Debates of Sept. 22nd, 1998

Gun Control

[Murray Calder, Liberal, Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the gun lobby assembled on Parliament Hill today will hear from an American, John Lott, who professes that if more people had guns, there would be less crime.

After the tragic and senseless school shootings in Arkansas, Lott wrote that fewer people would have been killed or injured if the teachers had been armed. The same John Lott told an Alberta radio audience that the homicide rate for white Americans is comparable to that for white Canadians.

I want John Lott and his American gun lobby friends to know that dividing people by race is not how we do things here in Canada. It did not work for the Reform Party during the election and it will not work for the gun lobby now.

Our government is committed to gun control that protects all Canadians. That is the Canadian way.

Commonwealth Games

[Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral, Bloc, Laval Centre, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, I would like to congratulate Canada's 275 athletes, and more particularly the 35 athletes from Quebec, who participated in the 16th Commonwealth Games held in Kuala Lumpur from September 11 to 21.

Their performances put Canada in third place among the 68 delegations. The team from Quebec included three young people from Laval, including 13-year-old Alexandre Despatie, who announced upon arriving in Dorval last night “mission accomplished”. He was right. His gold medal in the ten metre diving competition makes him the youngest Canadian gold medal winner in the Commonwealth Games, and likely the youngest medal winner in the history of the games.

Well done, Alexandre, and best of luck on your next mission, the 2000 Olympic Games.

Southeast Asia

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I recently returned from Indonesia and Thailand on a mission led by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation to see the impact of the Asian financial crisis on the people who live there.

The impact is catastrophic. Families are desperate, reeling from massive unemployment and skyrocketing food prices. And for many, the last threads of hope are rapidly unwinding.

Upon our return we called on the government to fundamentally change its role in global economic management. The World Bank and IMF's prescription is disastrous. These institutions must be completely overhauled to ensure that the forces of globalization create equity and serve the needs of people.

Instead of using pepper spray to stifle students protesting APEC in Vancouver, instead of ignoring the cries of hunger from citizens around the world who are paying the consequences of global capital gone berserk, this government must end its complicity with the financial power brokers and champion global reform to alleviate poverty and environmental degradation.

Gun Control

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

Mr. Speaker, today, opponents of gun control are demonstrating on Parliament Hill. A number of speakers will be making unfair demands.

I wish to state that, with firearm control legislation, the government is responding to the call of Canadians, the parents of child victims of crimes or accidents involving firearms in particular.

We are going to continue to work along with these Canadians, who have called for gun control legislation in hopes of reducing the crime rate in our communities.

The government will not allow itself to be intimidated by statements from the other side of the floor, or from demonstrators on the Hill. A large majority of Canadians support gun control. The debate is closed. The Canadian firearms control program will come into effect December 1.

Swissair Flight 111

[Gerald Keddy, Progressive Conservative, South Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, on September 2, 1999 the citizens of Canada will pause and remember the tragic crash of Swissair flight 111. Many citizens of the south shore of Nova Scotia are living today with the aftermath of that disaster. The communities on the Aspotogen Peninsula and Tancook Island are in the midst of the ongoing cleanup effort that is literally on their doorsteps.

Fishers from those communities were among the first to respond. They, like their forebears, are no strangers to disasters at sea. They left their homes in the dark of night to assist in the desperate search for survivors. Today there are still hundreds of men and women involved in the cleanup.

The sincere effort made by all the volunteers and professionals who have assisted and continue to assist in this tragic accident is a testimony to the strength of Canadian character and the true fibre of the men and women of the south shore of Nova Scotia.

Firearms

[John Harvard, Liberal, Charleswood—Assiniboine, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as the gun lobby gathers on Parliament Hill, I would like to remind this House that the purpose of our government's Firearms Act is to help ensure Canadians continue to live in a safe society. When I look at our neighbours to the south, I am shocked to see the gun lobby fight simple protective measures like trigger locks and safe firearms storage.

I am horrified every time I hear about a child taking firearms to school and using them with deadly consequences on innocent schoolmates.

The Reform Party and other opponents of Canada's new Firearms Act would have us believe that firearms regulation is just one step on a slippery slope. Nothing could be further from the truth. I want to assure law-abiding gun owners that they have nothing to fear from the Minister of Justice or this government. Our commitment is to make sure that gun control is implemented in the most efficient way possible.

Prime Minister

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Yesterday, the Prime Minister described the Mike Harris government as “ultra-right”. Rather than labelling other people, the Prime Minister should be looking at his own record.

Over his long career in politics, he was involved in the War Measures Act. He was the hatchet man in the 1982 constitutional coup d'état. He was one of the key figures in the destruction of the Meech Lake Accord. He was involved in organizing the repression of a peaceful demonstration by students at Vancouver. He has cut $42 million from social programs. He has dipped into the employment insurance fund surplus to the tune of $20 billion, using it clandestinely to pay back part of the debt.

Worse still, the Prime Minister is the one who rejected outright the unanimous agreement by the provincial premiers to put money back into health care.

With a record like this, how can the Prime Minister still claim to be a Liberal?

Apec Summit

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister and it is a simple question that has been asked by many Canadians.

Why will the Prime Minister not simply apologize to the Canadian students who were wrongfully pepper sprayed at the APEC summit conference?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that some people had a problem with the police there. No one wished for that to happen and that is why there is an inquiry.

Where there are situations like that, when people feel that they have not been treated fairly, there is a process to help them. It allows them to see whether the police acted in an unethical or illegal fashion. There is an inquiry into this.

At the end we will see who is responsible and who is not. That is why there is an inquiry. If some people were not well treated, certainly—

[The Speaker]

The Leader of the Opposition.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is playing dumb on this question. Our complaint is not with the RCMP but with the Prime Minister who gave them their orders.

Our concerns cannot be resolved by the commission. They can only be resolved by the Prime Minister himself coming clean on this issue.

Will the Prime Minister explain to this House and to the students his role, not the RCMP's role, in this fiasco?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, my role was very simple. I was the host of 19 leaders who came to Canada. The RCMP was responsible for keeping order so that the leaders visiting Canada could be safe. This is done for every meeting of this nature.

My role was to be chairman of the APEC meeting on behalf of Canada at that time. The people of Vancouver received the leaders very well.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, that is very interesting because that is not what the RCMP say. They say they were instructed to suppress peaceful protesters even if they were not a security risk.

RCMP memos say things like “PM's specific wish” or “PM wants the protesters out”. That PM was not me and it was not the Minister of Finance. Who was it?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I know at least one of the two will not become the PM.

I have been in politics for a long time. As a minister, I have seen many people in departments speaking on behalf of their ministers or on behalf of the prime minister, not knowing—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[The Speaker]

Colleagues, I know we all want to hear the questions and the answers. The hon. member for Edmonton North.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister seems to have his fingerprints all over this. The “PM” he is talking about is a post-mortem that Canadians want on this whole issue because they are disgusted.

Why is it that the Prime Minister resorts to blaming a bureaucrat? Why does he not believe in ministerial accountability, stand up in his place right now and say “I'm responsible. I apologize and I will explain what I did in this affair”?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, there is an inquiry that is being conducted in Vancouver on this incident, which occurred during the last hours of the APEC meeting, when the 19 leaders came to Canada and we were the hosts. The inquiry will look at all the facts.

I said before, and I will repeat, that I hosted the meeting. Until the end everything went very well. After it was over they informed me that there was an incident at the last hour of the meeting.

There is an inquiry into what happened there because—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Edmonton North.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Edmonton North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I can understand why the Prime Minister was shocked there was an incident because he very clearly pointed out that he did not want to be embarrassed and have other leaders be embarrassed.

This public commission looks into the activities of the RCMP, not the unethical activities of politicians.

When is the Prime Minister going to stand up in his place and admit he was wrong, or is he above the law?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member tends to exaggerate a bit. Just a bit. She is very consistent. Today on the Hill she was applauding a group of people who object to gun control and yesterday she did not want us to have people with guns registered in Canada coming from abroad.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the further we delve into “peppergate”, the more we realize that the real responsibility for suppressing anti-Suharto demonstrators lies not with the RCMP but with the Canadian government, which was consumed with reassuring the dictator.

Yesterday, we learned that the RCMP liaison officer was told to do everything necessary to meet Suharto's demands.

Will the Prime Minister admit that the testimony by officer Peter Montague confirms that the extreme intervention by the RCMP in Vancouver is directly related to the directives his government issued to the RCMP?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, there is an investigation into this matter. A commission will conduct an inquiry, giving members of the public with complaints against the RCMP an opportunity to present their views, and the RCMP an opportunity to justify its actions. The commission is to begin its work shortly. Let us leave it to do its work.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the commission of inquiry will investigate the actions of the RCMP, as the Prime Minister points out. Our questions are directed not at the RCMP, but at the Prime Minister.

Would the Prime Minister be so good as to tell us what lesson we are to learn from seeing a supposed statesman deliberately crushing the individual rights of his fellow citizens so that he can stay on good terms with a dictator, because that is the fact of the matter?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Such rhetoric, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to inform the hon. member that, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs pointed out yesterday, we provided financial assistance to bring protestors to the parallel summit in Vancouver. We ourselves provided assistance for protestors to come from other countries to hold a parallel summit in Vancouver.

For people who do not want to hear anything about civil liberties, I think we have gone further than anyone in issuing an invitation to these people and paying their expenses so that they could come and protest.