House of Commons Hansard #61 of the 37th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was referendum.

Topics

Foreign AffairsOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Betty Hinton Canadian Alliance Kamloops, Thompson And Highland Valleys, BC

Mr. Speaker, I currently have 49 constituents waiting for their passports, some for as long as four months. The average wait time is more than 40 working days regardless of what the minister's office, the 1-800 number, or any letters from the minister may claim. Since the beginning of January my office has had over 200 calls from people needing help.

If the minister cannot resolve a passport issue, how can I trust him to resolve the Iraq situation?

Foreign AffairsOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Toronto Centre—Rosedale Ontario

Liberal

Bill Graham LiberalMinister of Foreign Affairs

Mr. Speaker, as I have responded to questions in the House before, I quite concede the fact that the delays in receiving passports have been long.

They are the result of an extraordinary increase in the numbers of passports requested. The delays are increased as well because of security measures which we have had to take to ensure the integrity of a passport document which is one of the most important documents that Canadians have when they travel abroad.

I assure the hon. member that we are taking steps to reduce the timelines and I hope that within the next couple of weeks we will be able to get this down to a much more reasonable delay.

Employment InsuranceOral Question Period

February 17th, 2003 / 2:55 p.m.

Bloc

Sébastien Gagnon Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, QC

Mr. Speaker, since the Employment Insurance Act does not adequately respond to what is happening in the workplace, several employers have resorted to accumulating hours worked in order to extend the number of insurable weeks worked.

The Minister for Human Resources Development Canada is aware that the Employment Insurance Act gives her the opportunity to create pilot projects. As she did in the short weeks case, could the minister not launch a pilot project that would allow employees and employers to accumulate hours worked legally?

Employment InsuranceOral Question Period

2:55 p.m.

Brant Ontario

Liberal

Jane Stewart LiberalMinister of Human Resources Development

Mr. Speaker, let me take this opportunity to remind the new member of the things that we have done to change the Employment Insurance Act that have been beneficial to seasonal workers.

We went to an hours based system and repealed the intensity regulation. We made the small weeks pilot projects a permanent piece of the employment insurance system.

The hon. member is right. We are working at the community level in many places in Quebec and New Brunswick with employers and individuals to do what Canadians really want, which is to create more work for them.

AgricultureOral Question Period

3 p.m.

NDP

Dick Proctor NDP Palliser, SK

Mr. Speaker, whether they sell their produce through the Wheat Board or supply management, the draft proposals released last week by the chair of the WTO agricultural panel spell even more problems ahead for Canadian agriculture producers.

Moreover the chair's proposal on export subsidies will force Canadian farmers to wait another nine years for the United States and Europe to eliminate their trade distorting largesse.

In light of these bad news proposals, will the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food advise the House and Canadian farmers how the government intends to protect Canadian agriculture in the future?

AgricultureOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Prince Edward—Hastings Ontario

Liberal

Lyle Vanclief LiberalMinister of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for accompanying my colleague, the Minister for International Trade, and I to the WTO ministerial in Tokyo in the past few days. We were not happy with Harbinson's initial draft report.

I can assure the hon. member and all farmers that the government will continue to vigorously support the initial negotiating position that we have put forward in the agricultural trade negotiation talks on behalf of all sectors of our Canadian agriculture.

EthicsOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Joe Clark Progressive Conservative Calgary Centre, AB

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the acting Prime Minister. I noted the acting Prime Minister indicated that the Prime Minister was called out of the House for urgent and unexpected reasons.

Would the acting Prime Minister indicate to the House whether the Prime Minister would be prepared to come back today and make a statement on motions outlining the policy regarding blind trusts and whether or not ministers of the Crown are allowed to meet regularly to be brought up to date on new ventures being considered by companies held in blind trusts?

EthicsOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Don Valley East Ontario

Liberal

David Collenette LiberalMinister of Transport

Mr. Speaker, the right hon. member knows full well that the Prime Minister attends question period regularly. He will be back later in the week and I am sure he will entertain that question.

Presence in GalleryOral Question Period

3 p.m.

The Speaker

I draw the attention of hon. members to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Stephen Kakfwi, Premier of the Northwest Territories and the Hon. Paul Okalik, Premier of Nunavut.

Presence in GalleryOral Question Period

3 p.m.

Some hon. members

Hear, hear.

PrivilegeOral Question Period

3 p.m.

The Speaker

I am now prepared to rule on the question of privilege raised on February 12, 2003, by the hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton concerning management of the Canadian firearms program.

I would like to thank the hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton for having raised this question as well as the hon. members for Yorkton--Melville, Vancouver East, and Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough, as well as the hon. government House leader and the hon. House leader of the official opposition for their comments.

In raising this question of privilege, the hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton referred to a question posed by the hon. member for Huron--Bruce during the oral question period on February 11, 2003, concerning the funding of the firearms registration program. The hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton took exception to the reply of the hon. Minister of Justice that, he said, “...reveals [the minister's] failure to accept that the House reduced to zero his estimates on December 5...”

The minister's response, as recorded at page 3424 of Debates of February 11, 2003, is as follows:

Mr. Speaker, up until the approval of the supplementary estimates, we were moving with what we call cash management. We said that before Christmas. The program is running at minimum cost but we are able to fulfill our duty.

Of course it is a short term solution and we are sure that the House will support gun control and will support public safety when we vote on the supplementary estimates.

The hon. member for Sarnia--Lambton alleges that the minister's response indicates that the minister is ignoring an order made by the House on December 5, 2002, and, in so doing, is breaching the privileges of the House in regard to its control of the public purse.

The member further contends that the House both refused funding for the firearms registry and indicated that no more money was to be devoted to that program.

Several other members expressed considerable interest in how the program is currently being funded, given the decision of the House on December 5.The hon. government House leader, in his intervention, pointed out that the firearms registry continues to exist as a program established by statute and that no decision has been made by the House to alter that fact. He insisted that:

—the estimates were reduced at the request of the minister. It is at the request of the minister that the amounts were reduced—

and that this reduction:

—is the amount of an increase in a supplementary estimate and nothing else.

In short, the gist of the argument presented by the hon. government House leader, a point to which I will return shortly, is that the sum removed from supplementary estimates (A) represented only funds that would have been added to the initial funding provided in the main estimates for the Canadian firearms program for this fiscal year.

The hon. House leader of the official opposition noted that the decision to remove $72 million from the supplementary estimates had been taken by the House as a whole, by unanimous consent, rather than as a government initiative. He acknowledged that the hon. government House leader had undertaken negotiations to secure the unanimous consent of the House to the withdrawal of the $72 million estimate for the Canadian firearms program. The hon. government House leader of the official opposition added, and I quote:

--We agreed and the House agreed to drop the $72 million, so everybody assumed that we would see no new action [on the Program]...

Let us begin by examining the event where this dispute over the Canadian firearms program originates. The Journals of December 5, 2002 indicate the following. I quote:

By unanimous consent, it was ordered,--That the Supplementary Estimates (A) be amended by reducing Vote 1a under Justice by the amount of $62,872,916 and Vote 5a under Justice by $9,109,670, and that the supply motions and the bill to be based thereon be altered accordingly.

A quick look at the context of this matter may be useful so let me review briefly how a government program, such as the Canadian firearms program, is created and funded. First, such a program required authorizing legislation. Once the required statutory authority is in place, the government can submit its request for program funding to Parliament through the estimates. I refer hon. members to pages 697 to 698 of Marleau and Montpetit where the importance of this process is succinctly outlined. I quote again:

The direct control of national finance has been referred as the “great task of modern parliamentary government”. That control is exercised at two levels. First, Parliament must assent to all legislative measures which implement public policy and the House of Commons authorizes both the amounts and objects or destination of all public expenditures. Second, through its review of the annual departmental performance reports, the Public Accounts and the reports of the Auditor General, the House ascertains that no expenditure was made other than those it had authorized.

As members well know, the main estimates provide a breakdown, by department and agency, of planned government spending for the coming fiscal year. Each budgetary item or vote has two essential components: an amount of money and a destination; in other words, a description for what the money will be used. Should the amounts voted under the main estimates prove insufficient or should new funding or a reallocation of funding between votes or programs be required during a fiscal year, the government must ask Parliament to approve additional amounts by submitting supplementary estimates.

In the case of the Canadian Firearms Program, legislative authority was provided by Parliament in 1995. The full financial history of the program need not concern us here, since this particular dispute concerns the current funding of the program, that is, funding for the fiscal year 2002-2003.

In March 2002, the government laid upon the table the main estimates for the fiscal year 2002-03, including a planned spending estimate of $113.5 million for the Canadian firearms program. The main estimates were referred to appropriate standing committees for study and, in due course, were reported back to the House or deemed reported back and ultimately approved by the House on June 6, 2002. The government was thereby authorized to spend the $113.5 million on the Canadian firearms program as laid out in the main estimates for 2002-03.

Following the start of the new session last September, the government presented supplementary estimates (A) for review and approval by this House. These estimates were referred to standing committees for study and eventually came before the House for final approval.

The supplementary estimates (A) called for additional funding for the Canadian firearms program in the amounts of $62,872,916 under Vote 1a and $9,109,670 under Vote 5a of the Department of Justice. On December 5, the final day for consideration of the supplementary estimates by this House, these amounts were withdrawn from the estimates package.

Clearly there is a difference of opinion among hon. members on the motivation of different parties in granting their consent to this withdrawal and, perhaps more importantly, on the consequences of the motion that was adopted to effect that withdrawal.

Some hon. members seem to equate the withdrawal of those estimates by unanimous consent of the House to their being voted down. I cannot agree and I see more than a semantic difference in those scenarios.

Other hon. members invite the Chair to conclude that the firearms registry program must be halted because the negotiations among the parties and the circumstances leading to the House granting unanimous consent to withdraw the supplementary funding request for the program were predicated on that very assumption. Your Speaker cannot reach that conclusion even though I do not doubt for a moment the bona fides of hon. members making that claim. Hon. members may argue that they only granted their consent to withdraw these estimates because they believed they were thus cancelling the program but if that was their belief, they were mistaken and, if that was their objective, it has not yet been achieved.

As I have often stressed when delivering rulings on questions of privilege, and this is especially relevant when the House is seized with highly charged issues, the Chair can only ensure that a motion is properly before the House and that the rules, practices and procedures of the House are followed. Your Speaker can no more consider why members are supporting a motion than he can weigh the substantive merits of a motion before the House. This is especially true when the House proceeds by way of unanimous consent. In those circumstances, the House consciously chooses to set aside the usual procedural safeguards that the Chair can and must enforce. In other words, the House chooses to forgo its usual rules and practices so that it can proceed unhindered on a certain course of action; the Speaker has no role whatsoever in these circumstances except to ascertain whether or not unanimous consent exists.

Such was the case last December 5 when, by unanimous consent, the House adopted a motion to withdraw the supplementary estimates for the firearms program. Practically speaking, what occurred on December 5, 2002 was that the additional funding being requested for the Canadian firearms program was withdrawn from the package of supplementary estimates that was finally approved. This still left the Canadian firearms program with the original $113.5 million authorized by the House last June in the main estimates. That may not have been what some hon. members understood to be the case, but that is exactly what happened.

The hon. Minister of Justice indicated on February 11 that he will be requesting additional spending authority in Supplementary Estimates (B), which will be presented to the House in the coming weeks. Hon. members will have a further opportunity to pursue with the Minister of Justice all the issues related to the management and funding of the Canadian Firearms Program at that time.

Meanwhile, however, the Chair can find no procedural irregularities in anything that has been said by the hon. Minister of Justice in response to questions on the Canadian firearms program and I must conclude that no prima facie breach of privilege has occurred in this case.

Government Response to PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Halifax West Nova Scotia

Liberal

Geoff Regan LiberalParliamentary 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 17 petitions.

National Day Against Impaired Driving ActRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Randy White Canadian Alliance Langley—Abbotsford, BC

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-396, an act to establish National Day Against Impaired Driving.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to introduce this bill into the House as the national day against impaired driving. That day would be on December 1 of each year. Many backers of the bill see this as an opportunity to profile at the appropriate time of year, on December 1, the dangers and the irresponsibility of those who have been driving while drinking.

I hope it gets to the floor of the House and is voted for because there are many people in Canada who deserve not only the remembrance of those who have died or those who have been injured from drunk drivers, but also to make people aware on an ongoing basis of the need for protection against drunk drivers.

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

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Rick Casson Canadian Alliance Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to table, pursuant to Standing Order 36, a petition that has 48 names on it. These names are added to tens of thousands that have been tabled in the House by members of all parties.

These concerned citizens in my riding call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Bloc

Antoine Dubé Bloc Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC

Mr. Speaker, I have here a petition signed by 4,000 persons wishing to see the Canadian government, and the Prime Minister in particular, take the courageous stand of opposing any attack on Iraq.

The wording of this petition does not comply with all the required criteria, but given the urgency and importance of this matter—it being a petition for peace signed by the people of the Outaouais region of Quebec—I would ask for unanimous consent so that I can table it today.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

The Speaker

Does the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière have unanimous consent to table this petition?

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Cheryl Gallant Canadian Alliance Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON

Mr. Speaker, today I am presenting a petition on behalf of the people of Ottawa, Greely and Merrickville. The petitioners request Parliament to recognize that the Canadian Emergency Preparedness College is essential to training Canadians for emergency situations, that the facility should stay in Arnprior and that the government should upgrade the facilities to provide the necessary training to Canadians.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:15 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Darrel Stinson Canadian Alliance Okanagan—Shuswap, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents of Okanagan—Shuswap calling upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research rather than embryonic stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illness and diseases of suffering Canadians.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:20 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Randy White Canadian Alliance Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I have several petitions, one of which contains thousands of names. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:20 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Randy White Canadian Alliance Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition from many members of my riding who call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illness and diseases of suffering Canadians.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:20 p.m.

Canadian Alliance

Roy H. Bailey Canadian Alliance Souris—Moose Mountain, SK

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition mainly from people in Estevan and the surrounding area of my constituency. These people are calling upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research to find the cures and therapies necessary to treat the illnesses and diseases of Canadians.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:20 p.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—St. Clair, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present today.

The first is a petition calling on the House to recognize the discrimination that is going on in that rural route mail couriers are not able to organize and develop collective bargaining rights. That is prohibited specifically under subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

PetitionsRoutine Proceedings

3:20 p.m.

NDP

Joe Comartin NDP Windsor—St. Clair, ON

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is with regard to child labour. It is seeking support from the House to recognize the problem of child labour around the globe and to demand assistance in that regard, in particular to provide education to children to allow them to avoid the exploitation that occurs as a result of not having those types of resources.