Debates of March 16th, 2001

National Defence

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, 11.5% is actually one of the highest in NATO, but I think we can do a lot better. We put in place an employment equity program about a year ago that will help lead us toward doing that. It will help make women more welcome, not just in the administrative part of the Canadian forces but also in the combat area, if they are qualified. We are not reducing our qualifications one iota. It is not about that. It is about removing barriers, and we are determined to do that. We are determined to increase the number of women in the Canadian forces.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil, QC]

Mr. Speaker, now is the time to act. Apart from what the Minister of National Defence is saying, he has a damning report in his hands.

It refers as well to comments made by military personnel in a position of authority. It reports misogynous, contemptuous and racist comments about women.

How can the Minister of National Defence allow such comments, which is totally repugnant to modern society?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. Some of the comments quoted in the report were absolutely appalling. They did not correspond to the values of Canadian society nor of the Canadian forces. They did not represent what the vast number of men and women of the Canadian forces believe.

People will be expected to follow the values of the Canadian forces in terms of their behaviour and will be held accountable for doing that. There will be better and more effective education and more accountable leadership within the forces to help ensure that we do in fact make women, visible minorities and aboriginals more welcome in the Canadian forces.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the same report condemns some comments made by military personnel about women such as, and I quote:

All they do is get pregnant and leave after three years. They are unreliable.

There is obviously a major problem with DND's policy to integrate women.

Does the minister realize that there is a total lack of awareness among military personnel regarding the place of women and minorities in society?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, as I said a few moments ago, I think those comments were absolutely appalling and unacceptable.

At the same time, I must say that they did not represent the values of the vast majority of the men and women in the Canadian forces. People will be expected to follow those values. They will be expected to exhibit behaviour that is acceptable, not what those kinds of comments represent.

[Michel Guimond, Bloc, Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-De- Beaupré—Île-D'Orléans, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we also learned that the military personnel responsible for recruiting women, members of visible minorities and aboriginals in the Canadian forces does not know anything about the meaning of employment equity.

Will the minister pledge to set up a true action plan to change the very culture of the Canadian forces?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, there has been great change in the Canadian forces over the last few years. Over 300 recommendations that came out of such reports as the Somalia commission and various other studies are in effect changing the culture of the Canadian forces.

What the report the member cited also said was that a sound employment equity plan was put in place a year ago. They supported that, I supported that and we will implement it. We will make sure we remove those barriers and make the Canadian forces more reflective of society as it is today in Canada.

Taxation

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

A recent Statistics Canada study suggested that the wealthiest half of Canadian families have 94% of the wealth and the poorest half of Canadian families have some 6% of the wealth. In other words, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and moving further away from the Trudeau vision of a just society.

In light of that, could the Deputy Prime Minister tell the House why the government chose to cut capital gains tax a few months ago when it clearly favoured the rich over the poor, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor in this country?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, to give a fair and balanced picture, the hon. member should also have talked about the billions and billions of dollars we have added to the national child benefit, a most important new social program in a generation especially focused on low income Canadians. He should also have mentioned the $2.5 billion that we committed last fall to early childhood education.

Yes, poverty is a serious problem, but we are working on it. As far as the government and I are concerned, we are making progress.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, Statistics Canada says exactly the opposite. It says that the gap is widening between the rich and the poor and that the government's tax package will widen that gap even further.

Some corporate executives in this country have saved millions of dollars because of the cut in taxes and capital gains. My neighbour in Saskatchewan, John Keen, told me this morning that he saved $25 on his $500 capital gains on a small mutual fund.

In light of this kind of evidence from Statistics Canada, will the minister now consider a wealth tax in this country at a similar level to the United States? The American government is, of course, admired by both this government and the official opposition.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member should remember that since we took office, we have taken almost 800,000 low income Canadians off the tax rolls. We have introduced full indexation, which helps those at the bottom end the most. Thirty-five per cent of our personal tax cuts went to low income Canadians and Canadians with families.

In addition, our tax relief of $1.3 billion for energy costs went to low and middle income Canadians and the homeless received $753 million.

Agriculture

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, today desperate farmers are occupying the legislature in Manitoba. Yesterday they were burning the minister of agriculture in effigy. What does the minister do? Does he go and find more money for these desperate farmers? No. His department decides to do a media blitz and advertises how wonderful his government is doing in agriculture.

Could the minister tell us how much that media blitz cost? Could he also tell us whether it would not have been better to spend that money on agricultural programs than in Mr. Asper's newspapers?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, a government has an obligation to inform Canadians on what it does. The hon. member often reminds us that we should tell Canadians what the government is doing.

What we did was explain to farmers and to Canadians the support and the increase that the government has provided. I do not need to take the time of the House to remind everyone that we have gone from $600 million to $1.6 billion. There will be $2.66 billion dollars made available to farmers in income support this spring.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I still do not know how much the media blitz cost but I am sure we can do that through access to information.

I think we should tell Canadians what this minister has not done. He said in the House that his government since 1995 has been putting more money into agriculture. Could he tell us why in 1993 there were $4.4 billion in federal funding and today there are only $2 billion in federal funding? What happened to the difference? Before he talks about the $42 billion deficit, we know there is money there. The finance minister has told us that there is surplus. Could the minister tell us why he cannot find another $400 million for agriculture?

[Lyle Vanclief, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member answered his own question. When we formed this government, the Government of Canada was taking in $120 billion a year and spending $162 billion. We cannot do that on a farm or in any other business. That is a $42 billion deficit. We had to put the fiscal mess that the Tories left us in order before we could help farmers. Now that we have it in order, we are helping farmers.

Immigration

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on June 28, 1999, Gaetano Amodeo and his wife submitted an application to Immigration Canada for permanent residency. As an applicant of Italian origin, Mr. Amodeo was required to include documents certifying he did not have a criminal record and was not under investigation by the police. Given that there was a warrant for Mr. Amodeo's arrest, he would have had a hard time producing these documents.

My question is for the minister of immigration.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Every immigrant, not just Italians. That's racist.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Did Mr. Amodeo include the required police check with his application?

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before in the House, Mr. Amodeo's name was removed from the original application. I also want to say very clearly to the House that there was no meeting between Mr. Amodeo and any immigration official.

[Myron Thompson, Canadian Alliance, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there are two alternatives. Either the minister and the department of immigration waived the requirement for Mr. Amodeo to provide a certificate showing that he had no criminal past or the department of immigration knew that he was a wanted fugitive.

Did the department of immigration receive a certificate of good conduct from the Italian police with Mr. Amodeo's application in 1999? Yes or no.

[Elinor Caplan, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, let me try again because the premise of his question is completely wrong. Mr. Amodeo was not a party to the first application because his name was removed by a legal document.

Let me say very clearly, he was not granted permanent resident status. As soon as we had sufficient evidence he was arrested. He is now in jail and awaiting a deportation hearing. He is not a permanent resident of Canada.

National Defence

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in its report, the committee states that “there was a resistance to any data gathering”.

It is obvious that the absence of any measures to evaluate the results and the efforts of military personnel in positions of authority contributes to their lack of interest for any integration program.

Will the Minister of National Defence admit that not assessing, in the evaluating report of military personnel in positions of authority, the achievement of equity objectives for women removes any incentive to take the department's objectives seriously, with the result that all the fine rhetoric becomes meaningless?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, there have been failings in the past in terms of how these issues have been dealt with. There is a data gap. There is no doubt about it. Much of the information in the report that was published is based on anecdotal information.

We are determined that we are going to cover that gap in terms of data collection. We are going about doing it in a much better way now so that we can have the kind of measurements for progress year in and year out to show that we are in fact implementing our employment equity plan. We are determined to do that.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Laurentides, QC]

Mr. Speaker, is the minister prepared to periodically report to the House on the results obtained by military personnel, so that we can evaluate their performance and, if necessary, decide on corrective measures or sanctions?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Yes, Mr. Speaker.