Debates of Nov. 2nd, 1999

Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Don't look at me.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Do not look at him, he says. Well you put up your hand when you voted. Talk about stupid, some of these people.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Please address each other, particularly when the occasion is a little heated, through the Chair. We will refer to each other as hon. members or as persons representing a particular constituency and we do so through the Chair.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not call any one particular person stupid here. The difficulty the opposition parties should have, the NDP included and the other fellows, we should all have the same problem in the House.

If a bill comes in that we basically agree on, like Bill C-4, it is okay. The Liberals will have us discussing the thing for three or four days. They would be happy with only two or three people in the House of Commons reading the newspaper.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

In reference to other members presence or absence in the House, that will also require ingenuity.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, instead of me arguing with you, I did not say there were two or three people in the House of Commons. I said that they would be happy with only two or three people in the House of Commons.

It is okay to come in here and talk about Bill C-4, the space station, for three or four days. However, what opposition parties should be concerned about is that the moment we disagree with one of their bills, the Liberals call time allocation. They call closure after four hours of debate. While we are the only party fighting Nisga'a in the House, the next time it may be one other party or two other parties that disagree and they will do it again. That is plainly unacceptable. We will take this any longer. Myself, as House leader, and our whip, my colleague from Fraser Valley, have made up our mind that is enough.

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

That's two.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Yes, that is two, but those are the two the hon. member should worry about. The Liberals may want to travel. Maybe we will not like that.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I know the leader of the Reform Party was pleased and very enthusiastic with respect to the space bill. We appreciate his support and the support of the Reform House leader. I know what the hon. member is driving at and everybody appreciates it, but if at the same time he could just zero in a little bit on the space bill and bring some relevance into it that would really add to it.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I would ask all hon. members to be relevant and to keep in mind that we are discussing Bill C-4.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, if this is not relevant then we are in the wrong place. This is more than relevant. The hon. member does not seem to understand that I have said time and time again in this particular speech that we agree with Bill C-4.

What we do not agree with is just exactly what is going on with the so-called democracy in this place. It is okay if I stand here and agree with Bill C-4. It is okay if I agree with the space station. It is okay as long as we agree with the Liberal Party. If any member on this side disagrees with the Liberal Party, we get time allocation and closure. That is what is wrong and that is what is relevant with this bill.

It is about time bills like this, that we agree on, that we talk a long time on and everything else that comes into the House. If the member thinks that is not relevant, he should just try us. It is more than relevant.

The government has a really bad habit as a majority government. We can count, as I already have, the number of bills it has called closure on after a number of hours. It is coming up, in almost half the time, to surpassing Mr. Mulroney in the number of times he called closure or time allocation. However, that is okay with the Liberals.

Here is a sweet space station everybody agrees with, so the guys can talk here for a week if they want. However, when we disagree or if my colleague's party, the NDP, disagree with a bill, just watch how long it takes the Liberals to call time allocation or closure. It is okay if a member wants to stand up for the space station because everyone agrees with it.

[John Solomon, NDP, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

No, we oppose it now. If there is no money for farmers, there is no money for space.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

That is not a bad position. If there is no money for farmers then there is no money for space. How long have we been asking for money in the House for farmers? We have been saying that the Nisga'a agreement is costing an enormous amount of money. The Liberals do not want to talk about that because they called time allocation on that. This is only $1.6 billion or $1.3 billion on a space station. The Liberals lose count after the billions.

The Liberals have my message. It is very clear. We will be talking about these bills as long as we darn well feel like it. We will be talking about travel from now on. We are not under any circumstances going to entertain these time allocation-closure bills henceforth.

[Daniel Turp, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I too am wondering about the relevance of the remarks made by the member for Langley—Abbotsford. I find him incapable of ingenuity.

The Speaker suggested that he would have to be ingenious to be relevant. His remarks had to do with the Nisga'a agreement, the implementing legislation being debated today. I should say “his many remarks” because he spoke almost exclusively about this native treaty and not about the Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act.

Yet, ingenuity was possible. For instance, it could have been suggested that the Nisga'a treaty should have been debated in the House before it was signed, or before it was ratified by the Government of Canada or the Government of British Columbia.

There is a parallel to be drawn here between domestic treaties, those having to do with aboriginal matters, those described by the Supreme Court of Canada as sui generis , and international treaties, because the process for each is, in many regards, similar.

Treaties are debated, discussed, negotiated by governments. However, to apply in domestic law, they also require implementing legislation, and sometimes legislation from both a provincial legislative assembly and the federal parliament.

I imagine that this is not something a person can do unless he is really ingenious: when he does not want to really address a bill such as this one, when he wants to waste the precious time of the House on a debate that ought to be kept for the appropriate time.

I want to speak of this implementing legislation, indicating what lessons can be learned from it and the path it followed in order to get before this House, after the negotiations that led to the Civil International Space Station Agreement.

The signature and implementation of treaties is an important issue. It is one that involves us all, because treaties are playing an increasingly important role in international life. Their numbers are multiplying. Hundreds of treaties are entered into yearly, and ratified by Canada and other countries.

This often requires parliaments to pass legislation to implement these treaties and to give them effect in Canadian internal law.

For the benefit of this House and those who are listening to us, I would like to say a few words about the process, particularly since I just recently introduced Bill C-214. This bill is aimed at getting parliament more involved in the process of concluding treaties, at democratizing in a way the process whereby treaties are accepted by the state and subsequently lead to the passage of legislation in order to implement the international obligations negotiated by the government.

I will therefore give hon. members a short course in international law. I am pleased that my colleague from Vancouver Quadra, who is also a professor of international law, is with us and will no doubt be able to add to my modest contribution. He will, no doubt, wish to share with us his thoughts on these proposals for increasing parliament's involvement in the treaty process.

I would also like to remind hon. members that an international treaty is something that has first been negotiated. As a general rule, negotiations are conducted by governments represented by officials—in this case, officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs—or by diplomats, the ambassadors. When very important treaties are involved, ministers of the government are also involved, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs in particular, since, under the Department of Foreign Affairs Act, it is he who is generally responsible for concluding international treaties.

Treaties are negotiated with other countries usually. Negotiations may take place with international organizations. Often, these organizations provide the forum for such negotiations. There is the negotiation, for example, of treaties in the context of the United Nations, which often acts as a forum for conferences, where debates are held on the treaties and lead to their passage.

It is not enough, however, to negotiate a treaty, because treaties, depending on the constitutional law of the country, sometimes require action by parliament to permit their acceptance by the country, so that the country can agree to be bound by the treaty.

This is where practices differ significantly from one country to the next. For some countries, like Canada and most countries with a British style parliamentary system, treaties are concluded, and the countries agree to be bound by the provisions in them, such as in the one creating the international space station, without parliament's involvement.

Here in Canada, a government can conclude a treaty and sign it after it has been adopted. It can even ratify it without parliament's prior approval or agreement that the country will be bound under the international treaty.

There are countries, however, that involve their parliament and can neither sign nor ratify—in most cases it is ratificationt— without the prior approval of parliament and the holding of a debate to give parliamentarians an opportunity to consider the text of the treaty and its provisions before the government commits internationally.

In France, for example, parliament must adopt an act approving any treaty before the French authorities can ratify it.

The practices are different, but they tend increasingly to involve parliament in the process leading to the conclusion of treaties and give it a say in the process, since the content of an increasing number of laws passed by parliaments depends on the treaties that were first negotiated by the government.

I believe that in parliamentary systems such as ours but also that of other countries, there is a real lack of democracy in that parliamentarians are asked, as we are today in the case of Bill C-4, to adopt laws whose content is largely determined by the content of treaties negotiated by the governments, even though their parliaments were not involved in the discussions on that content.

This is why I have introduced Bill C-214 which, I hope, will be the subject not only of a debate but also of a vote. This bill proposes that the House of Commons be involved in the conclusion of treaties by first approving a treaty and thus authorizing the government to ratify that treaty once the House has been informed of its content.

Some fear, however, that such a procedure might prevent the government from negotiating and accepting obligations pursuant to debates held between states. The example of the United States is often referred to; two-thirds of the U.S. Senate has to support any treaty the government—in this case, the President—wishes to ratify on behalf of the United States.

The formula I am proposing is one where approval by the House would not necessarily be binding on the government, which would, ultimately decide whether or not to ratify a treaty. This is not a procedure or formula that would paralyze a government, at least not in a system like ours where the government very often, almost always in fact, has a majority in the House and can get a resolution passed in favour of approval because of that majority.

My discussions, and some debates with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, have led me to conclude that the minister has considerable misgivings about such a procedure. He should not have any. This is a procedure aimed at making the process of ratifying treaties more democratic and involving MPs in the procedure for signing a type of document that is becoming more important in our societies and, I feel, will continue to do so.

For example, there are the debates and negotiations soon to begin at the World Trade Organization, leading to a number of treaties around the turn of the new millennium. These treaties arising out of the WTO millennium round will—or at least should—be debated in this House before the government makes commitments that will be binding on this House when the time comes to enact legislation implementing them.

We might also mention treaties pertaining to cultural diversity we want to negotiate with UNESCO and many other treaties that concern trade and cultural issues, individual rights and freedoms and information technology issues, since treaties concern all matters of interest to governments and to parliaments as well.

I believe also that transparency would require—and this is the focus of other provisions in Bill C-214, which I tabled in this House—the government to agree to table treaties in the House so parliamentarians might be aware of their content.

It would thus agree to members of this House knowing our international obligations and to the enshrinement of a practice that was carried on for a number of years in this House. It was abandoned for a number of years but, only a few months ago, it was revived after I lobbied increasingly in this forum and in other forums to have treaties tabled to properly inform this House of Canada's international commitments.

In addition, I wanted—and would like to convince my colleagues in the House of this—the government to do a better job than it is currently doing of making the content of treaties known, not only by tabling them in the House, but by publishing them in various forms, electronically for example, on an electronic site such as that of the Department of Foreign Affairs. This is one of the rare sites of the departments of foreign affairs of developed countries where the country's treaties may be accessed, with a few rare exceptions.

We must also make sure they are published in the Canada Gazette, as are the laws, and that they are published in the Canada treaty series, as they currently are but at more reasonable intervals, since sometimes it takes months if not years for a treaty to appear in the series.

These are changes in practice that, in my view, deserve to be adopted by this parliament. They would, in certain respects, modify the royal prerogative underlying the government's authority in this area.

This House, however, is empowered to abrogate part of this prerogative and adopt a much more transparent and more democratic procedure involving all elected representatives—not just those of the government party that sit in Cabinet—in important decisions having to do with treaties and the government's response to them.

As I make this proposal, I am aware, and wish to inform the House, that, in other Commonwealth countries, and I am thinking of Australia and New Zealand, and even in the United Kingdom, the mother of all parliaments and some say of this parliament, recent practices for concluding treaties have been modified to introduce greater transparency. Treaties are tabled in the Houses, accompanied by an explanatory memorandum, and distributed much more widely, with much greater parliamentary participation than we are seeing here, in the House of Commons.

There is no excuse for the resistance to these changes, certainly not the lack of willingness and transparency of a government that should realize, on the eve of the year 2000 and a new millennium, that changes are in order. These practices must be adapted to the new importance of treaties in the international as well as domestic order.

Bill C-4, the Civil Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, was introduced in this House without our ever having been able to examine its contents, without any examination before the treaty was signed.

According to my information, it was signed on January 29, 1998, and adopted on that same date. Signing already commits signatory states to a certain extent because article 18 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties stipulates that a state is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty before it consents to be bound by it and ratifies it.

Thus, by signing the treaty on January 29, 1998, Canada assumed a number of commitments, without this parliament having been consulted. It is therefore necessary for a signatory state to agree to involve its parliament. Parliament must be involved in examining the treaty itself, not just its implementation, because implementation legislation depends on the treaty contents. This bill ought to have been introduced only after the House of Commons had examined the treaty.

In closing, I wish to state that I feel it is important, and hope to have the opposition parties' support in this, even the government party as well, to ensure that Bill C-4 will be the last such bill, and that in future all treaties requiring implementing legislation will have initially been approved by the House of Commons.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry has advocated major constitutional reform.

Constitutional changes require patience, obviously. They take a lot of time and require a lot of work.

Will he agree for the time being, according to the umbrella agreement between the Government of Quebec and the federal government—signed I believe by Paul Martin senior—to there being rules that can fill the gap he now finds in the constitutional system? That means that the federal government appoints a representative from one or all the provinces to a constitutional delegation when negotiating a treaty concerning provincial jurisdictions.

Second, it is clear that most of the treaties today are not self-executing. Federal legislation is required to establish them in Canadian municipal law.

Third, there is a distinction between Australia and Canada in jurisdiction over foreign affairs. Australian law, as interpreted by the supreme court, requires the precedence of any law incorporating an international treaty. The converse is true in Canada, according to a decision by the privy council in the matter of the 1937 conventions on labour law.

[Daniel Turp, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Quadra for his three questions.

First, on concluding treaties and provincial participation in the conclusion of treaties, I did not raise that in my remarks this morning, because I wanted to limit them to the role of parliament in the conclusion of federal treaties.

Since the treaty we are being called upon to implement comes primarily if not exclusively under federal jurisdiction, only the federal parliament may intervene for purposes of legislative implementation.

But, if you want an answer to your question, there would be ways of involving the provinces in the conclusion of treaties, even in a federation like Canada. What is more, Quebec, with its Gérin-Lajoie doctrine, believes not only that it must be involved in the conclusion of treaties and approve treaties concluded by Canada in areas over which the Constitution gives it jurisdiction, but it believes and affirms, as all successive governments of Quebec have done, that, under the present Constitution, it even has authority to act autonomously in concluding treaties in areas that come under its jurisdiction.

It is because of the continual foot-dragging of the federal government—which has often sought to introduce umbrella agreements to limit Quebec's autonomy—that many Quebecers want sovereignty. There is no excuse for this foot-dragging, even within a federal framework, and it will only stop when Quebec becomes a sovereign state with the authority to conclude its own treaties free of intervention by the federal government.

With respect to the second question, when treaties are not self-executing, they have to be implemented by legislation. Here we have an example of a treaty that is not self-executing as far as all of its clauses are concerned, since the Civil International Space Station agreement requires the Parliament of Canada, and the House of Commons in particular, to pass amendments to the Criminal Code in order to implement section 22 of the treaty, which the implementation bill does in clause 11. The treaty not being one hundred percent self-executing, it was therefore important for this House to adopt implementing legislation.

What I wanted to emphasize in my speech, however, was that this legislation implements an international treaty which did not have the prior approval by this House that it ought to have had. It is necessary for the House of Commons to approve a treaty in order for it to have greater legitimacy. Then parliament can move to pass implementing legislation.

Finally in response to the third question from my colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra, concerning Australia, I realize that there is a great difference. I would not like to see us with an arrangement similar to Australia's, one which is in my opinion contrary to the federal principle. It is precisely because at one point we had a Privy Council judiciary committee that respected provincial jurisdictions that today we still have shared legislative jurisdiction over implementation.

That is not enough to convince us to stay within Canada, however.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech of the member. As I have done before, I would like to give special thanks to the people who do the interpretation. I am one of those unfortunate people who speaks only English. My knowledge of French is vastly limited. I am totally dependent on their good work in those booths. I heard the speech secondhand, but I thank them for their excellent work in providing us with an instant interpretation.

I would like to make a comment about the speech and I also have a quick question. He made one comment that was resonant. I hate saying it because I am one who loves the country, who believes in democracy, and who believes that a democratically elected parliament is the way to go. It is superior, but quite clearly parliament is but an annoyance to the government and to the Prime Minister.

The member mentioned the fact that the particular agreement was signed a year and a half ago, and here we are bringing in legislation to implement what has already been done.

[An hon. member]

Like the Nisga'a treaty.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Yes, like the Nisga'a treaty. Parliament has been made irrelevant by the same Prime Minister who keeps going around at election time saying that he will make parliament more meaningful and give MPs a greater role. It is a sham. The red book is a sham.

How often have we passed bills to implement budgets? I am on the finance committee and just before prorogation we passed a bill to implement some of the Income Tax Act that had already been in place and was being enforced. In some cases guys were going to jail because they did not comply, and the bill was before the House to approve that legislation.

As much as I sometimes hesitate to do this, I agree wholeheartedly with the member from the Bloc on this point. This place is irrelevant. What are we doing here?

I have a question for the hon. member. I am committed and dedicated to keeping the country together. No matter what the topic, they always talk about wanting to be their own country and breaking free. In this case clause four of the bill says the act is binding on Her Majesty in the right of Canada or a province. I am amazed they are supporting the bill because they are really saying that the act is binding on Quebec. It must be a violation of their desire to break free from the country, which I wish would not happen.

[Daniel Turp, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the interpreters. I also want to thank the translators. I often call on the translators of the House to translate my remarks from French to English or from English to French.

I want to pay particular tribute to Elizabeth Cowan, a translator with the House, who does an exceptional job.

To respond to my colleague's question, I will say that the scope of section 4, which appears in a number of implementing acts is not very clear, especially since it is an implementing act that concerns federal jurisdictions.

This is something I would very much like to clarify and I will no doubt do so as professor of international law when I have more time to exercise this profession, which I have left temporarily to become a member of this House.

I would add, in closing, since I know my time is limited, that federalism could work very well with expanded powers for the provinces to conclude treaties. This could be the case for Quebec, Alberta or British Columbia. The formulae that apply in Belgium might even be used as an example.

Under Belgian federalism, communities and regions are empowered to conclude treaties. But this government is ignoring parliament and, I agree with the hon. member, it is ignoring the provinces as well by setting up and exercising a monopoly on foreign policy and on the conclusion of treaties.

This is one reason why my colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois and many Quebecers want sovereignty, which will give them jurisdiction to approve and conclude treaties and to involve their parliament—the National Assembly—in their implementation. Having the National Assembly approve treaties before they are implemented—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I am sorry, but the member's time is up.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to the international space agency bill today.

I say to the member of the Bloc who just spoke that during the course of my comments I will be addressing a couple of private members' bills the member has brought forward on the ratification of international treaties. I know it is of interest to him, as it is to me. I look forward to supporting his bill, if it ever comes to the House for a vote.

It is another one of those strange coincidences on how a populist party will agree on some of the broad issues about the necessity of consulting parliament on issues of national and international concern. The member of the Bloc and I may have disagreements about many things, but the priority of making the House relevant has to do with allowing us to deal with meaty issues, big important issues not after they are a fait accompli but during the ratification process.

I encourage the member to continue with his private member's initiative. I look forward to one day debating and hopefully approving that private member's bill.

The bill we are talking about today deals with the civil international space station, the funding required and the co-operative efforts of the Government of Japan, the Government of the Russian federation, the Government of the United States, the European Space Agency and ourselves to put together the space station in the years to come.

This leads me to talk about the station and about five truths that we can get from this bill. There are five principles that I think are true in the bill and are true in many of the bills we discuss.

First is the truth of fiscal matters. This bill involves the expenditure of well over a billion dollars. It is a long range commitment of Canada to the international space agency. It is not a one time budgetary expenditure. If we are to be a serious player in the international space agency, we have to commit to it in the long term.

When talking about numbers this large, over a billion dollars over the course of the next few years, it is important that we also say that government spending is about priorities. It is about picking and choosing the things we can and should be involved in as a country and as parliament. By doing that we also say there are some things we are not going to spend money on. In other words, we cannot be all things to all people. We have to pick the issues that we think governments can address. Once we make those choices, some things are approved and some things are rejected. It is up to us to pick and choose between them.

Personally, I think this is going to be money well spent. I hope that 10 years from now we will look back and, as what the Canadarm did for us in the aerospace industry, our participation in the space station will have brought awareness to Canadian talents and expertise in engineering and so on. I hope it will be the next big boost to the Canadian aeronautical industry. This money will be seen as money well spent. I hope that years from now people will thank this parliament for having approved this expenditure and for having made this international commitment.

It is true that a billion dollars is a lot of money. It reminds me that many people in British Columbia are saying that we also made choices last night when we committed to the Nisga'a agreement. We said there was a billion dollars. We made a priority choice that the money spent not just by this parliament but by the B.C. legislature was a priority and it would be well spent. This parliament and the government have said that we will look back years from now and be grateful that we spent it. How can that be true?

In the case of the Nisga'a agreement, how can we say that we are going to perpetuate a system of treaties and separateness for one group of people over another group and treat them differently on things like property rights, the rights of women and the rights of people to vote for the government that taxes them? How can we say that a billion dollars spent to perpetuate the current reserve system in Canada is money well spent?

Most Canadians will say that we should move forward on the space station. It binds all the provinces. It is a good project for the federal government. It deals with international relations. We are going to get some other side benefits from it. It affects all of us. All of us are in favour of it, so let us move it forward. I think we are going to find that that is basically going to be the case.

For many people however, and in British Columbia at least where they understand the Nisga'a agreement, that is not the case. Once they know about the Nisga'a agreement, the majority of British Columbians say that they do not approve of the current expenditures on Nisga'a. More important, they do not agree with the principle behind it.

The principle is that a system that has been proven to be a failure over the past 130 years has been enshrined in our constitution at the next level in the Nisga'a agreement. Some money has been thrown at it in the hope that a giant collectivity called the Nisga'a government will somehow be all things to all people in that environment and it will somehow make life better for them for all time.

That is not a good expenditure of money. More important, it is not a sound principle to treat one group of people separately, to give them a different set of laws, a different set of privileges, a different set of rights, one from another and think it is a good thing for Canada. It is almost the same amount of dollars we are talking about for the space agency but it takes us down a path I think most Canadians will not support.

It is interesting how we can all rally around the flag on the space station idea. We see the benefits for all Canadians, Nisga'a and non-Nisga'a, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, immigrants and non-immigrants. Everyone will benefit from it. But the same amount of dollars being spent on the Nisga'a agreement is driving a wedge between people rather than bringing people together.

That is the first truth. The truth about fiscal matters is that each decision we make means not only that the taxpayer is footing the bill but that there is something else we cannot afford to do because we spent that billion dollars. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon we are talking real money.

The second truth is the truth about democracy that I get from the debate we are having today. It is interesting. The reason we are talking about the international space agency bill today is that last night the government rammed through the second reading stage of Nisga'a. After four hours of debate it brought in time allocation which means that it is all over but the crying and the soft music by the end of the day. That is what happened last night. We had four hours of debate. The B.C. legislature had four weeks of debate, the longest debate in the history of B.C., on the Nisga'a agreement. But here we did not have a long debate. We did not even have one week of debate. We did not even approach a record of any kind except for a record number of times for the application of time allocation.

We can learn a lesson about democracy. The truth is that we are only on this bill today because yesterday we saw what the B.C. Liberal leader called a reprehensible demonstration of undemocratic government. It was a reprehensible example from over there. The leader of the B.C. Liberal Party was appalled at what he saw going on here in the House.

We are on this bill today, rather than talking about having a big principled debate about the future role for aboriginal people within Canada, because democracy fell on its sword yesterday. That is an absolute truth. People who review what went on yesterday in the House will know that to be true. For a record number of times the government has said: “If there is dissent, opposition or a problem, we will bring in closure and shut down the debate”. The Liberals have done it more times now than Brian Mulroney did in his heyday.

The Liberals brought it in on Bill C-78, the public servants pension fund. They scooped the excess out of that fund. We opposed the bill. We debated it for one hour and they brought in closure and shut down the debate.

Today's debate is on a kind of motherhood and apple pie issue. We all want the space station. We all think it is a good idea which should move forward. But it is bittersweet. Instead of relishing the debate and being able to focus only on the space station, we are left with a bad taste in our mouths. Yesterday was a travesty of justice and democracy and that is why we are on this bill today.

That is the truth about democracy in this place. It does not happen like Canadians think it happens. The government pushes through, rams through and shoves through anything it wants that is the least bit contentious. That is where we are at today.

The Bloc member who has a private member's bill on the approval of international treaties will be pleased that at least this bill is before the House for ratification. This is rare in international agreements. It does not happen very often. Whether it is behind closed doors negotiations on the multilateral agreement on investment, the next phase of the WTO, the Kyoto agreement or other UN forums, time and again, it is just brought back to us here by fiat.

A minister will say “While I was away last weekend sunning myself wherever, I signed an agreement and it binds Canada for the rest of our lives”. We will read about the details in the paper but we are not allowed to debate them, discuss them, amend them, propose alternatives, inform Canadians, travel the country or do any of the democratic things that Canadians assume are happening.

It is like the Nisga'a agreement again. We were delivered a document that said it is the enabling legislation. It is just a few short pages, but there are also two thick books and we are not allowed to change, amend or alter in any way a dot, jot or a tittle in the entire Nisga'a agreement. It came here as a done deal.

People think we come here to debate the issues. They wonder whether the environmental part of that agreement is too strong or not strong enough. What about the conflicting jurisdictions between the province, the feds and the Nisga'a governments? Could there be some better language? No, it is brought forward as perfection. The government says that a few people negotiated it behind closed doors and the 301 members of parliament are just window dressing.

The government brings it here because it technically has to, but the truth is that the Liberals do not respect this place at all. They disrespect the opinions of members of parliament. They disrespect the entire contingent of people in the official opposition who have concerns about it and who would like to see a different process that we would hope would clarify some of the 50 unsettled sidebar agreements that have to go into the Nisga'a agreement. We would like to see those clarified before we stick up our hands and vote yes.

The Liberals ignored all of that. Any concerns we have are written off as sour grapes, bad attitude or whatever they want to chalk it up to, instead of saying that this place should be supreme and should have some pre-eminence in the political life of the country. Instead, the Liberals defer to the backroom negotiations. They defer to the behind the scenes stuff. They defer to the courts. They defer to the tribunals. They defer to anything, except to the seat of democracy which is this place. It is discouraging.

If a young person who wanted to influence the future of the country were to ask me if he or she should follow in my footsteps in Fraser Valley, I would say, “Well, I suppose you could, but if I were you I would get a seat on the supreme court. That is where it is happening”. I might even tell that young person to get on as a delegate at the United Nations or at one of the NGOs because they negotiate and settle things that we as parliamentarians are not even allowed to debate. We are not even allowed to know what they are discussing. It just comes back to us, pressed down and rolled over. We are expected to shrug our shoulders and say “Look what they negotiated for us today”.

At least in the space agency agreement we can see what was negotiated. We may not have had a hand in the negotiations, but at least we can see what we are committed to in terms of money and what the structure of the management team will be. We can talk about a lot of that stuff, and to me it looks pretty good. At least we get to vote on it.

If young people asked me today if this was the place where big changes will be made and big decisions will be made, I would have to say, under the current government, sadly, no. They will have to wait for a change in government, because the attitude on that side of the House is “It is our way or the highway”. The government's highway involves time allocation, closure, lack of consultation and bypassing parliamentarians in favour of special interest groups which government members say know more than the people who were elected to this place.

That is the truth about democracy. That is why we are debating this bill today. All of those other things I mentioned are absolutely true. People can look at what happened yesterday. Yesterday democracy took the fall for the expediency of this government.

Another thing I would like to talk about briefly is the truth about intellectual property rights, because a lot of what will be developed on this space station will become valuable. There will be an exchange of information and there will be scientific data developed, which is key to the success of the project. The reason all of these countries are getting together is to develop intellectual property which will be beneficial to those living on Earth. It could be anything from the development of future medicines to things which are happening on Earth which can be observed from space. All of that will become incredibly valuable.

What about intellectual property rights? More important, what about property rights in general? What about the property rights that the government has never recognized? I think most Canadians watching would say “Yes, but I own my house. That is my property. It is mine”. I am sorry to break the news to those people, but this government does not recognize property rights.

During the Charlottetown accord debate one of the big problems in my area, and I cannot speak for the whole country, was that we wanted to include the right to own property and to develop intellectual property rights because the ability to have property rights is the cornerstone to the development of assets, wealth and prosperity for any people. The fact that the government does not seem to be concerned about intellectual property rights and about property rights in general is a very alarming leftover from its socialist roots. It just believes that property is communally owned. We do not have to worry about property rights because we are all together. What we have to do is hug one another. If we hug one another and love one another things will be fine.

Where are the property rights, for example, for aboriginal women on Nisga'a reserves? When there is a divorce, the property that people enjoyed during the years they were married has to be separated. We have a long set of rules governing most of Canada which set out how the property will be divided, what the paternal and maternal rights will be, and rules governing the visitation of children.

If a person does not own anything personally, if it is all owned by the Nisga'a government, guess what? The aboriginal women will get short shrift down the road because they do not own the houses they live in. They are sitting on communal property which is owned by the Nisga'a. The whole territory is owned communally. Rather than having individual property rights and being able to enhance the value of the property, to make sales, to use that land to develop wealth and opportunities, the Nisga'a agreement will unfortunately not allow that.

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

Madam Speaker, while I disagree with much of what the whip for the Reform Party said today, which is to be understood in a parliamentary democracy where we have different parties representing different points of view, I commend him warmly for his eloquent and strong voice on the issue of the necessity for members of parliament to make choices.

He said very clearly that if we use money in one particular way, be it paying down the debt, cutting taxes or creating new programs, we will not have it for other priorities. He said that we cannot be all things to all people. We must make choices. We must have our priorities.

I believe this type of constructive approach to the debate that will follow the budget, as to what we do with our surplus, should be commended to all members of parliament and to all Canadians as together we constructively put forth our priorities for the future. I thank him for that very useful contribution to the debate.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his kind words. If I was eloquent it was mostly by accident, but I thank him for his kind words.

People who run a household know about setting priorities. In Canada, the fact that the government takes more in taxes than people spend on food, clothing and shelter combined, means that a lot of their choices are taken away from them.

We want our government to do some things for us. We find it a good way to pool our resources to look after those who are truly in need. However, the debate is about choices. When an average citizen, such as a millwright, makes around $4000 or $5000 a month, works overtime and does the job, and then finds out that fully half of his paycheque has gone to CPP, EI and all the global tax deductions, he says “I made $4000, but $2000 went to the government. Now I have $2000. My mortgage is $1000. Now I am down to $1000 to feed and clothe my family, to provide for their education and to provide for my retirement”.

I agree with the hon. member that government spending is about choosing priorities, but we should not have to choose a medicine that is so harsh and severe that it kills the patient. We should have a better choice. One of those better choices, which I hope we will hear when the finance minister speaks today, is a specific commitment to tax relief that is as specific as the many commitments that have been made to new spending.

The commitments to new spending seem to be ironclad. They seem to be saying “We will spend money on the following”. Government departments came up with a wish list of $47 billion, which seems to be solid. It seems to be a sure thing.

I hope the minister says this afternoon that there is another sure thing, that taxes will be cut by 25% over the next three years, that EI premiums will be lowered to where the auditor general says they should be, not a tentative little nibble from $2.55 to $2.40, but a big chunk of tax relief down to $2.05 where the premiums need to be. I hope the government will not just nibble a bit and hope that Canadians will benefit from one bit of tax blessing or another which it chooses to mete out. I hope the minister will say that there will be broad based tax relief.

The government should plagiarise a proposal of the Reform Party and say “We are going to give you 25% tax relief over three years. Here is how it will be done. It is a firm commitment, as firm as our spending commitments. Canadians can take it to the bank, spend it on their mortgages, look after their kids and plan for the future. It will be done. The commitment is there because that is the choice the government has made”.

I hope that is what we are going to hear this afternoon, but there is not a collective holding of breath out in the hinterlands waiting for the finance minister to be that specific.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Madam Speaker, Bill C-4, which we are debating this morning, involves 12 European nations. In addition, it involves Japan, the United States, Russia and, of course, Canada.

This civil international space station will cost the people of Canada over $1 billion, at the very least. What bothers me is the government's lack of respect for the House of Commons and for democratically elected members.

It was around 1984 that talk of creating this civil space station first began. The first negotiations took place between the United States and Spain and, over the years, many other countries joined in.

What hurts a parliamentarian, however, is that Canada signed this agreement on January 29, 1998, almost 22 months before the government House leader deigned to introduce the bill for ratification.

The chief whip of the Reform Party raised this major time lag, which is probably the reason for the poor attendance today, particularly by government members who, for some reason, perhaps to snub their own government, are taking very little part in a debate that could, in fact, be very constructive.

I would like to hear what the Reform Party whip has to say about this lack of respect for Canada's elected representatives.