Madam Speaker, I would like to begin my speech by making a little parenthetical comment to the member for Lanark--Carleton who began the debate this afternoon when we resumed second reading on Bill C-35. He made a comment on the fact that his speech had been interrupted for some two weeks and that he had some time to think about it.
I want to give him a little bit of a commiserating thought which is that to my recollection my record on having a speech interrupted basically in mid-sentence is about a year. There was a time in one of the previous parliaments where I gave a speech and then the debate on that item was dropped. It was not called again by the government for just a couple of days short of a year, at which point I was able to resume my speech. My problem was somewhat different from his in that he had some time to reflect on what he wanted to say. I had enough time to have forgotten what I wanted to say.
We are talking today about Bill C-35, an act to amend the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act. This again comes down to a fundamental principle and that is the principle of law and order and who it applies to. Basically the bill provides for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to provide exemptions from Canada's laws to certain individuals, organizations and people who are part of these organizations, primarily diplomatic missions and this type of thing.
I have a bit of a problem with this whole general concept. I know that it is part of the convention and that there is a lot of agreement among countries. Generally the rule is that we will exempt members of another country from any of the obligations under our government if that country does the same for our diplomats and our people when they travel to that country. That is sort of the basic principle. It is a pretty sound principle, if it could be applied.
However there are some rules and laws on which I do not think we ought to bend, yet we do quite easily. I would be much happier to specify explicitly to diplomats that some of the laws in this country are not to be compromised by them, by their staff, by their families or by whomever instead of saying that they are exempt from all these laws. There should be no exemptions. Of course this was already mentioned when we talked about our rules against driving while intoxicated. That is one of the most blatant examples and it is very fresh in the minds of many of us here who have spent some time in Ottawa.
I believe that we should say to people coming to this country that we will not exempt them from a particular law and if they do not agree they should send people here who will. In other words, we do not want people who will break laws and endanger the lives and attack the security of Canadian citizens. We have to be very sure that we protect Canadians. That is a substantial missing link here.
When we exempt a person from a law, even a simple parking law, what we are basically saying is that everyone else must pay the penalty for that exemption. That is a principle which I think is contrary to the fundamental democratic principle of equality of people within our society.
I have another little parenthetical statement I want to make here because I think it is rather funny. When I first arrived in Ottawa some eight years ago, and I believe next week is the eighth anniversary of that election, one of the things that shocked me in terms of the culture shift from the cities and towns in the west which I had grown up in and lived in was a considerable disregard for the law in Ottawa. That shocked me, because I thought that Ottawa was the lawmaking capital of the country and in this very city citizens did not pay any regard to the foremost fundamental laws governing traffic. That was what got me.
I think I am still the only one in Ottawa who, even when I walk from my office to the hotel at midnight, still stops and waits at a wait light. I have not seen anyone doing it. I have even had people look at me like they think I am crazy. They ask me why I am not walking, why I am standing there. I have had cabs stop. The drivers think I want a ride. All I am doing is simply obeying a law. The law says we should wait to go until the light gives us permission. Very frankly, there is quite clearly a lack of enforcement of that law which means that people do not obey it.
When I drive in Ottawa I can assure members that I am much more anxious about the safety of pedestrians than I am back home, because back home I am assured that they will stay on the sidewalk and will not break the laws, whereas here I have the opposite assurance. I know that if there is a person on the sidewalk he can and likely will, on a whim, leave the sidewalk and walk in front of me, maybe pausing just short of making contact with the vehicle. That unfortunately does not make for a very good, safe society.
Earlier this week when taking my 10 minute walk from the hotel to the office in the morning, I decided to count infractions. How many infractions do you think I saw, Madam Speaker, just traffic infractions such as vehicles making u-turns in the middle of the street, vehicles making illegal turns, pedestrians jay-walking and pedestrians walking against the light? In 10 minutes in my little walk from the Travelodge hotel to my House of Commons office I counted 61 violations. Clearly the law is not being enforced so therefore it is just blatantly being broken.
That is a civic matter and has nothing to do specifically with the House of Commons, but the reason I mention it is that when we have people living in Canada who for one reason or another are exempt from certain laws, it sends a totally wrong message. As I said before, we need to be very sure when we exempt individuals from obeying these laws that we have a very good reason to do so and that the reason is consistent with our objectives.
When I think of some of these laws that could be exempted I think of the GST. If we decide that we will exempt foreigners who are in our country as part of a diplomatic or other mission from paying the GST, I suppose we could. I know that it is done, because our diplomats are exempted from the tax rates when they go to other countries. There is a reciprocal agreement.
Just collecting a tax or not collecting a tax is not necessarily an affront or a threat to our safety, but there are other laws which I believe we should very vigorously enforce and I think that this actually is the root of the bill. It is one of the reasons that the Liberals over there refuse to get into the debate. All throughout the afternoon only one Liberal stood up once for two minutes to ask a question. That was the hon. member for Malpeque. I congratulate him for actually being awake and listening and participating.
However, the fact that the Liberals are not putting up speakers to defend the bill is a tacit admission that it is indefensible. Therefore they will just push it through with their majority and will not need to try to persuade anyone to vote for it because their members will vote for it on command and they cannot defend it to the others anyway.
I believe the reason they are doing this is primarily the APEC situation in which they brought in some individuals, and I will not mention them by name, and it was quite clear that those individuals were not willing to obey the security and other laws of our country and they were exempted. There was then of course a considerable fear.
I believe one of the reasons the protesters in Vancouver were pushed back from the motorcade was for their own safety. Some members of the motorcade from foreign countries could have taken action against the protesters had they perceived that something was going awry, which would have been very unfortunate.
Their job was to protect their man. That is legitimate but there is a better way. We should inform delegates invited to Canada on such a mission that it would be better for them to comply with our rules and to allow us to provide the security. Then everything would be done in an orderly fashion.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about the right of demonstrations. It has become almost a cliché in Canada and to some extent in the United States. Some very great good has come from the freedom of expression and from the freedom of demonstration.
I refer particularly of our friends in the United States. I wonder how many more years of inequality between whites and blacks in the U.S. there would have been were it not for Martin Luther King and some of the demonstrations in which he participated. However I remind the House that those demonstrations were always done peacefully.
Mahatma Gandhi was another person who engaged in peaceful demonstrations. It is called passive resistance. When people are willing to stand and object because something is wrong and are willing to be sent to jail because they feel the other side is wrong, it sends a very powerful message. If it is done often enough the message gets through. However if we say to the protesters that they have the right to engage in any activity they want, we are inviting an increasing degree of anarchy into our society.
We had protesters put pies into the faces of ministers and even our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister would not necessarily have been my first choice. However, having earned that position and having been elected by the people, we have in our society an obligation to respect that position.
When we are telling people it is okay to protest and to take a lemon or meringue pie and shove it into the Prime Minister's face, I say that is a case of great indignity and should not be tolerated. We have come to a point where we no longer have discernment on what behaviour should or should not be tolerated. There are some things we should not tolerate.
I would like to give another little sidebar if I may. One of the great surprises in my life as a member of parliament is the abuse one gets as an MP simply based upon a perceived association from other people who think we are not honourable.
An event happened to me that was both funny and sad. I was visiting a business person who was showing me around his shop. I had not entered there in my capacity as an MP. He knew I was an MP and we were having a fairly reasonable conversation. During the course of the conversation suddenly and without warning he kicked me quite hard. I can still remember the pain because he got me in a place where it hurts. He said that he felt better and that he always wanted to do that to a politician.
We both had a little laugh and I passed it off, but inside I was very hurt because he did a very undignified thing to me. He thought it was funny, so what could I do?
If the circumstances were different I could have charged him with assault. That would have been the appropriate thing to do, but I did not and I would not. We sort of take these things, but we need to make sure that when people are protesting they treat other people with dignity.
The kind of protests we have had in the country in the last number of years have increasingly shown a total lack of respect and dignity for the participants. I am referring to meetings of the G-8, IMF, World Bank and APEC.
Are they not honourable and reasonable people who are leaders in their countries? They come together to debate and to solve problems. Why should we allow other people to put their lives at risk? We should have reasonable limitations on freedom of demonstrations that protect the rights and dignity of other people as is required in the convention. Canada has agreed to the clauses that protect the dignity of the person.
I have another little sidebar. While in Ottawa during the last eight years I had opportunity to meet a number of foreign dignitaries, ambassadors and representatives from other countries. One of the greatest venues for this is sponsored by a Canadian organization called the Christian Embassy.
Gerry Sherman often gets members of parliament, senators and foreign diplomats together so that we can learn about their countries and they can learn about ours. He has taken some of them on guided tours across the country. It is a great thing he does. In this case we have people treated with the dignity they deserve and in 99.9% of cases the kind they have earned. I would like to see that continued and encouraged.
I want to say one more thing about international meetings. If we do not act properly we will probably no longer have these meetings. I say to protestors that they have the right in a democracy to get involved in the debate. They should forward their debaters to the House of Commons by getting somebody elected who would represent their points of view. They can also be in other venues, but let us get into debate.
Just as I do not have the right to breach the two sword lengths between this side and the government side, neither does the protester have the right to breach the security of anybody else who wants to get into debate. They have the right to be in the debate. They do not have the right to violence or the threat of violence.
Unless this is checked the time would come when the G-8, G-20, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would only be able to meet somewhere on an undisclosed island where they would arrive without formal notice. Once they were there all other aircraft would be kept 50 miles away. That would be the only way they would have an opportunity to sit and debate the issues in peace, freedom and security. I believe that island should be Canada, but it cannot be if we do not have a balance of discipline with respect to protesters.
This is not a party position. I am one person who says that I accept the rules of ordered debate and of an ordered civilized society. I expect others to do so as well.
Bill C-35 does not come anywhere near setting out new powers for the RCMP to deal with this kind of thing. It is a backward step in my view as it does not enhance the ability of Canada to be an honourable, dignified and secure host of these international conferences and other functions.