Debates of Feb. 20th, 2002

National Defence

[Cheryl Gallant, Canadian Alliance, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the minister whether the senior source who leaked the contents of this memo had breached official secrets but the minister refused to answer the question. I ask the minister, since this leak of this sensitive document breached national security, will the minister seek to find and prosecute the person responsible for this leak?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I am as disturbed about leaks as anybody else is in terms of information that is in cabinet confidence.

I do not know what the source of that was. They do not appear to have had the document, from what I read in the media report, but seemed to be aware that a document exists.

However, the document is part of cabinet confidence. It is clearly the policy under which JTF2 operates and it is one that this government is responsible for.

The Environment

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister of the Environment explained to the House the twisted logic that he is using at the expense of Quebec regarding the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The minister says that he wants to respect the polluters pay principle, but he refuses to take the past into consideration.

Does the Minister of the Environment realize that applying the polluters pay principle while ignoring the past is tantamount to making Quebec pay for the bad performance of those Canadian provinces that are the biggest polluters?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday I was somewhat encouraged by the Bloc Québécois being in favour of ratifying the Kyoto protocol.

Now, 48 hours later, we get the impression that it does not want to do anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that everything has been taken care of, and nothing more needs to be done to limit or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I am not familiar with the Bloc Québécois' policy, but perhaps the hon. leader of the Bloc could tell us about its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[Gilles Duceppe, Bloc, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have explained it. Between 1990 and 1999, greenhouse gas emissions in Quebec increased by only 1.8%, while in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, they shot up by 20%, 26% and 32% respectively over the same period.

Now, the minister would have Quebec pay for what the others did not do. The minister wants to pretend to be implementing the Kyoto agreement while he is defending the biggest polluters. The minister wants to make Quebec pay, even though our province has already taken action in this area and effectively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, what this government wants to do is to discuss these things, with the provinces, including the rate by which greenhouse gas emissions increased during the nineties 1990s.

We want to have consultations on the figures that were submitted to us today.

The issue is not that I made a decision. They are the ones who keep asking me to make decisions which, in fact, under the Canadian constitution, should stem from discussions between the provinces and the federal government.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in order to get Quebec to pay, the Minister of the Environment is taking a sectoral approach, rather than territorial, in other words, by province.

Is the minister aware that the sectoral approach puts Quebec at a disadvantage, and that by taking such an approach, the government is making Quebec pay twice rather than once?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, I am referring to the issues the Bloc mentioned a few moments ago. These are exactly the issues we must discuss with the provinces.

We can use a formula based on population, for example, or based on emission rates, or their increase in the 1990s. These are the issues and details that we need to discuss frankly with the provinces, the territories and other interested parties.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, while Alberta was increasing its greenhouse gas emissions by 26%, it maintained its zero sales tax and plowed money into its heritage fund.

At the same time, Quebec was restricting its greenhouse gas emissions to a mere 1.8%.

Can the Minister of the Environment explain why Quebec, after all of the efforts it has made, should still have to pay for Alberta, a province that has no sales tax, that has billions of dollars stockpiled in a heritage fund, and that brags about having the lowest taxes in Canada?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member wishes to have this sort of discussion, I am surprised that he ran for the Bloc Québécois as a federal member of parliament, rather than as a MNA for the Parti Québécois.

He is giving us figures, details and points that we will discuss with the provinces in order to agree on a common position, which, I repeat, will be a good formula for all of Canada, where no one region will be too heavily burdened.

Steel Industry

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of jobs in Canada's steel industry are in jeopardy because of an unprecedented flood of unfairly priced imports. Offshore dumping is causing a national steel crisis. Steelworker representatives are in Ottawa today to plead for decisive government action before it is too late.

What is the Minister of Industry doing right now to defend the Canadian steel industry and to protect Canadian jobs against offshore dumping?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, the government has been in constant consultation with all stakeholders in the steel industry. We are acutely aware of the problems facing the industry owing to certain actions taken in the United States and the possibility of diversion.

As soon as we receive a submission from the industry, we will respond very quickly.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the steel industry has been begging for action for a couple of years and the Canadian steel industry is getting hammered while the government talks about awareness.

On March 4 the Bush administration will decide whether to hit steel products originating in Canada with extra duties, further damaging steel jobs in the industry. We need the government to stand up to the threat of offshore steel being diverted from U.S. ports of entry and dumped into Canada.

Will the minister commit today to put those necessary safeguards in place?

[John McCallum, Liberal, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions)]

Mr. Speaker, as I just explained, the government is highly aware of the situation and is in constant touch with the stakeholders in the steel industry. It is very hard for us to make any submission ourselves before we receive the submission from the industry which we have not yet received.

National Defence

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Defence. Yesterday the leader of the government in the Senate raised the possibility that JTF2 exceeded its mandate in Afghanistan.

That minister of the government said:

Where it became critical for a (defence) minister to inform the Prime Minister...is that there seemed to be some question about whether the incident in question went beyond the mandate of (JTF2).

Between December 5, 2001, and January 30, 2002, has JTF2 gone beyond its mandate in any action during its deployment in Afghanistan?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

No, Mr. Speaker.

[Joe Clark, Progressive Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to quote again the minister's colleague, the leader of the government in the Senate. She told the Senate yesterday “there was a considerable amount of unease among a number of ministers who learned for the first time” what had happened with JTF2 in Afghanistan.

What exactly caused that considerable amount of unease referred to in public, in the Senate by his cabinet colleague? What went wrong that upset the cabinet and why are parliament and Canadians not told the story?

[Art Eggleton, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, I think the right hon. member is getting far beyond what is reasonable here. There is nothing that the JTF2 has done that is outside government policy.

Perhaps the hon. leader of the Senate was referring to the general controversy on detainees and the American treatment of detainees, which I think has been put to rest with the comments of President Bush that in fact they will all be treated in accordance with humane treatment as provided for in the Geneva conventions.

Foreign Affairs

[Brian Pallister, Canadian Alliance, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian foreign policy must be built on Canadian interests and it is not in Canada's interests to allow Saddam Hussein to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Three years ago Canada participated in military action to enforce the United Nations security council resolution which demanded Iraq to comply with weapons inspections, but Iraq has not.

Today the government seems to be backtracking on our commitment to work with our allies to eliminate this threat.

What evidence does the government have that Iraq is less of a threat today than it was in 1998?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the government is extremely concerned with the position of Iraq. As I said in the House on repeated occasions to the hon. member, we continue to do exactly what we did, as he referred to in the past, and that is work within the United Nations system and the sanctions regime of the UN to enforce them, to strengthen them and to apply them to the government of Iraq, and to avoid punishing innocent civilians.

That is what we continue to do and we will continue to ensure that weapons of mass destruction are not acquired by Saddam Hussein and used to disturb the peace of the world.

[Brian Pallister, Canadian Alliance, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the government seems to see a greater threat in its own backbenchers than it does in Saddam Hussein.

In 1998 the Prime Minister said “inaction will encourage Saddam Hussein to commit other atrocities, to prolong his reign of terror over his own people, his neighbours and the entire world”. Since then every study by academics, journalists and intelligence agencies has said that Iraq has expanded its production of biological and chemical weapons.

The threat posed by Iraq is stronger than it was three years ago. Why is the government's response weaker?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I totally reject the premise of the question. As I said, the government's response is not weaker. We are continuing to monitor this. We are continuing to work through the UN system. We will continue to ensure not only that we have the support of the world community in what we do, but the support of our backbenchers while his backbenchers continue the internecine dispute which they are presently in.

The Environment

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in connection with implementing the Kyoto protocol, the Minister of the Environment said in the House at the beginning of the week that he would not take the past into account, that he clearly favoured a sectoral, rather than a territorial approach. He has just said that he wants to see costs shared so that no one region has to pay more than another.

How can he tell the House today that everything is open, that he is going to talk with the provincial ministers, when he himself has very clearly set the parameters for those talks, none of which are to Quebec's advantage?

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is exaggerating.

I clearly said that the past must be taken into account, but there are limits. The decisions made by Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa may not have had anything to do with greenhouse gases.

So, we are going to take the past into consideration, but there comes a point when the past has very little to do with what is going on now.

[Michel Gauthier, Bloc, Roberval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, once a province, such as Quebec, has introduced two plans to limit greenhouse gases, reducing its rate of emission of CO

2

into the atmosphere, while other provinces, including the one from which the minister hails, have increased their emissions by 20%, is one not entitled to wonder whether the minister has not deliberately chosen parameters that are not in Quebec's interests in order to protect his own region?