Debates of May 31st, 2000

Cultural Heritage

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, during the 35th parliament, this government was warned repeatedly by CSIS and what was formerly the Reform Party that the Babar Khalsa Sikh charity in B.C. was raising money for terrorist activities overseas. It took years to get the Babar Khalsa charitable status cancelled. Now it looks like the finance minister is repeating history, this time in connection with the Tamil Tigers.

If the FACT has done nothing wrong, will the Minister of Finance please stand now and say that he supports an inquiry into the activities of that group in Canada?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, Tamil Canadians are making a contribution to this country in virtually every segment of our society. We will build Canada only by embracing new communities, not by shunning then. Until the Reform Party understands that, all the name changes in the world will not help them.

Privacy

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the privacy commissioner, Bruce Phillips, said yesterday that nothing prevents the Minister of Revenue from releasing personal information to anyone, as he did with Human Resources Development Canada and that it is a myth to believe that information given to Revenue Canada is totally private.

Will the Minister of Justice finally realize this and get it across to her colleagues in the government that the only way to resolve the problem is quite simply to review the Privacy Act?

[Martin Cauchon, Liberal, Minister of National Revenue and Secretary of State (Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec)]

Mr. Speaker, first, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency is being questioned, so I would like to respond.

I have already explained it a number of times in the House. A keystone of the Income Tax Act is confidentiality, which is highly protected.

Within the department, when information is shared with other departments, other agencies, I am told, it is done very strictly according to the law. It is also shared when the person involved gives his or her consent.

I would also point out that, when people fail to honour a commitment, namely the law, penalties are provided under the Income Tax Act.

Community Futures Development Corporation

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Western Diversification. He took in last weekend's meetings in Quebec of the Community Futures Development Corporation. Would he care to share with the House some of the results of those meetings?

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, Secretary of State (Western Economic Diversification)(Francophonie)]

Mr. Speaker, over 500 men and women, mostly volunteers from 250-plus community futures development corporations and 130 of whom were from western Canada, met in Quebec.

These men and women identify local needs, priorize them and then find solutions to community and economic development. They met to see how they could do that even better. They did it with the help of the Government of Canada, and they do it in western Canada with the help of western economic diversification. Two years from now they will do it again.

Health

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the tragedy in Walkerton, Ontario, caused by a contaminated water supply has devastated that community and touched all Canadians.

In 1995 Health Canada identified 171 aboriginal reserve communities in Canada where water systems were defective and, to quote from its own report “have the potential to affect the health and safety of the community if the problems are not resolved”.

Could the health minister verify that these defective water systems have been fixed and that the health and safety of these aboriginal residents on reserve communities are not at risk?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. Health Canada has been vigilant over the years to make sure that aboriginal communities across the country have access to safe and pure drinking water.

Some years ago we did a survey across the country to make sure we understood the nature of the challenge. Since that time Health Canada has been working closely with aboriginal communities themselves and with other partners to make sure that the aboriginal population in their own communities have access to safe drinking water. That effort continues. We have challenges still, but we are addressing the issue with the communities themselves.

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the residents of these communities do not want pablum. They want answers. We have seen what can happen when a contaminated water supply in one community is allowed to go forward.

Could the minister stand in his place and say that after five years they have managed to correct the problems in these 171 communities where the health and safety of those residents are at risk?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, the member invites me to repeat my response. My response was to exactly what he asked.

My response is that Health Canada takes very seriously the need to have safe drinking water in all aboriginal communities. We have identified the challenges and we are working toward addressing those challenges with the communities themselves.

The Environment

[Dennis Gruending, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the environment commissioner told us yesterday that 20 million Canadians are being exposed to deadly smog and that 5,000 of us are dying from it every year.

Ten years ago governments signed agreements to do something about it but the plan was never implemented, says the commissioner. Today we are told by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation that Ontario is the third worst polluter in North America.

The minister recently announced measures to deal with smog producing emissions but they are voluntary. What assurance can he give that his latest plan will not go the way of the first with announcements and targets but no implementation?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, there was a different government in place in 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993, for those four years, which I think is comforting to him.

A process was put in place with respect to improving the quality of gasoline, reducing the sulphur in gasoline, reducing the sulphur in diesel, improving the quality of the vehicles, and extending the requirements of passenger vehicles to SUVs, trucks and vans, thus doubling the number of vehicles covered. There were changes with respect to benzene for the Canada-wide standards and ozone work with the United States on the ozone annex—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

[Dennis Gruending, NDP, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the hon. minister's efforts and I appreciate his response, but he did not quite answer my question.

I want to know, when he rose to announce the regulations he is putting in place, why he made them voluntary rather than mandatory to help us deal quickly with this death dealing smog.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, actually the hon. member is somewhat mistaken. The provisions I talked about are by and large mandatory provisions with respect to automobiles and with respect to Imperial Oil. He may have heard of the discussions between Imperial Oil and myself a few weeks ago. These are mandatory requirements, regulations.

There are some areas of federal-provincial jurisdictional overlaps where co-operation is needed. There we may have to get the support of the provinces. I sincerely hope the hon. member will help me get the support of the three NDP provinces in the country so that we can have the highest standards possible of air quality throughout Canada.

Human Resources Development

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

Mr. Speaker, with the scrapping of the department's big brother computer access files, the minister of HRDC supposedly guaranteed Canadians that their privacy would be protected. Fat chance.

The dismissive attitude of the minister is incredible. How could the minister first defend, then dismantle, then delude Canadians into thinking that big brother exists no more?

Anyone including employers, co-workers or business competitors with Internet access can retrieve sensitive personal information on Canadians citizens. How could she let that happen?

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Minister of Human Resources Development]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians would benefit from the way in which the privacy commissioner described our approach yesterday in the Senate when he said:

It contains the ingredients for the proper management of data...so that people know what is going on. It has put in place a proper process for conducting research projects by which, first, you define the project and identify the information necessary for its completion, and then you go out and get the information. Second, it subjects all those research projects to a proper process of review by qualified experts, and it involves the Office of the Privacy Commissioner—

He thinks it will work. Why doesn't the hon. member?

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

Mr. Speaker, Canadians do not think it will work. In her usual dismissive fashion the minister is trying to minimize this problem by refusing to take responsibility for her leaky, freaky department.

Good government should be protecting the privacy of Canadian citizens. Anyone with Internet should not be able to gain access to the most personal of information about other Canadians or themselves. Canadians have lost confidence in this minister.

In light of yet another embarrassing incident in her department, will the minister try to restore the faith of Canadians in their own privacy protection and do the right thing? Will she take their files off the Internet and herself out of cabinet?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member of all people in the House should know the importance of openness and transparency in our judicial system.

If in fact the hon. member is referring to the reports of umpires who are federal court judges, these are quasi-judicial proceedings. The decisions have been available in hard copy for years and they are now simply available through the Internet.

Hiv/Aids

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Cooperation. The world has been fighting HIV and AIDS for more than a decade, yet the disease remains a growing threat with about 16,000 new infections every day, the majority being in developing countries.

Tomorrow the minister opens an international HIV/AIDS conference in Toronto. Could the minister tell the House what she hopes to accomplish at this conference?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Minister for International Cooperation]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we, along with the partners that CIDA works with all over the world, will begin to look at the best practices on the ground that we use.

We will try to approach the problem in a more collective way and in a more aggressive way. As well we will look at new therapies such as mother to child transmission, one of the major problems; access to medication, another major problem; and how we begin to address the millions of orphans who are being left behind by this horrible pandemic.

Health

[Mike Scott, Reform, Skeena, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will go back to the Minister of Health to try to get a concrete answer. It was just reported a few days ago that members of the Norway House reserve are having to resort to bottled water to protect their health and safety.

Two years ago I asked the minister about the Gull Bay reserve where $4 million had been spent on that reserve and yet it still had contaminated water.

Of the 171 deficiencies in Health Canada's own report, could the minister tell us how many or can he tell us of even one that has been fixed as a result of that study?

[Allan Rock, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I have already assured the member and the House that the safety and purity of the water supply in aboriginal communities continue to be a priority for Health Canada.

We will continue to work with those communities and with the officials at Health Canada across the country to make sure that those communities have access to the safe drinking water they need.

Canada Information Bureau

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here is a list of contracts: Groupe Cible, $27,100; Média Q, $37,500; Ekos Research, $53,500; Muséobus, $27,700; Densan Consultant, $60,000; Compex, $27,500. These six contracts, which have a total value of $233,385 and which are all in excess of $25,000, were awarded without any bidding process by the Canada Information Office, since the minister took over responsibility for the CIO.

How can the minister tell the House without blushing that, since he has taken over responsibility for the CIO, all the contracts have been awarded through a competitive bidding process?

[Alfonso Gagliano, Liberal, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, I will say it again: I am told that all contracts in excess of $25,000 are awarded through a competitive bidding process and I stand by that statement.