Debates of March 19th, 1998

Option Canada

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, any information that is released is on the public record.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, clearly ridicule does not kill anyone, otherwise the minister would have died a long time ago.

My question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Option Canada spent nearly $5 million, and, two and half years later, still no one knows how.

I would like the minister to tell me if she has set a deadline by which the president of Option Canada must reply and, if so, quite simply, what is this deadline?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the expenditures involved exactly match those made by Option souveraineté Québec.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder whose member's question the minister answered, but I will put another one to her.

Since Claude Dauphin, who was the president of Option Canada at the time the grant was awarded, now works for the Minister of Finance as an adviser on Quebec affairs, will the minister at least tell us who is currently the president in charge of Option Canada?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member says he does not know whose question I answered.

The interesting thing about Bloc members is that, when they do not like the information they are provided with, they cast it aside. We will recall the Le Hir episode. Millions of dollars were spent by the PQ when they were intent on achieving sovereignty.

After looking into the matter, Mr. Le Hir distanced himself from the sovereignist option and poof—he was gone. Poof—bye bye francophones! Any information they do not like they make disappear.

Racism

[Nelson Riis, NDP, Kamloops, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. On March 21, United Nations international day for the elimination of racism, a white supremacist meeting in Oliver, British Columbia, will try to solicit support for an Internet provider who has become an electronic news-stand for publications fostering hate against aboriginals, new Canadians, francophones, the Jewish community and other groups.

Racist groups are flaunting the law by using the Internet. What is the government doing to ensure that Canada does not become an electronic safe haven for hate mongers?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very important question. It is an issue that concerns all of us who are both encouraged by the prospects and opportunities that new technology creates and mindful of the downside.

All the criminal laws that apply to hate or pornography in other forms of publication apply with equal force to the electronic media. We will ensure they are enforced as stringently as possible.

[Nelson Riis, NDP, Kamloops, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as various white supremacist groups are now converging in the town of Oliver, British Columbia, the city hall has called for an expedited investigation of the problems regarding the regulating of Internet material, specifically racism and hate literature including such topics as neo-Nazi, white supremacist and anti-Semitic literature.

Internet providers should be responsible for hate material stored in their systems.

Will the Minister of Justice take steps immediately to modernize the law to define the legal responsibility of Internet providers, especially when it comes to hate and pornographic materials?

[John Manley, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, again this is an important issue. For that reason Canada is hosting a number of international meetings that will touch on it.

There will be a meeting of the OECD in October in Ottawa which will deal with electronic commerce and other aspects of the information highway. As well, there will be an international conference held in Canada that will raise the very issues the hon. member has raised.

It is complex from a legal point of view. However, I believe it is key to understand that nothing distinguishes electronic communication from other forms of communication. All aspects of the Canadian law with respect to pornography and hate mongering apply equally.

The Economy

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, Moody's, the firm that sets international credit ratings, has expressed fear that the government will start indiscriminate Liberal spending yet again.

Despite the claim of a balanced budget, Canada's credit rating is two levels below that of our international trading partners. When will the Prime Minister admit that the financial markets do not have confidence in his policies because they know he will choose spending over giving Canadians the meaningful tax relief they need?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, the ultimate confidence in the financial markets of the world is expressed through interest rates, which have come down from being at least two percentage points higher when the Tories were in office to below across the board U.S. rates today.

If we had adopted Tory policies in this regard, including its massive tax cuts the last time, we would have been right down in the sewer.

[Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the minister did not mention the Canadian dollar, which has shown some upward movement recently. The fact is that the only upward movement in the dollar is due to leadership, but not the leadership on that side of the House.

The Prime Minister's idea of leadership is to place blame on the provinces for the health care system this government destroyed and to place blame on the currency traders for the government's financial ineptitude. He sounds more like President Suharto than he does the prime minister.

When will the Prime Minister start taking some responsibility? When will he recognize that the dollar remains weak because the fundamentals of this economy are wrong?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, the ultimate in hypocrisy is the Tory party coming before us and suggesting that it has set the course for the good fiscal management of this country.

We have gone through a very difficult period. We will continue to take a balanced approach to keeping our fiscal house in order and to paying down our debt, reducing taxes and investing in the future of Canadians. Financial markets of the world have called Canada, for example, the economic miracle. We will continue that.

The Senate

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me read to members from a fiction novel: “I didn't want to be trapped into making decisions on patronage, local contracts and appointments that cause so much friction and bad blood”. Members are probably asking where that comes from.

That fairy tale came from page 196 of the Prime Minister's own book called Straight from the Heart . If the Prime Minister will not listen to Canadians about patronage, for goodness' sake, will he at least listen to his ghost writer?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I think the Reform Party should be hired by a creative writing department at a university. When it comes to fiction, it is setting new standards, and they are very low standards.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the Liberals are feeling the heat on this one. They have stopped showing their arrogant side and now they are showing their bullying side, threatening to sue us and trying to shout us down, anything to stop Canadians from getting—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Okanagan—Coquihalla.

[Jim Hart, Reform, Okanagan—Coquihalla, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what I would tell the government is that seat in British Columbia does not belong to the Liberal Party of Canada. It does not belong to the front benches of the Liberal Party. It belongs to the people of British Columbia. They own that seat. Why is the Prime Minister treating it like it is Liberal Party property?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is using the Reform concept of creative fiction when he develops his second question. We are very conscious of the concerns and desires of the people of British Columbia and all of Canada.

The hon. member has yet to show, to quote the Leader of the Opposition “we have to demonstrate in five years to the people of Canada that we can do politics differently”. Perhaps he has demonstrated that because he and his party have brought the standards of decorum in this House to new lows and—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Roberval.

Option Canada

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in the controversial matter of Option Canada, in which money was spent without us really knowing where it went, we can say that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is as transparent as the door of a safe.

She just said that the letter she wrote was made public. If so, why has her office refused to give us a copy? If this is true, will she ask her assistants, upon leaving this House, to give us a copy of that letter?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I put everything in the file. I myself gave the members opposite about 118 pages of information, from which they drew their own conclusions. Unfortunately, no fewer than four times in this House, and also in Saskatchewan, the Bloc Quebecois has misled the public with regard to the contents of this file.

All I want is for you to stop—

[The Speaker]

The member for Roberval.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we will never know the end. How sad!

The last time the heritage minister gave that kind of answer, it was in the GST matter in which she had to resign. This is disturbing.

It is she who is misleading the House. Is she willing to make that letter public, as she just said? Will she instruct her officials to make that letter public when she leaves this House?