Debates of Oct. 3rd, 2002

Official Languages

[The Speaker]

Pursuant to section 66 of the Official Languages Act I have the honour to lay upon the table the annual report of the Commissioner of Official Languages covering the period from April 1, 2001 to March 31, 2002.

Pursuant to standing order 108(4) a) , this report is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Joint Committee on Official Languages.

Committees of the House

[Pat O'Brien, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I am pleased to table, in both official languages, the government's response to the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade entitled “Building an Effective New Round of WTO Negotiations: Key Issues for Canada”.

Copyright Act

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, on behalf of the Minister of Industry, the report on the review of the provisions and operation of the Copyright Act entitled “Supporting Culture and Innovation: Report on the Provisions and Operation of the Copyright Act”.

Government Response to Petitions

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to five petitions.

Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-2, an act to establish a process for assessing the environmental and socio-economic effects of certain activities in Yukon.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Canada Pension Plan

[Don Boudria, Liberal, for the Minister of Finance]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-3, an act to amend the Canada Pension Plan and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Nuclear Safety and Control Act

[Don Boudria, Liberal, for the Minister of Natural Resources]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-4, an act to amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Petitions

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to table from people in my riding. The petitioners wish to draw the attention of the House that the creation and use of child pornography is condemned by the clear majority of Canadians.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all the necessary steps to ensure that all materials that promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents calling upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research rather than embryonic stem cell research.

[Rose-Marie Ur, Liberal, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I wish to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of Lambton--Kent--Middlesex calling upon Parliament to protect the health of seniors and children, and save our environment by banning the disputed gas additive MMT, as it creates smog and enhanced global warming.

[Rose-Marie Ur, Liberal, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I wish to present calls upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which provide or glorify pedophilia involving children are outlawed.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from citizens of the Peterborough area who are opposed to a war with Iraq. They mourn the deaths of the up to 3,000 people that resulted from the attacks on the cities of New York and Washington and share the grief and trauma of the family and friends of the victims.

The petitioners call upon the Parliament of Canada to refuse to cooperate in any way in a war against Iraq and to use Canada's diplomatic efforts to convince the United States, Britain and the United Nations to choose the tools of diplomacy and not the weapons of war for establishing peace in the Middle East. They further call for the lifting of all but military sanctions against Iraq.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Points of Order

[Carol Skelton, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with regard to a motion on the Order Paper, Motion No. 2, in the name of the Minister of State and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

The motion contains four separate and distinct parts, each capable of standing on its own. I raise the matter because these four unrelated parts make it impossible for members to debate and cast their votes responsibly and intelligently.

The four separate parts deal with: first, reinstating evidence from the last session with regard to committee work; second, establishing and reinstating procedure for government bills; third, establishing a special committee on the non-medical use of drugs; and fourth, authorizing the Standing Committee on Finance to travel in relation to its pre-budget consultations.

In the throne speech the government announced that Bill C-5, species at risk, would be reinstated. My party is against the reinstatement of Bill C-5. Therefore I must oppose the motion.

However, there is another part of that motion that establishes the special committee on non-medical use of drugs. The committee is a result of a Canadian Alliance opposition motion that passed unanimously in the House in the first session, a motion sponsored by the member for Langley—Abbotsford. We are obviously not against that part of the motion. It is an important issue and I understand that the committee is ready to report when reconstituted. There is great interest in its findings.

Another part of the motion allows for the finance committee to travel for pre-budget consultations. Some members may be for this part or against it. Perhaps there may be a temptation for a member to include it in instructions to the committee or offer, through amendment, more details about its travels.

The motion also includes a separate section regarding the evidence of committees in the first session. Since every committee can decide that for themselves I am not sure why it is necessary to have this put to the House but perhaps we can listen to debate and discover the rationale for its inclusion.

On page 478 of Marleau and Montpetit it states:

When a complicated motion comes before the House. . .the Speaker has the authority to modify it and thereby facilitate decision-making for the House. When any Member objects to a motion that contains two or more distinct propositions, he or she may request that the motion be divided and that each proposition be debated and voted on separately.

At pages 427 to 431 of the Journals of 1964 there is a Speaker's ruling regarding the authority of the Chair to divide a motion. At page 431 the Speaker, after a lengthy historical report on the issue of dividing motions, concluded:

I must come to the conclusion that the motion before the House contains two propositions and since strong objections have been made to the effect that these two propositions should not be considered together, it is my duty to divide them--

In examining the nature of the two propositions from 1964 I have concluded that Motion No. 2 should be divided into four separate motions.

Another ruling you may want to consider, Mr. Speaker, is from April 10, 1991. The opposition objected to a government motion because it contained 64 separate proposals. The Speaker confirmed, at page 19312 of Hansard from April 10, 1991, that “the Speaker has the authority to divide complicated questions”.

We argue that Motion No. 2 be divided into four separate motions because the motion does four different things with two decisions associated with yea or nay. For example, a member may agree with one and be against two, three and four, or agree with one and two and disagree with three and four, or agree with two and be against one, three and four, et cetera.

The potential number of outcomes is 16. We would need to allow 16 different amendments to deal with various deletion combinations to solve the problem. Further, the issue of amending the different parts of the motion to make it more suitable or to offer an alternative adds to the dilemma. The number of amendments necessary to solve the problem is astronomical. It is clear that Motion No. 2 in its present form is out of order and unacceptable.

The items contained in it require separate votes, separate amendments and separate debate to solicit support for those amendments to convince members to vote for or against. Of course, the government forgets that Parliament is about debate.

It might help the Chair and the public watching to get an understanding as to why this motion is before the House and why it is before the House in this unusual form.

The government is once again attempting to manipulate the rules of Parliament to abuse the rights of all members because of its deep divisions in the Liberal Party. It is clear that this manoeuvre would avoid potential prime ministerial embarrassment of having Liberal backbenchers voting against the reinstatement of Bill C-5 and Bill C-15B by lumping into one package the important issue of non-medical use of drugs and prebudget consultation with Bill C-5 and Bill C-15B. The Prime Minister is gambling that Liberal backbenchers will hold their noses and vote for the whole package rather than see the work of the special committee on the non-medical use of drugs be for naught and scuttle prebudget consultations.

If this motion is allowed to stand as is, members will be forced to vote for the reinstatement of Bill C-5 and Bill C-15B to ensure prebudget consultations and to save the good work of the special committee. This motion is wrong procedurally and is wrong ethically.

The original motion proposed to House leaders had in it a part that replaced the lost supply day. The supply day was lost because the government decided to prorogue which extended the summer break by two weeks. It was not the opposition decision so it made sense to give that supply day back.

Perhaps we could separate the reinstatement part from the rest of the items, put back the part about the additional supply day and then we could avoid debating all four motions separately. That would be the sensible thing.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect I cannot share the view of my colleague on this matter or the petition of her party because in fact the question really is whether or not the motion encompasses one principle.

The motion says at the outset “In order to provide for the resumption and continuation of the business of the House”. That is what this is about. We want to carry on with the work we have done. We have had debate on these issues before and on all these matters, these motions and bills. That is valuable.

The question is do we want to continue with the work of the House. That is the principle here. They are all encompassed in that. I would think that members would want to have the House's work go on and not want to engage in attempts to derail this work.

That is the point of the motion. It encompasses one principle and therefore I would argue is permissible.

[Chuck Strahl, Canadian Alliance, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to engage in a debate on this but it is important to note that the business of the House goes on uninterrupted until prorogation. The reason we have prorogation, at least one of the reasons from the government side, is that it is a fresh start. It is supposedly a chance for the government to come forward with a new agenda, a new plan, some new ideas and something to galvanize the nation. We are going to debate today whether that happened or not and we will get to that shortly.

However as far as the business of the House, the House leader's argument on the Liberal side that they just want to continue with business as usual is the antithesis of that.

The government decided that the business of the House had to stop, that it had to prorogue, clean the tables and start anew with new committees, new agendas and a whole new legislative package. For him say that all the business they want on the Liberal side has to also continue uninterrupted is simply false.

Prorogation stops some things and until the House agrees, it cannot continue as if nothing happened. Prorogation requires the decision of this House, if we are going to continue with an old agenda, a decision that each of us as parliamentarians has to be willing to take part in and vote on.

As our House leader has pointed out, there are four separate issues at stake and we cannot, on both sides of the House, say the government has now decided, in an omnibus motion, to move forward with the parts it likes and drop the rest. What if there are parts that I like or another member might like? We do not have the privilege that the government is choosing right now of being selective.

It should be divided. If the government is insistent, it will vote them through, and so be it. However in the meantime, I would argue and hope, Mr. Speaker, that you would see the wisdom of allowing all of us to decide on the merits of each of the four separate issues and whether they should go ahead. The House will decide. If the House decides to move forward, then prorogation means that those issues are carried forward. However it does not give the Liberals, I would hope, blanket permission to pick and choose the items that they like and leave the rest of it to be swept into the garbage can.

[Leon Benoit, Canadian Alliance, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the government has been making some comments and suggestions lately that it would like to make the House truly democratic. I would suggest that this is an opportunity for the government to demonstrate that it is serious about trying to make the House democratic by dividing this motion so that members in the House can vote on each motion separately. The current motion does not allow that.

[The Speaker]

I would remind hon. members that this is a point of order. The Chair is looking for assistance in making a decision on the point, rather than debating points on the merits of dividing the motion for procedural assistance.

I assume that the hon. member for Prince George--Bulkley Valley will provide that kind of assistance now.

[Dick Harris, Canadian Alliance, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure that as part of your deliberation you will certainly want to weigh the motives of why the government would put different motions together in somewhat of an omnibus bill. As you know, this practice has been carried on by not only the Liberal government on a regular basis but also its predecessors in the Tory party. They put motions that are mostly distasteful to even their own members, and certainly the opposition, together with motions that are purely acceptable by their own members and the opposition in such a way that it forces the opposition and its own members away from a democratic vote on whether they like the motion or not and forces them to vote for one bill which contains both the distasteful and the acceptable motions.

This is the motive behind it. It has been demonstrated clearly by this party and the Tories before it on many occasions. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that you have to consider whether this is a democratic thing to do; to take the right away from members on both sides who oppose certain motions in a omnibus bill by forbidding them to vote individually on those motions. I believe that the government's motives behind a bill like this has to be considered as you make your deliberation.

[The Speaker]

I appreciate the assistance offered by hon. members who participated in the discussion. I am not sure that motives are something that the Chair wants to get into particularly. I am more concerned about the procedural aspects of the motion and whether it meets the requirements of our practice and Standing Orders.

However I will take the arguments under advisement, consider the matter and get back to the House at an early opportunity with a ruling on this point in respect of the acceptability, or divisibility or whatever of the motion that is on the Notice Paper at this time. I thank again hon. members for their intervention.

The House resumed consideration of the motion for an address to Her Excellency the Governor General in reply to her speech at the opening of the session, and of the amendment.

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply

[Suzanne Tremblay, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette-Et-La Mitis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think you will need to keep the name of my riding in mind in future. Having not used it for a long time, it is perfectly understandable that you have lost sight of it, but I think you will remember it in future.

I am very pleased to be able to speak within this debate on the address in response to the Speech from the Throne, which was delivered on Monday afternoon. I have heard a number of these speeches since coming here, but this was really the one I had the greatest hope for, and unfortunately the one that has been the greatest disappointment to me. I was expecting a throne speech with some perspective for Canada's future, one in which we would see what future policies would be, how we could move forward in the 21st century with as much harmony as possible and how we could solve the problems facing us.

I must admit, however, that of all the throne speeches we have had to date, this is the weakest I have ever had occasion to read.

I would like to begin with several points that, on first reading, strike me as positive. It is, however, very obvious that we will have to wait for the concrete measures arising out of the fine words we heard when the speech was read. One of these points is ratification of the Kyoto protocol.

The Prime Minister has promised that a resolution would tabled in the House. We will have a debate on the Kyoto protocol, and it appears that we will be able to vote on this resolution, to honour the commitments we made regarding the Kyoto accord. However, since the beginning of the session, we have already noticed that this issue seems to be creating problems within cabinet itself. So, even though we view this as a rather positive step, we have concerns: what will the apparent dissension in cabinet lead to?

Considering the Minister of Health's election results, the province she lives in and the position of the government in her province, whose premier said he is even prepared to separate from Canada if the Kyoto protocol is implemented, I can understand why she is trying her best, first to save her seat, second to ensure that her province does not separate, and third to play for time on the Kyoto accord. This is the first thing.

Another concern about Kyoto is the fact that the protocol will be implemented over a 10-year period. We wonder to what extent all the efforts that have been made by Quebec, for example, over the past 10 years will be taken into consideration when the time comes to define everyone's share of the burden. We will also have to see to what extent we will truly be able to allocate the necessary funds to fully implement Kyoto. Will the Prime Minister's successor decide to change things and postpone its implementation? These are some of the questions that we have, even though we believe the ratification of the Kyoto protocol is a very good idea.

There is a second point that I found interesting in the announcements made by the Prime Minister, particularly in the speech that he delivered the day after the Speech from the Throne. He said he would double Canada's aid to developing and poor countries, particularly in Africa. As such, this is good news. However, there is a catch.

The pledge that we made was to invest 0.7% of our GDP. Even if we were to double the amount invested this year, we would still be very far from the real commitment that we made.

We would still be at less than half of what we promised, to invest 0.7% of GDP. Even by doubling the current levels, we would still not catch up to the 1993 levels of aid to developing countries. Ours is a country that is rich, that wants to do so much and that wants to share. Even the Prime Minister said that he felt there could be a link between terrorism and poverty; and if this link can be established, then it seems to me that we should invest more in poor countries in order to help them help themselves.

There was also an announcement that there would be a review of our policies on defence and international affairs. What was strange about the announcement, about the way it was expressed in the Speech from the Throne, is that it would have been preferable to hear that we would first establish our policy in foreign affairs, and then decide what to do for defence.

If we establish defence policy first and foreign policy second, it is like putting the horse before the cart. I think that the government should first decide on our foreign policy before dealing with defence and military policy.

This is obvious to us every day, as we read what forces members tell us; as an army, we do not look well equipped. We do not have enough men. We do not have enough money. We do not have enough weapons, and we do not have enough equipment. It would therefore be extremely difficult to think that we could do something with our army if we had to establish our defence policy ahead of our foreign policy. I think it would be wiser to do the opposite and then see, looking at our needs at home and the needs of poorer nations. The army can wait, because I do not think that we are going to make the world a better place by fighting wars.

Of course, the constructive measures announced in this throne speech include some to raise aboriginals' standard of living. Once again, this is very disappointing, because it is taken almost word for word from the 2001 throne speech.

The final good piece of news is that we are apparently going to be asked to consider decriminalizing pot. This will probably be quite an interesting discussion. It is legislation that would probably reassure many people, given the pointlessness of criminalizing something that is extremely important for some and insignificant for others. It would help ease the backlog of court cases.

Now let us take a look at the troubling aspects of the throne speech. Once again, I am referring to all the jurisdictional intrusion that is in store for us. From the beginning, the government of the member for Saint-Maurice has persistently intruded whenever possible, and it would seem on purpose sometimes, into provincial jurisdictions.

Sometimes it would seem that it deliberately intrudes into areas of provincial jurisdiction, so that it can then turn around and hold federal-provincial conferences, try to settle the differences, and have a policy of confrontation rather than a true policy of partnership. Although the speech contains the term partnership, it is easily seen that this is just a word, and not a concept that is truly part of the profound philosophy of the person who leads the government. His is an attitude of belligerency, of picking fights, looking for confrontation, rather than one of looking for any real partnership. This is rather a pity, because he could have, after all this time as Prime Minister, finished his political career on a rather positive note.

Once again, we have a prime minister who will be remembered, as was his mentor, as someone who wanted to put Quebec in its place, who has succeeded in impoverishing his home province even further, leaving it in a worse situation than it was when he took over.

Another aspect totally ignored by the throne speech is the famous fiscal imbalance. Mr. Dion does have, I acknowledge, much knowledge in certain areas of his speciality, that is political science.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)]

Order, please. I remind everyone that members are referred to by the names of their committees or their positions.