?

[Sergio Marchi, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the member might know that the Minister of Health is away on government business today.

There is a very busy week planned. We do not accept the assertion in the member's question and preamble that there is a confusion in the policy. I would be most happy to transmit the member's question to the minister so that he will be able to respond either on the floor of the House of Commons or certainly in writing to the member.