Debates of June 9th, 1998

Business Of The House

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have just witnessed the member for Bourassa finish up with a very loud speech, the complete antithesis of speak softly and carry a big stick. Apparently the member for Bourassa believes that if he has nothing to say, to at least say it loudly.

I would also like to point out to the member that if he does not like the fact that the opposition agreed on something unanimously, then the solution to that is very simple. Some members on the government benches could deny the unanimous consent to things they do not want.

The member railed on and on about all the bad things that we are doing here. I would note again that there are no ministers in the House at this point.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The latter part of the comment of course the hon. member knows he should not make because it is against the rules.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, respect for the institution means respect for the rules. In fact, the last thing he said about who was present and who was not contravened the rules.

He should be ashamed of himself.

If you sling enough mud, some of it will stick. One thing is sure, I repeat, if they want to do battle, they will have to make sure they can win. They are not going to win in the polls with circuses, clown acts and sombreros.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to the remarks. Facts do matter. There is one important thing that should be put on the record which is that the Conservative Party has but one member on each committee. When we have one member there, we have 100% of our membership on that committee present. That is a very important fact which should be on the record.

I guess a lot of the members on the government side have chosen not to be in the House to hear the vitriolic, adrenalin driven remarks of the hon. member. I am recalling a phrase my grandfather used to use. To mix metaphors with a big stick here, he used to say that occasionally one could find a good stick of wood in a pile of manure.

One point that was made was that members should do their duty in committee, but they should also do their duty in the House. On balance, I would like to know from the hon. member for Bourassa if he is saying that a member should be at committee when there is important debate going on in the House. We have been in that position a few times when ministers were in committee and important debate was happening here.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I want to tell the parliamentary leader of the Progressive Conservative Party that he should talk to his whip, because there are currently no Conservative members on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and on the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. They should do their job in that respect.

Mao made this extraordinary statement: “Cow dung is more useful than dogmas. At least it can be used to make fertilizer”. This is the reply I could make to him.

Finally, I have always taken part in the debates on substantive issues. You can check if you want. I always have. I do not want to downplay the role of parliamentary committees, because it is at that level that the work is done in the legislative process. This is extremely important, because the legislative process is based on the work done by parliamentary committees.

If the Progressive Conservative Party is not represented on the standing committee on justice, then its members should not ask us questions in the House when they cannot do their job.

In conclusion, I am prepared to take part in a debate, but only when there is one.

[The Deputy Speaker]

We will call it quits for questions and comments on this speech at this time. Resuming debate.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is actually amusing to watch the Liberals' response to the motion put forward by their House leader earlier. The reason we are here today is that the Liberal government was caught in a very visible way last night at a practice it has been doing since the 1993 election when the Liberals were elected as government. That practice has been to continually show utter contempt and disdain for the opposition parties in this House. That has been shown very clearly on an ongoing basis by their lack of presence in the House.

In other words, what the Liberals were saying to the opposition parties as we debated issues that were important to all the people of Canada was that they simply did not care enough to be here. They do not care enough about what we are saying to even show up in the House. This is evidence today. We are debating the Liberals' own motion and there are only three Liberal members in the House.

I know where two of them are. The deputy whip is looking for a safe place to hide today, no doubt. The House leader is out on a massive pout trying to figure out how he can get even with those dastardly Reformers who caught them in the act last night of their utter contempt for this House of Commons and the opposition party.

The hon. member for Bourassa spoke so loudly earlier about the presence of one Reform member at many of the committee hearings. The simple answer to that is that one Reform member can handle six Liberals in debate any time of the week. Mr. Speaker, you will like this. One member of the Reform Party appropriately handled the entire Liberal government last night. One of us is worth a thousand of them.

The House leader certainly put forward this motion because the Liberals got caught last night. They got caught with no members in the House. Mr. Speaker, as you well know and could probably confirm, this is typical of what we see during debate most times. We see a goodly amount of opposition members while across the way we see no government members. We certainly see no ministers when we are talking about issues. That shows they do not really care about what the people of Canada who are represented by this side of the House have to say.

[Jason Kenney, Reform, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Given that on this debate about the absence of government members there is only one government member opposite, I think quorum ought to be called. Could you see if there is a quorum here.

[An hon. member]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I have to do a quorum count. There has been a call for quorum.

And the count having been taken:

[The Deputy Speaker]

I see a quorum. We will continue with the debate please.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the members who just ran in came to hear the rest of my speech. I thank them for showing up today.

I will address some of the points made by the member for Bourassa where he incorrectly accused the opposition parties for not showing up for committee meetings. He will find out if he looks because it is documented that many times in this session the chairman of the Indian affairs committee could not get a meeting together because not enough members from her own party showed up to make quorum.

Therefore the committee meetings had to be cancelled or delayed. I think it is astonishing that the government itself cannot get enough of its own members to a committee meeting.

This whole thing is about the government's having respect for the opposition, for the points the opposition party has made and I want to talk about two very good examples. There may be some heads hung over there as I remind them of how they have shown their contempt for decisions that were made in this House.

I start with a motion put forward concerning the victims bill of rights. This was brought into the House in the last parliament. It was debated and voted on and it was carried unanimously in this House, that the government would take steps to enact a victims bill of rights. Its own members voted for it. But to this day, and it is well over a year, there has been absolutely zero done by this government.

This was on a motion passed unanimously in this House two years ago. The government has done nothing to bring it into some sort of legislation. That is a slap in the face to the democracy that is supposed to go on in this House and it is certainly a slap in the face to the millions of Canadians who were supporting in their own way a victims bill of rights, certainly to victims of crime when a government will not deal with a bill that has been passed in this House. Its refusal to deal with that bill was another example of its contempt for the opposition parties and the ideas that we bring forward in this House.

I want to deal with another matter dear to my heart, the Reform supply day motion that called on the government to examine all areas of the Criminal Code that dealt with the crime of impaired driving in order to enhance deterrence and ensure that the penalties for this very serious crime reflected the seriousness of the crime. That motion was debated in the House. It was passed unanimously. A minister of the government made amendments.

He made an amendment that would send it directly to the justice committee and also another amendment that instructed the justice committee to deal with this whole issue and report back to this House with appropriate legislation as a result of its findings by May 15, 1998. There was a mix-up when it was reported in Journals . We approached the government and this was cleared up on a Speaker's ruling.

The government has totally disregarded the will of this House. It still has not dealt with that motion. The chairman of the justice committee as I understand, and I wonder how much power chairmen of committees have, has been telling the government that she will not handle this motion. This was a motion that was passed in this House and sent directly to the justice committee with a timeline directive and the justice committee chairman has told the government and this House and all the people in Canada concerned about the serious crime of impaired driving that she simply will not deal with it, notwithstanding what has happened. That is astonishing.

This is another example of the disdain and contempt of this Liberal government that allows her to get away with this. We still do not know when the justice committee is going to deal with the issue of impaired driving in this House. We go on waiting for it to change the Criminal Code to try and stop the epidemic of impaired driving.

Every single day that has been wasted by this Liberal government, statistically four and a half people have been killed in this country by impaired drivers.

In the six or seven months since this motion was passed about 50,000 people have been injured by impaired drivers. The government still refuses to deal with that issue. That is another example of the disdain of this government and the contempt it holds for the opposition parties. It does not understand democracy.

The member opposite who just spoke said that the first thing she learned in this House was the democratic fashion and the way it operates. I suggest that the first thing she learned was to do exactly what her whip told her to do.

Obviously some Liberal members are going to be taken to task for not doing exactly what they were told to do last night, not to mention the deputy whip. I will not dwell on that. She is the one who is really in trouble today.

We in the Reform Party find a lack of attention given to issues we represent. We are a federal party and represent Canadians not only who voted for us in our ridings but across this country from coast to coast. We bring those issues before this House to be dealt with, we trust, by the government in a sensitive and intelligent manner.

We do not come to this House to frivolously debate issues that make no sense. We bring very serious issues to this House only to speak to empty chairs opposite because this government has no interest in showing up for debate unless it has to speak. There might be one.

We can go on and talk about closure and time allocation. Closure is simply put in by this government because it does not want to hear any more. It never wanted to hear from the opposition in the first place and it finally ran out of time on its agenda and so it implements closure.

We are here today because the Liberal government got caught last night doing what it does best, having no interest in the debate in this House. Apparently now the House leader for the government is lashing out at the opposition members and at the Reform Party which caught him by coming to this House like a petulant child and saying “we are going to get you, we are going to sit until 4 a.m.”.

That is fine with us because maybe now we will get some more time to debate the issues that are important to Canadians. We will be here until 4 a.m. and we welcome the Liberal members to join us en masse to have a good discussion about a lot of the issues that concern Canadians.

I know my time is just about up. Lots of members from the Reform Party are anxious to continue debate on this. I wish the deputy whip well today as she climbs out of her tight spot. I am sure she will.

By the way, we probably will be supporting this motion to extend hours because we think it gives us a lot of good parliamentary time to bring forth the issues that concern Canadians.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the Reform Party thinks the purpose of a whip is. Is it to be in the House at every single moment to deal with its deleterious and destructive motions? I can assure members that no whip spends every moment in the House of Commons, nor should we.

Speaking of spending time in the House of Commons and who is interested in the issues, the member has the gall today to talk about drunk driving, a resolution of this House, and victims rights and the justice committee and what it is doing about that. While Mothers Against Drunk Driving were at committee this morning talking about exactly both those issues, who was there listening to them? Not the Reform Party which drags its tragedies into the House of Commons and bleeds all over the floor about them, but eight Liberals and one Reformer.

I think people should know there were nine committees meeting this morning. That is nine Liberals on every committee. That is 81 Liberal members in committee listening to groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the International Centre for Human Rights. No, they do not want to sit here in the House listening to these people blathering on time after time and making the same speeches over and over again. They want to be in the committees, doing their work, caring about things like drunk driving, like victims of crime, like human rights. That is where they have been this morning.

There are many times I sit in this House and Liberals as well are speaking to empty benches opposite. We accept that members of parliament have many responsibilities. We do not frankly jump up and criticize them every time they are not here sitting in the House listening to us.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the deputy whip of the Liberal Party got her information. At the justice committee as we speak and as it has been for quite some time now, there have been three Reform members present which 100% of our membership in that committee. But apparently there are only about three Liberals there and that is 33% of their membership of that committee.

Let me tell the hon. deputy whip of the government what the subject is this morning. The subject is victims rights. Surprise, it has taken two years for the Liberals to start talking about victims. This is one of the points I made in my speech. After the motion passed in this House, two years later they decide just maybe we should have a little committee talk about this victims rights issue. With all due respect to the deputy whip, the MADD organization is there to talk about victims rights. It would love to come to the justice committee and talk about impaired driving. But nothing is being done to allow that by this government.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I quote from an article that appeared in the Ottawa Sun today in which the government House leader admitted he and his MPs had only themselves to blame: “Randy White is right. I don't like it that he is right”—

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member knows he cannot refer to other hon. member's by name, even when he is reading. I know that is awkward but I invite the hon. member to comply with the rules in that regard.

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I was quoting the paper. I did not realize that.

Even the government House leader admits that it is their fault. They made the mistake. Now what they are saying is “because the Liberals screwed up, we are going to penalize the rest of the House and make you guys sit until 4 a.m.”.

The truth is the major blunder made by the Liberals last night is typical and indicative of the level of incompetence they display time and time again not only in the House but in the management of the affairs of operating the government.

I wonder if the member would like to comment on that.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it would not take me long to talk about the good management of the government because there is precious little to talk about.

The member is quite right when he talks about the neglect of the Liberal Party in being here to engage in substantive debate. Last night was just another example.

The Liberals are gone now, but the fact is that we had 25 members here to prevent a procedural trick the Liberals tried to pull this morning. That is why we were absent for a short time from the committee meetings, but when the trickery of the Liberal Party and the House leader was exposed and defeated our members diligently went back to the committees where they are now. They are keeping the Liberals accountable for everything they do.

We do not care if it is three to nine on a particular committee. I say once again three Reformers can easily handle nine Liberals on any committee. We could actually bring some back and handle them on committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we must all subject ourselves to a dose of reality. If anybody in the House believes that one Canadian is interested in our procedural wrangling he or she is totally mistaken, totally out of sorts with what the Canadian people believe and feel.

This is why it is important that instead of procedural wrangling we get back to debating substantive issues. The sooner we do it, the sooner we will be responding to what Canadians elected us to the House to achieve.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out to the hon. member that it was in fact—

[Jim Pankiw, Reform, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The hon. minister is quite right so I suggest we seek unanimous consent of the House to have the Liberal motion we are currently debating withdrawn.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I do not know that the hon. member can ask for consent to withdraw a motion that some other member has put forward. It strikes me as a little irregular. However, is there unanimous consent to withdraw the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There is no such consent.