Debates of June 9th, 1998

Supply

[Nick Discepola, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the member referred I believe six times to the absence of members of parliament. I thought while we were participating in debate we were not supposed to refer to the presence or absence. Since Mr. Speaker let it go six times, I decided I would ask the member—

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member is going to have to ask questions about justice issues since we are discussing the justice estimates. On two occasions I had to intervene to deal with the hon. member for York South—Weston because he was going off on other topics.

I know my correction may not have been as efficacious as the parliamentary secretary would have hoped, but I am sure he would not want to provoke further difficulty for the Chair and that he will want to ask about the justice estimates.

[Nick Discepola, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in essence, I would like to maybe correct the claim of the member for York South—Weston that had we removed section 745, Clifford Olson would not have been able to apply.

The member knows full well that even rescinding section 745 of the Criminal Code would be retroactive and therefore the likes of Bernardo or Clifford Olson would not have been taken care of.

The changes we made will prevent Paul Bernardo from applying because he has to be able to prove with a certain amount of cause that he will be able to succeed.

I would like to ask the member one question. He refers to the relevancy of parliament. Is it relevant that he attends the House of Commons only on Tuesdays, especially when there are a lot of votes, to make his record better? Is relevancy only for members on this side? Is it maybe relevant for independent members to attend parliament on days other than Tuesdays?

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is mistaken and I would expect the member to at least be honest. To suggest that I am only here on Tuesdays is erroneous and he knows it. If he wants to make those statements outside the House of Commons where he is subject to slander laws then I challenge him to make those statements outside.

I can tell the hon. member that I will not hesitate for a moment to issue a writ against the member. He has a responsibility as an officer, as a parliamentary secretary, not only to be honest to the House—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sure the hon. member knows that all hon. members are always considered to be honest in their dealings in the House. I do not think he would want to suggest otherwise.

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will simply consider the source. He speaks of Clifford Olson. He says that his application could not have been denied. That is not true. I suggest he get an opinion from the Department of Justice. He has access to the Department of Justice.

He might have someone's opinion that it might have somehow contravened the right of Clifford Olson to apply under section 745. I would like the member to address the point that the House of Commons passed a bill to repeal section 745. Notwithstanding the argument he is putting forward that Clifford Olson could have applied in any event, which is not true, and even if it were true that Clifford Olson's constitutional rights would have somehow been affected, the House had the authority to use the notwithstanding clause to say we in parliament make laws, not the courts of Canada.

We believe that Clifford Olson and others like him should not be permitted to apply for early release. We could have invoked the notwithstanding clause. The member knows that.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, what a pleasure it was to hear somebody say exactly some of the things I have been saying for quite some time about the way this place operates. I agree fully with what the member said.

It is a little discouraging. I have been on duty all day. It is past 9 p.m. It could be 4 a.m. We will go through a pile of votes that there is no point in anybody voting on because the government has already made up its mind how it will turn out. It has done that behind closed doors. It will boldly say that is how democracy works. That is hog manure. I am tired of hearing that baloney.

During the years 1984 to 1993 did the Conservative Party under Mulroney do anything different? The GST people who were kicked out, was that an accident or was there an error? What was the difference back then? What is the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals in the last 20 years?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I know the hon. member for York South—Weston will seek to make the answer relevant to the justice estimates, as I am sure the hon. member for Wild Rose was doing his best to do with that question.

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I could be cynical and say there is no difference between the Mulroney government and the Chrétien government. It is not the government—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Once again, the hon. member of York South—Weston cannot refer to members of the House by name. He is an experienced member and he knows that. I invite him to comply with the rules in that regard.

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we ought not to look at the problem from a partisan perspective. Regardless of who forms the government and given the present way we conduct business in Ottawa, it will be no different if the Reform Party forms the government or the Conservative Party or the NDP. We have to change the system.

Winston Churchill, perhaps the most learned student of parliamentary democracy, often said that in order for parliamentary democracy to survive it must continually evolve. It must continually be made better and more sensitive to the people that it purports to serve.

We are not ameliorating the parliamentary system. If anything we are going backward. That is the reason public opinion poll after public opinion poll rates parliamentarians, MPs, almost at the bottom in terms of public respect and integrity. That is why Canadians have so very little confidence in the parliamentary system.

The only people that could make a difference—and I believe parliament could do it—are individual members of parliament who will take a stand and say “Enough is enough. We are going to take control. We are going to democratize the House of Commons”. I intend to do that in approximately 40 minutes because I do not intend to give my consent to any motion that requires unanimous consent to expedite the business of the government.

The government showed its contempt for the people of Canada, for the Parliament of Canada—

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. member for Wentworth—Burlington on a question or comment.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Wentworth—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member for York South—Weston knows and the member for Wild Rose ought to know, the issues we are debating tonight are considered and deliberated on in committee, either the finance committee or the justice committee.

I would like to ask a direct question of the member for York South—Weston. Does he have the courage to tell the House whether in this current session of parliament he has attended a single committee meeting and if—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order, please. We are on a debate on the justice estimates and I urge hon. members to be relevant in their questions and in their comments. I cut off the hon. member for York South—Weston in his reply because in my view it was not relevant to the debate before us.

I know hon. members want to debate the justice estimates. That is why we are here. I invite the question to be relevant to the justice estimates. It will be a very short question.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Wentworth—Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I was not out of order but the member for York South—Weston keeps alluding to the fact that the rest of us do not work. My role is not just in the House of Commons. My role is also to work in the standing committees, to listen to witnesses and to discuss issues like the estimates and the justice issues the member is talking about.

Could the member for York South—Weston give us a sense of his involvement in this type of activity of parliament? Does he concede that it is an important activity?

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as those who are listening have noticed and as other Canadians have noticed, the only thing Liberal members can do is to attack me personally as they did during the election campaign.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[John Nunziata, Independent, York South—Weston, ON]

Let them carry on, Mr. Speaker. In the election campaign of a year ago they levelled personal attacks instead of speaking to the merits of what I was talking about. I did not attack any individual personally other than the member from Etobicoke.

I was speaking to some fundamental issues that all Canadians wanted to see addressed. If all the Liberals can resort to is name calling and personal attacks, let them do it because their candidate lost in the riding of York South—Weston.

[Myron Thompson, Reform, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, following the member for York South—Weston is an honour. I certainly agree with everything he said. I hope members of the House do not think for a moment I am trying to reflect on the way things are today by referring to what happened in the past.

We do need changes with regard to justice, the way we do business in the House and the way we spend money. To use a phrase from my colleague from Edmonton North, it is not a matter of uniting the right. It is a matter of uniting the bright and there are no bright lights on that side of the House. That is why we are looking over here. We need someone who has vision that will work in the justice system and in the country as a whole.

Justice is a very high priority on our list. Therefore I would not want to see any reduction in spending. There are a lot of ways we could handle this kind of situation. All we need to do is look at some things that are going on within government in terms of spending and come up with some good ideas.

I appreciate the waste report we get from our colleague from St. Albert. I wonder how many members of the House would like to see some of the following money going to justice or to some other good cause like feeding hungry children.

On transition to adulthood research we spent $105,000. On sexual dissidence, historical content, we spent $23,000. On institutional change and household behaviour in rural China we spent $55,000. On infants and understanding how people act we spent $75,000. On limited editions of Spanish golden age plays we spent $44,000. I really liked what happened about two years ago. We spent $116,000 on a committee to study seniors and sexuality. Being a senior I cannot say how good it makes me feel that the government could find $116,000 to spend on this. The list goes on and on.

We are talking about spending millions and pretty soon it will be billions. The government spent close to $2 million on Angus Reid, Createc and Ekos Research doing polls in just one year. Hopefully it made the government feel good.

According to the auditor general we are probably spending $1 billion on registering the guns of duck hunters, deer hunters, trophy hunters and trap shooters. How can anyone support spending that kind of money on a project that will just not do the job? It will not solve a thing.

When we go through all this waste we wonder how long it has been going on. Is that why we are $600 billion in the hole? I hate to refer to the past but I have to be reminded of why I became so disillusioned with the Conservative Party and tore up my card a few years back. I only have to walk down to the museum and look at a little red line on a board that costs $6 million to remember why. The same kind of crazy spending was going on at that time, much to the objection of many of us in the country.

When will it stop? The government has to get its priorities straight. We could do lots of valuable things with all that money. We have a health system and an education system that are crumbling. We have a justice system that could use help.

I want to take a look at these misplaced priorities. I have been analysing the solicitor general's department for over a year now. Let me give an example. Last October 1, a guard from Joyceville came to see me who had been pricked by a tattoo needle and could have potentially contracted the AIDS virus. He asked the commissioner of corrections to provide guards with puncture resistant gloves. Nine months have now passed and there are no gloves.

Correctional Service of Canada will say that it is still researching to find the best possible equipment when the guards themselves found appropriate gloves many months ago.

I learned yesterday that an officer in Joyceville in the visits and correspondence unit was stabbed with a needle while he was opening mail. The least we could provide these frontline workers with is a pair of puncture resistant gloves. We could spend some money protecting our guards who put their very lives on the line day in and day out. We could do a lot about that.

A thousand new guards are to be hired. That is great. That is important. It is a good decision. However I hope they do not advertise, pull people off the street and spend thousands of millions of dollars training them when we have casual workers who are already trained and well prepared to fill these positions. I understand that will not necessarily be the case, that it will be open advertising. They will pull them off the street and retrain a whole pile of people when they already have trained casual workers. Money should not be wasted doing that.

I have looked at the spending to keep inmates comfortable during the past four years of touring prisons throughout the country. I have been in every one with the exception of one or two. The facilities provide convicts with three square meals a day, complete medical and dental care, big screen TVs, rumpus rooms and now in Ferndale a golf course and probably a golf range. Is it good to see that a convicted murderer can reduce his handicap while he is behind bars?

In the real world I have met hundreds of people, and I know all the members have met hundreds of people, who cannot even meet the bare necessities for their own kids let alone have a golf game or a pool game or watch anything on a big screen TV. But this is readily available.

It has been a while since I was at the Drumheller Institution. I met six inmates that day in the little apartment they have which they call a prison. They were marinating beautiful Alberta rib eye steaks, one each.

I would like the government members to explain to the needy children that we hear about from them all the time, the people in this country who are starving and suffering. I would like them to explain to all Canadians why it is that convicts can eat steaks when a lot of people, including seniors, cannot even afford macaroni. I would like that explained.

Why do inmates get free education? The poor have to wait in line for a draw. They call it the millennium scholarship lottery. Why can a low income family not take their children to a dentist? Because they cannot afford it, yet there is a dentist who makes house calls to Millhaven. They do not have to worry about their teeth.

People in my own hometown have come to me asking what can they do. They have four and five year old kids with rotten teeth and they cannot afford to pay the dentist. They cannot get help from social services and they cannot afford a dentist. Yet this is done openly in the penitentiaries.

Seniors suffer from poor health. Convicts can have a sex change on demand, but seniors are suffering without health programs.

It is really sad that the veterans of the world wars and the Korean war are living in absolute poverty. Some have called me saying “I do not understand what is happening. I have been on the veterans pension. Now my wife has reached 65 years of age and she has gone on the old age pension and they have taken all my veterans benefits away. We are trying to get by on $600 or $700 a month”.

I visited the home of one of these veterans. He had a medal of honour and a medal of bravery for World War II which he once was very proud of. He wanted me to bring those medals back here and I do not want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, where he wanted me to put them. The kind of language he used to tell me where to put them would not be fitting for these kind ladies and gentlemen in this place. These are our veterans from the wars.

I defy any member in the House to stand up and say he does not know of a veteran who fought for this country, for the very freedoms we try to enjoy, who is not in the same kind of a predicament because they are out there. We just do not pay attention to that. We have too many more important things to do. That attitude has to change.

Take a look at our military. Compare that to our justice system. Over the past several months the standing committee on defence has heard about the living conditions and the quality of life of our military personnel and what they are experiencing. The only real reason for this is that successive governments have overworked and underequipped the members of our forces and have left them grossly underpaid. The underfunding of defence has led to a debate whether to buy essential equipment for the survival of our soldiers in the field or to compensate our soldiers with the salaries and benefits they deserve. In trying to do both, the equipment is falling apart and our service personnel are suffering beyond belief.

At the same time we heard the solicitor general praise our prison system as being one of the best in the world. This system provides our federal inmates with the use of miniature golf courses, tennis courts, basketball courts, softball diamonds, jogging tracks, cable television, big screen TV, racquetball, all other kinds of entertainment, weight lifting and automatic gyms which cost thousands of dollars, all at taxpayers' expense.

Most of our soldiers only dream about all of those activities. The possibility of getting involved in these activities is nil. The soldiers who are serving in Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia get relatively few if any of these things, let alone a conjugal visit. Even those personnel posted in Canada cannot afford to enjoy the range of goodies afforded to our prison inmates. Our soldiers now have to pay recreation fees for the use of the gyms and the ice rinks on the bases. Our soldiers.

On Monday, April 27, Colonel Jim Calvin appeared before the standing committee on defence. He reported that a fully trained private, married with two children, after three years of service takes home $49 of disposable income per month. This compares to our inmates who receive in the same case a monthly disposable amount of $157.50, three times more than what the military personnel are forced to get by on. Only a Liberal could smile about that. Only a Liberal could laugh about that.

The bottom line is that our convicts are given more consideration by our government than our soldiers, sailors and air crew, an attitude that has to change. How can we ever hope to recruit young people into our services to serve our country knowing that those in jail are treated better? Some of these soldiers have to stand in line at a food bank in order to get enough to feed their families. It is absolutely ridiculous. They do not enjoy the luxuries that many of the inmates do.

Look at the parole system. Over the past month the solicitor general and the commissioner of Correctional Service Canada have been quoted at length listing the reasons why imprisonment is so debilitating and that parole is the answer. They claim that there is no link between incarceration and public safety.

The commissioner was at a loss to understand how the federal inmate population has gone up by 23% over the past five years and the crime rate has fallen by 13%. It never entered these two expert's minds that maybe if we put the criminals behind bars, then the crime rate may fall.

Lo and behold, it reminds me of a study which the New York mayor did before he implemented the brick, broke and pain philosophy to try to improve the situation. He did a big study. He wanted to know the causes of crime. He spent lots of money going into the causes of crime. Eureka, he found out the number one cause of crime. Do you know what it was, Mr. Speaker? Criminals. Is that not hard to understand.

The alternative the government is promoting to keeping them in is that it only costs $9,000 a year to supervise an inmate on parole. That is well and fine when public safety is guaranteed. But when the National Parole Board's record of releasing dangerous offenders who go on to commit murder while on parole is questionable because of what has happened in the past, it is not a valid solution.

According to the government's own statistics which it provided to my office, from 1986 to 1997, 2,292 people were murdered, assaulted, taken as hostage, forcibly confined or robbed by offenders on parole. Of those 2,292 people, 217 were murdered. We never hear these statistics from these masterminds.

When we look at those kinds of figures, it simply is too big a price to ask society to continue to support that kind of result. What kind of sacrifice do we expect of Canadians? Accept the parole system where there are only 2,200 victims every 10 years and 200 or so murdered. Accept it as good because after all only about 10% of those who were on parole did that. The other 90% were all good. That kind of figure is too big a sacrifice to ask Canadians to pay.

If we need to spend more money, let us look at where we waste it. Let us look at what we are doing in other areas like defence. Let us see what we can do about changing some things, see what we can do about where we spend our money.

Maybe the seniors do not need a sexuality study. Maybe we do not. It would have been nice if the government had asked me. I could have told it right at the beginning and it would have saved $100,000. Seniors and sexuality. The sad part about it is I did not get a copy of the report.

It is nice to be here tonight. There are a few things I need to get off my chest.

Look at “The Waste Report” and look at the public accounts to see where some of this money is going. Look at the whole scenario. Almost every day in the House of Commons for the last five years government members have talked about the suffering in the cities, families who need help, starving children, people who are suffering and who need help. The Liberals stand in this House saying we have got to do something about it and then miraculously the government finds some billions of dollars to give to Bombardier. It finds $25 million to give away free flags. It finds $116,000 to form a committee on seniors and sexuality.

These decisions are coming from the Liberal Party of Canada, the governing body of this country. The people of this land need to know that. I hope that in the next election they kick them right out of here.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe you will find unanimous consent to deem the question to have been put, a division requested and an order deferred until 10.00 p.m so that we might spend more time debating the next item on the Order Paper. I believe there is unanimous consent, if the Speaker would request it.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent for the proposition put forward by the hon. member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough?

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There is not consent.

[Mac Harb, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe what I have been hearing. My colleague from Wild Rose has been complaining about his sexuality. I want to say that there is some quick help on the way. Viagra is just about to hit the waves here. He may have an opportunity to re-examine this issue. We heard a lot of rubbish from him tonight.

There is a great difference between this party on this side of the House and his party on the other side. We are a party that looks toward the future with optimism. That party on the other side looks to the future with pessimism. It lives in the past. It does not look forward, it looks backward. It has absolutely no vision. Every time we hear one of these guys speak, we get depressed. We feel absolutely terrible.

The member for Wild Rose is the same guy who wanted to tie 10-year old children upside down and beat them to discipline them. That is his definition of law and order. It did not matter what the child did. He wanted to put the child behind bars. That is his way of disciplining. His way of dealing with law and order is to jail them.

For the Reform Party there are two classes of people. They are either law-abiding citizens or they are criminals. It does not matter. The Reform Party views all who are accused as criminals. Look at its famous bill of rights which clearly states that. Look at its opposition to the charter of rights and freedoms. It opposed the charter of rights and freedoms because it gives the people the right to be protected by law in Canada. The member for Wild Rose stood up over and over again in the House of Commons to attack the government on issues of law and order and the protection of victims. When the Minister of Justice introduced legislation in the House—

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if there is anything we can do to get this member to stay somewhere near the truth.