Debates of June 10th, 1998

Petitions

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, also there are several hundred people who have signed petitions in my riding calling for an elected Senate. These petitions come from people from all over southern Alberta. Of course, that is a big issue in Alberta right now.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition I am presenting concerns changes to the Young Offenders Act. Several hundred constituents of mine are extraordinarily concerned that the Young Offenders Act does not adequately deal with the problem of youth crime.

The petitioners call for tougher sentencing. They also call for the minimum age in the act to be reduced to 10 years of age, for the maximum penalty for first degree murder to be pushed up to 15 years and for more parental responsibility in the justice system.

I am happy to present this petition on behalf of my constituents.

[Jim Karygiannis, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition with several thousand signatures from my riding and right across Canada.

The petitioners are calling upon the Canadian government to stop the sale of nuclear Candu reactors to Turkey. They also state that these reactors will be placed in a seismic area that is more than eight on the Richter scale and which could foresee leaks and will affect the neighbouring countries of Cyprus, Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Armenia. They also state that Turkey is a state that does not respect the human rights of its citizens, represses minorities and has used force and military aggression against its smaller neighbours and that giving nuclear technology to such a country will give it the ability to produce nuclear weapons of mass destruction and destabilize the whole region.

Therefore the petitioners call upon the House not to go through with this sale.

[Gordon Earle, NDP, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the honour to present a petition.

This petition concerns an event on which many petitions were presented previously. It relates to the call for a public inquiry into the events at Ipperwash provincial park where over 200 armed officers were sent to control 25 unarmed men and women. There are many questions that have not been answered around that particular incident which culminated in the shooting death of Anthony Dudley George.

The petitioners are calling upon the House of Commons for a public inquiry to be held into the events surrounding the fatal shooting of Anthony Dudley George on September 6, 1995 to eliminate all misconceptions held by and about government, the OPP and the Stoney Point people.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honour today that I present a petition pursuant to Standing Order 36 on behalf of a number of my constituents from Kings—Hants.

The petitioners are concerned about the government's failure to live up to its 1993 promise of a national child care strategy. They believe that the government should amalgamate current federal spending in the area into a national child care program and that negotiations with the provinces, the territories and with aboriginal people should be commenced to discuss the development of such an important national program.

[Sarkis Assadourian, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure to present to the House a petition signed by Bramptonians in the region of Peel, which is signed by over 500 Canadians.

This petition asks first, that parliament ensure the present provisions of the criminal law of Canada for assisted suicide be enforced vigorously and second, that parliament make no changes regarding this issue.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a number of petitions to the House today.

The first two call for the repeal of the gun control legislation passed in the last parliament. These 109 petitioners from my riding and outside my riding ask that the money presently aimed at the creation and implementation of the gun registration system be redirected toward more cost effective methods of fighting crime in this country, including more police on the streets, crime prevention programs, suicide prevention programs, women's crisis centres, anti-smuggling campaigns and more resources for fighting organized crime and street gangs.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I also would like to present a number of petitions which call for significant changes to the present Young Offenders Act. The nearly 250 petitioners from all across the country call upon parliament to make the protection of society the number one priority in amending the YOA through measures such as reducing the minimum age covered by the act from 12 to 10, allowing the publishing of violent young offenders' names, increasing the penalties for all violent crimes committed by youth and ensuring parental responsibility.

[Tom Wappel, Liberal, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have two sets of petitions, both on the same subject matter. The first one is signed by Canadians from in and around Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The second one, containing over 300 signatures, is from constituents of my riding of Scarborough Southwest.

Both sets of petitions call upon parliament to enact Bill C-225, an act to amend the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees) Act and the Interpretation Act, which I introduced in the House, so as to define in statute that a marriage can only be entered into between a single male and a single female.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is my pleasure and honour to present a petition from the people in Stewiacke area of Nova Scotia.

They call for the repeal of Bill C-68. They say and rightly so that it is a waste of hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money. The money could be redirected and used much more effectively in order to reduce crime by having more police on the streets, more crime prevention programs, et cetera.

This is most timely considering the fact that recent information has revealed that Bill C-68 was based on entirely wrong information.

[George Proud, Liberal, Hillsborough, PE]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of some islanders.

These constituents are urging parliament to remove the GST from books, magazines and newspapers. They believe taxing reading material is unfair and wrong. As well they believe that removing the GST from reading material will help promote literacy in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(6) it is my pleasure to introduce a petition signed by 125 residents of the small northern town of Fort Nelson in my riding.

The petitioners assert that registering legal firearms will do absolutely nothing to stop the criminal misuse of guns. They therefore request that parliament repeal Bill C-68 and redirect the hundreds of millions of tax dollars being wasted on the licensing and registering of responsible law-abiding gun owners and their firearms toward proven cost effective methods of fighting crime.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of a number of Canadians including from my riding of Mississauga South.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that our police officers and firefighters are required to place their lives at risk on a daily basis as they discharge their duties. When one of them loses their life in the line of duty, the public also mourns that loss and wish to help in a tangible way the surviving family.

The petitioners therefore call upon parliament to establish a public safety officers compensation fund for the benefit of families of police officers and firefighters who are killed in the line of duty.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first involves the firearms act.

The petitioners are crying out that this act is a waste of money and it is a waste of police resources. They indicate that there are insufficient police officers per capita compared to 1972. They feel the money should be better directed toward that.

[Howard Hilstrom, Reform, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the people who are subject to violent crimes, home invasions, crimes against the elderly and crimes committed by street gangs in Manitoba, thousands of petitioners cry out that something be done with the Bail Reform Act and that we get tougher with violent criminals.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by thousands of people from my riding regarding the provision of a freight and passenger ferry service between Port au Basques, Newfoundland and North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

This service is a constitutional obligation of the federal government and a right held by all people of Newfoundland and Labrador under term 32 of the Newfoundland Act, 1949. The petitioners feel that this service is a vital link between the province of Newfoundland and the rest of Canada. It is critical to ensuring the economic well-being of our province.

Petitioners feel that the provision of high quality, customer oriented ferry transportation services on this route must be guaranteed on a timely basis and at reasonable rates to users. Therefore, the petitioners call upon parliament to amend the Canada Labour Code, Part I to prevent any disruption of this essential service as a result of strikes or lockouts, and to increase the federal funding available to Marine Atlantic for this particular ferry service.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present. One petition is from constituents in my riding of Serbian descent.

They call upon the government to take all necessary action to stop all forms of armament into Kosovo and Metohija.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the next petition I have is from 113 people in my riding who call upon parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their own conscience and beliefs, and to retain section 43 of the Criminal Code as it is currently worded.

[Andrew Telegdi, Liberal, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition is signed by 200 people from my riding. It urges parliament to remove the GST from books, magazines and newspapers.

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, Charlotte, NB]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, these petitions are certified correct in form and content.

The petitioners pray and request that parliament revisit the issue of hepatitis C compensation to reflect the concerns of the citizens of Canada to offer a fair, compassionate and humane compensation package to all those who received infected blood.

These petitions range from London, Ontario through to Newfoundland, in fact from the small community of Clarenville, Newfoundland. The Hepatitis C Society has forwarded these petitions for consideration.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have another petition to add to the thousands of names of people who believe that the Government of Canada can deal more effectively with the more than 18,000 Canadians suffering from end stage kidney disease by developing research in a bioartificial kidney.

These signatures were collected by the Peterborough police force; Grant, Willcox, Whetung, barristers; and the Barrie Consistory—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. I think I have cautioned the hon. member before that who gathered them is irrelevant. The hon. member is free to tell us who signed them, not their names but where they are from, and the general tenure of the petition, but honestly I think he should stick with the rules.

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

He should know better.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Oh, he does know. He has been cautioned on this before.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

The petition is from people who believe that those on kidney dialysis and those who have had successful transplants recognize the importance of this life saving treatment. They also believe that an inadequate dialysis service exists across the country. Therefore, they call on parliament to work and support research toward a bioartificial kidney. I will not mention where those signatures were collected.

The second petition is from the same series. The petitioners point out that ministers of health across Canada have difficulty providing access to dialysis treatment and that rates of organ donations are not sufficient to meet the need. They call upon parliament to work and support the bioartificial kidney project.