House of Commons Hansard #39 of the 36th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was quebec.

Topics

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec

Liberal

Stéphane Dion LiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, if that is true, the Bloc Quebecois will vote in favour of the bill.

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Reform

John Reynolds Reform West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the solicitor general.

We agree with the solicitor general when he says that 70% of the people who end up in the prison system have a drug or alcohol problem. What we disagree with is that he says he has successful programs. Of his own staff, an internal report says, 70% say that the programs are ineffective in our prison system.

Can the minister explain to the Canadian people why he thinks his programs are a success when 70% of his staff in the prisons think they are not successful?

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, there is certainly one thing I would never want to do and that is to indicate that Correctional Service Canada has not been addressing this issue because from 1993 to last year the percentage has dropped from 39% to 11% on random testing. That is success, but we intend to do more.

RcmpOral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Reform

John Reynolds Reform West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, BC

Mr. Speaker, the RCMP is badly underfunded in Canada and the minister is planning to shut down seven detachments in the province of Quebec. The solicitor general has stated that organized crime is one of his number one priorities.

With biker wars taking place in Quebec and with one of our own members of parliament under 24 hour RCMP protection, can the minister tell us when he is going to stop slashing resources for the RCMP and increase its funding so we can go after organized crime?

RcmpOral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. colleague would never want to tell anybody in the House or the Canadian people something that was incorrect. There is nothing to indicate that detachments are going to close anywhere. The truth is, there has been a review and it is ongoing.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Bloc

Michel Gauthier Bloc Roberval, QC

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has just told my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry that a number of sovereignists did not support his rhetoric.

May I humbly remind him that he leaves us far behind in that, for there are tens of thousands of federalists who do not agree with what he is saying. To name but one of these, Jean Charest, leader of the Quebec federalists.

How can the minister claim that the supreme court's requirement of clarity can be translated into forbidding the Quebec national assembly from presenting to its citizens the political project of its choice?

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec

Liberal

Stéphane Dion LiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, I invite the hon. member to sit down and quietly reread the bill. The national assembly can ask what it wants. There is even a whereas clause on that.

It can ask what it wants, but it cannot compel the House of Commons to negotiate on secession. The House of Commons has a responsibility to establish that there is a clear wish for secession, which would lead to the Government of Canada negotiating the sad event which the breakup of our country would represent.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Bloc

Michel Gauthier Bloc Roberval, QC

Mr. Speaker, the minister is using the supreme court opinion as he sees fit.

How can he base his position on this opinion when it refers 57 times to negotiation in order to claim that any recourse to the word “negotiation” in the question would make that question obscure and unacceptable?

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec

Liberal

Stéphane Dion LiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, we would never have needed such a bill if the Premier of Quebec, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and the other independent leaders had been capable of completing the phrase “required to negotiate if a clear majority on secession, with a clear question”, with everything on the table, including borders.

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:30 p.m.

Reform

Myron Thompson Reform Wild Rose, AB

Mr. Speaker, in a Correctional Service Canada document that was leaked to me this morning entitled “Report of the Task Force on Security”, the vision for corrections in the new millennium is as follows: removal of all firearms from the institutions; all prisons take the form of small communities; and all offenders prepare their own meals.

My question is for the solicitor general. Why is he turning our federal institutions into summer camps and our guards into camp counsellors?

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure from whom my hon. colleague received the leaked document, but I assure the House that public safety is always the number one issue in our federal penal institutions and it will continue to be.

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Reform

Myron Thompson Reform Wild Rose, AB

Mr. Speaker, further in the document it states that all razor wire will be replaced because of the concentration camp appearance of the facilities and that inmates will be given control keys to their own cells. “Welcome to Kingston. Here is the key to your cell”.

Why is the solicitor general more concerned with appearances than with public safety?

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, I can assure my hon. colleague that public safety is, always was and always will be the number one issue in our penal institutions across this country. That is why we are going to address the major problems that are in our penal institutions across this land.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Verchères, QC

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs justifies his bill on Quebec's next referendum by saying that the federal government needs to define under what conditions the question would be clear.

How can the minister presume to define under what conditions the question asked at the next referendum would be clear and unbiased when his bill refers 23 times to the concept of secession and is clearly worded to give a negative connotation to a legitimate project to which almost half of Quebecers subscribe?

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec

Liberal

Stéphane Dion LiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, first, it is not a bill on a referendum. It is a bill to set a framework whereby the Government of Canada must negotiate if the process is clear and must not negotiate if it is not clear.

Second, this bill follows up on the supreme court opinion, which uses the word secession, which is the legal term to describe the act of separating from a country to create a new one.

To my knowledge, the first point on the Parti Quebecois' agenda provides that Quebec would become a state and would be represented at the United Nations as an independent state. If this is not the case, then the Bloc Quebecois should tell us.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Bloc

Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Verchères, QC

Mr. Speaker, one wonders who needs to be subjected to a framework.

How can members and ministers representing Quebec support such a bill, which seeks to restrict the democratic rights of their people, the people of Quebec? How could the Minister for International Trade, among others, get involved in this?

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Papineau—Saint-Denis Québec

Liberal

Pierre Pettigrew LiberalMinister for International Trade

Mr. Speaker, as Minister for International Trade and as a Quebecer I would never support any measure to gag Quebec's national assembly.

This bill respects the right of the Quebec national assembly to ask a question on what it intends to do. If this then means asking the House of Commons, the Government of Canada, to negotiate, we have a duty not to embark on negotiations on Quebec's independence if the question asked was not clear.

I want to stress that I support the choice made by Quebecers. Seventy-two percent of them do not want another referendum, but the people opposite want to continue to divide us and to make us weaker.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

The Speaker

Order, please.

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:35 p.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the solicitor general a question about his comment on public safety. Four hundred and eighty offenders have gone unlawfully at large from Canadian prisons since April 1998 and have not been recaptured. The Sumas centre in Abbotsford, British Columbia where I live had 53 unlawfully at large. Many are serious offenders. This disgraceful record emphasizes the Liberal government's soft on crime policy.

Why not just tell the people of the Fraser Valley that criminals are more important than the law-abiding citizens who live there?

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:40 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated before, and would indicate again, public safety is always the number one issue. At the Sumas centre a number of changes have been made and there are 20% fewer escapees from that institution than there were previously.

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:40 p.m.

Reform

Randy White Reform Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, those words are not very comforting to the people who live in my community.

Since those 53 offenders have gone unlawfully at large, at least eight sexual offences have occurred, in addition to assaults and robberies. I have received letters from the Commissioner of Corrections and the solicitor general who say “All is well. That is just the risk you folks have to take”.

Why will the solicitor general not grasp a bit of reality and admit that Canada's prison system needs an overhaul, and a major overhaul at that?

PrisonsOral Question Period

2:40 p.m.

Cardigan P.E.I.

Liberal

Lawrence MacAulay LiberalSolicitor General of Canada

Mr. Speaker, when I was appointed solicitor general and saw the drug problem, I knew that it had to be addressed more forcefully. It is being addressed, it has been addressed and it will continue to be addressed. Other public safety issues will continue to be addressed in our federal institutions across this land, all with public safety being the number one issue.

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:40 p.m.

Bloc

Michel Bellehumeur Bloc Berthier—Montcalm, QC

Mr. Speaker, we have noticed that the bill introduced by the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs does not mention any threshold for determining a majority below which the federal government will unilaterally refuse to negotiate with Quebec, for the good reason that such a threshold could be challenged in the courts. No threshold is up to such a challenge before a referendum is held.

How can the minister think that setting a threshold after a referendum in Quebec would be any less likely to be challenged in the courts?

Bill C-20Oral Question Period

2:40 p.m.

Saint-Laurent—Cartierville Québec

Liberal

Stéphane Dion LiberalPresident of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs

Mr. Speaker, for the simple reason that the supreme court is leaving it up to us to determine what constitutes a clear majority in the eventuality of a referendum.