Debates of Oct. 20th, 1998

Criminal Code

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Liberal law is right. It absolutely makes no sense at all.

In 1993 when all of us, every major party in this House, campaigned on law and order issues, it was running rampant then and it is running rampant now. I well remember in the 1993 campaign the Liberal candidate speaking on law and order. I can well remember the NDP and the Conservative candidates speaking on law and order, and myself as a Reformer speaking on law on order. It was one of the hottest topics in our constituency. We talked about what was happening in society, about how people were getting fed up and were afraid, and how the B and Es and the car thefts were escalating.

It was one of the hottest topics. Promises were given by all parties that we would start to address these issues, yet nothing has been done. Not a thing has been done to address these issues since I have sat in this House. It is escalating according to the police reports. Not according to our reports or their reports, but according to the police reports it is escalating and nothing is being done.

We have a chance with this bill to put a little bit of teeth into it. We have tried the soft approach. We are tired of trying it. The victims are tired of trying it. Many have been victimized more than once. We are sick and tired of the soft approach. It is not working and it is time we tried something different. We cannot be afraid to try something different when we know what we have tried is not working.

Billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent trying to address these problems and it has got us nowhere but an increase in crime. Even the government has to admit that. It has been an increase, not a decrease. So where is the government taking us? It is taking us down the road with absolutely no return. It will just keep escalating. We know that. The criminals know that because they have nothing to be afraid of.

Criminals will be sentenced for two or three crimes and all that will be served is one sentence. So what is there to be afraid of? Why would they not steal a vehicle to commit a crime? They are not going to get any more of a sentence for it. Nothing more is going to happen to them. Less will probably happen to them if they smash it up and run into somebody. That is just the way our system works. We have been led down the garden path far too long on the soft beating heart part of it.

If we really want to do something for our youth it is about time we started to protect them. It is the young people who suffer the most in stolen vehicle accidents. It is the young person who gets into a car that his friend has stolen. Half the time he or she does not even know it is stolen and they roll it. He or she is the innocent victim but nothing happens because of it.

We keep going down the route we have been going on for years and we keep losing our young people. We keep going to funerals because nobody has ever said that enough is enough. There is such a thing as tough love and it works in some cases. Believe me, it works. If I had been able to get away with everything when I was a youth, I hate to think where I would be today, maybe the Prime Minister.

This is the wrong attitude. It has totally gone out the window. The bill specifically states “in the use of crime”. Does the government not realize that a vehicle can be used as a deadly weapon? It is a deadly weapon especially in the commission of a crime when trying to make a getaway. It now becomes a lethal weapon. Probably more people have been killed accidents involving a vehicle in the commission of a crime than by any other weapon. It is a very dangerous weapon yet the government does not care.

The government says our system adequately addresses this. That is a joke. If it was being addressed, it would not be escalating the way it is. If it were not such a joke, they would be a little afraid of stealing the vehicle and using it. The police would not support this bill if the situation were not such a joke, such a sad thing. The police support this bill.

Some members do not support the bill yet they want to talk about law and order and about how well it is serving us. It is not serving us. Read the papers, see what is going on in this country. They should open their eyes, get out in the real world for a change and find out.

Talk to people who have had their vehicles stolen. Talk to people who get their vehicles back totally gutted out with nothing left. Talk to the person who has put years and years of work into a project like an old car just to have somebody rip it off, strip it and use it in the commission of a crime. Talk to some of those people for a change and find out exactly what they are going through. Members should not just get up and give us the bleeding heart syndrome that it works.

[An hon. member]

They can't fight crime. They have to keep their jobs.

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Keep their jobs all right. It is a sad day when we have to stand and try to get a bill like this put through the House. It addresses a crime in this country and the government totally refuses to listen. I hope members over there open their eyes before it is too late.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Madam Speaker, on June 1, 1998, I rose in the House and put a question to the Minister of Human Resources Development. I will repeat that question because it is an important one.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Revenue should be ashamed for saying that he made workers pay the debt. While the Minister of Finance is spending the $17 billion surplus in the EI fund, fewer than 40% of unemployed workers are receiving EI benefits.

Will the Minister of Human Resources Development stop conducting studies and take action? Will he change the EI eligibility criteria in order to help the 780,000 workers who are not receiving benefits?

I was pleased with the minister's answer in June, which went like this:

Mr. Speaker, as I have said on many occasions in this House and throughout the country, it is clear that our government is concerned about the fact that only 42% of unemployed workers are covered under the existing EI system.

The minister was “concerned” that only 42% of unemployed workers were entitled to EI.

The minister went on to say:

My department has asked Statistics Canada to add a number of questions over the coming months so that we may get a clear picture of the situation these unemployed workers are facing. My department will be able to analyze the information provided by Statistics Canada and make informed decisions.

It is now October and finally the report we have all been waiting for is here. The minister is now hiding behind the fact that 78% of unemployed workers are eligible for EI. But they are eligible under the new criteria. What is worrisome, and must be discussed, is that the report indicates that only 43% of former contributors qualify for EI.

The amendments have been prejudicial to women in this country, including expectant mothers. In 1997, there were 12,000 fewer applications for maternity benefits. The new eligibility criteria require 700 hours, meaning that most women working part time do not qualify for benefits.

The minister turns around and says that the only reason they do not get EI benefits is that they did not work long enough. We, however, say to the minister that the reason these people no longer qualify is because they changed the criteria.

These 12,000 women did work and did pay their premiums, but because the rules were changed and people are now required to work 700 hours, they no longer qualify.

Another group that no longer qualifies is those who leave their jobs. In Canada, 100,000 workers quit their jobs, but the government says they did not have a good reason to do so and are therefore not eligible for employment insurance benefits, even though these people would have qualified in the past.

In 1993, when the Prime Minister was in the opposition, he sent a letter to people in Quebec, telling them that the Conservative legislation was terrible, that it was unacceptable, because workers who were sexually harassed could not even quit their jobs. He even wrote that workers who were harassed by their employer could no longer leave their jobs.

Now—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I am sorry, but the hon. member's time is up.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development]

Madam Speaker, the member's underlying question is an important one. Does employment insurance meet the needs of Canadians? This is a question that the government takes very seriously and this is why we welcomed the report published yesterday to which the member opposite refers.

On Monday the department issued its findings. Overall the study indicates that employment insurance does a good job of providing temporary help to unemployed Canadians in between jobs. That is what it was originally intended to do. We are not hiding behind the report. We are proud that 78% of unemployed workers who have lost their jobs or quit with just cause in the last year were eligible for employment insurance benefits.

While opposition parties keep repeating that the proportion of unemployed Canadians who qualify for EI is too low, the fact is that unemployed people not covered by EI can now get help through other programs, which they could not do before.

Some unemployed persons were never meant to be covered by EI at all. For example, self-employed Canadians have never been eligible. Those who have never worked or contributed to the program have never been eligible and those who have been without work for a long period of time have never been eligible.

The new study suggests that many Canadians find it difficult either to get a first job or to return to the workforce after a long period without work. These people need more from us than just an EI cheque to help get them by from week to week. They need the tools to help themselves. That is why we have consistently acted to help unemployed Canadians regardless of whether or not they were eligible for EI.

With the new system, even if some people do not qualify for benefits they can still get the help they need. We have more active employment measures to help people get skills. We ensure that anyone who qualified for EI in the last three years now does have access—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The time has run out.

[Jean Dubé, Progressive Conservative, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

Madam Speaker, on October 8, I announced in this House that the New Brunswick premier, Camille Thériault, was aware of the plan to build a correctional college in my province, the very college the member for Palliser heard the Solicitor General talking about on his famous flight to Fredericton.

In my opinion, this is irrefutable evidence that the member for Palliser heard the Solicitor General discussing confidential matters in public. This is why I asked the Solicitor General to admit that he had committed a grave error and invited him to resign.

What was his response? He said the member for Palliser had misunderstood him. Knowing that the member for Palliser could not have known of the correctional college unless he had heard about it on the plane, the Solicitor General nevertheless decided to deny the remarks by the member for Palliser.

Needless to say, the Solicitor General's response left a lot to be desired.

On the other hand, I have to say that his response surprised no one. For three weeks now, the Solicitor General has refused to acknowledge that he made a grave mistake. He has refused to admit that he discussed confidential matters in public. He is incapable of recognizing that his behaviour was completely inappropriate for a minister.

In fact, the behaviour of the Solicitor General is totally in keeping with that of his government, which has attained a point of such arrogance that it deems itself above all criticism. The debate in the House today shows that very clearly.

The RCMP public complaints commission asked him to provide adequate funding to allow UBC students to hire lawyers to represent them before the commission, but the solicitor general denied its request, arguing that the students did not need lawyers to represent them.

The government however is sending a full team of well-paid lawyers to Vancouver to represent and defend the interests of the solicitor general, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government before the commission.

Since the beginning of October, the solicitor general has been contending that the public complaints commission is a fair, equitable and independent institution and that parliament should let it do its job.

But when the commission asks him for the resources it needs to do its job, the solicitor general refuses to provide them. How can the solicitor general claim that the commission's proceedings will be fair and equitable when, by his own actions, he is making sure they cannot be.

This brings me back to my original question. On October 8, I asked the solicitor general to resign. He refused. Since then, almost every editorial writer in the country, including those of the Globe and Mail , the Halifax Herald , La Presse and the Edmonton Journal , have called for his resignation. Yet he will not resign.

The solicitor general keeps on making blunders, but the people of Canada and all my colleagues in the opposition keep on wondering when he will tender his resignation.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, it is my impression that there is a lot of repetition in this House—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

—and attempts to interfere with answers, as if they were of no interest to the person asking the question. It seems to me that, if a person asks a question, it is because he or she wants an answer to it.

The premise of the hon. member opposite is something I reject as absolutely morally untenable. It is based on what was allegedly overheard from a private conversation in a plane, something a third party, someone not included in the conversation, had the audacity to make public, without regard to any responsibility for the consequences this might have on the credibility of the commission.

One thing is certain, the contents of the conversation in the plane between the solicitor general and Mr. Toole were part of a private discussion. So people can ask all the questions they want in whatever way they want, but I will not talk about the content of that conversation for two reasons. First, I was not on that plane and I invite my colleagues to exercise the same kind of restraint since they were not on that plane either. Before taking this at face value, I think there are some ethical considerations to be taken into account. Second, I will not talk about it because, by definition, it was not a public but a private conversation. It is not my place to comment publicly on a private conversation.

Moreover, the members talk about providing funding for the students and they throw in a lot of unfounded allegations. However, a decision was made in this House with regard to this issue. It was explained at length that this issue does not affect only that specific commission or that specific problem but that, when a precedent is created, it applies to all administrative tribunals.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 7.49 p.m.)