Debates of May 6th, 2003

Citizenship and Immigration

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Cambridge for the question. Like he mentioned, we had the opportunity with our colleague from Guelph—Wellington to visit the facilities of the Wellington centre.

We are still waiting for the provincial government to show us clearly that it does not want to lease us that facility. A few months ago we had a deal and at the last minute it failed. We believe that for the sake of our own policy we need to do something. If the minister of public security from Ontario is serious when he talks about detention, he should be on side.

Arts and Culture

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance's last budget cut $25 million from Canadian TV production while boosting credits for American programs. This is the Canadian Alliance approach to culture and it has put the future of This Hour Has 22 Minutes , The Red Green Show and the The 11th Hour on hold.

Over 2,000 good paying jobs from coast to coast are now at risk and companies are facing bankruptcy but the finance minister is only offering duct tape for this season.

Will the minister come up with $25 million for the CTF today, or will he continue to abandon Canadian TV to the American market?

[Carole-Marie Allard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian television fund was created to enhance production in Canada and it did. We will certainly be happy to announce a solution in order to promote production in Canada.

Health

[Svend Robinson, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

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

Roy Romanow described the health council that was promised by the first ministers in their recent health accord as the “heart and soul of health care reform”. Now that the council has been delayed to the end of this month or possibly even later, will the Prime Minister assure Canadians that the council will be fully independent of governments, that it will be a public watchdog able to monitor and expose the destructive impact of privatization on health care delivery and will he ensure that it is chaired by a passionate advocate of public health care, not a privatizer like Frank McKenna or Michael Wilson?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the health council was an important part of the accountability framework set out in the health accord entered into by the first ministers in February. In fact, the first ministers left it to health ministers to clarify the mandate of the health council and to move forward with the appointment of a chair and members.

I can assure the hon. member that I understand, as do all my provincial and territorial colleagues, the importance of this council to Canadians in ensuring that they know where their tax dollars are spent and whether they are getting better health outcomes for those tax dollars.

Foreign Affairs

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

Mr. Speaker, I have some simple questions on missile defence for the Prime Minister.

Has Canada received a formal proposal from the United States? Is there a deadline? Before committing the Canadian people, will he tell Canadians precisely what the American proposal is? Will ministers of his government be free to disagree in public with the government's decision and still stay in cabinet?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I have to divide that question by five. The first answer is no, so I do not have to reply to the others.

Health

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

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

Twenty-five health ministers from across Europe met in Brussels today to discuss containment of the SARS virus in Europe. Of Europe's allies, Canada has had the most direct and relevant experience with SARS. Was the Minister of Health invited personally to join her colleague health ministers in Brussels and if she was not invited originally, why did she not take the initiative to inform personally her colleague health ministers of the lessons that Canada learned?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, in fact we share what we have learned through the WHO. I think the WHO will say that we are one of not only the charter members of the WHO but one of the members most committed to the work it does, which includes surveillance and dissemination of information and research.

I am well aware of the meeting of European health ministers. It is important that the European Union health ministers got together and talked about how they might be able to share strategies in relation to the European Union to help control and contain this disease.

Gun Control

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the justice minister gave the Coalition for Gun Control $380,000 to promote the anti-gun agenda at the same time that he is starving programs in his own department. The minister has just cut $65,000 from the firearms safety training programs in Saskatchewan.

Will the minister please explain how he can justify funding the Coalition for Gun Control while at the same time reducing funding to firearms safety training programs?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the whole purpose of the gun control legislation and in fact the discussion we had this morning is to make Canadian streets safer. That is what we intend to do. That is why we are bringing in Bill C-10A, to create greater efficiencies in the system so that we can do the proper training and at the end of the day have safer streets for all our people.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Canadian Alliance, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it seems very strange to me that it would make the streets safer by reducing firearms safety training programs.

The minister is unable to produce a shred of evidence that banning hundreds of thousands of guns owned by law-abiding Canadians has any effect whatsoever at reducing the criminal use of firearms.

Will the minister please tell us today which guns he is going to ban and also important, is he going to fully compensate the gun owners for the loss in value of their property?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, obviously in the discussion earlier this morning the member for Yorkton—Melville was not listening. He does not want to listen. He does not want to hear the good news stories.

I outlined a couple of examples in this morning's discussion from NWEST in terms of where the gun registry in fact helped them find illegal weapons and keep our streets safer.

The member for Yorkton—Melville opposite does not want to admit there are some good news stories out there as a result of the gun control program.

Free Trade Area of the Americas

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that FTAA negotiations are making some progress, the Secretary General of the Organization of American States is pessimistic, given that the negotiations are tied to a successful outcome at the WTO.

Can the Minister of Foreign Affairs give us a progress report, and tell us whether he shares the Secretary General's concerns?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, these negotiations are making progress and, naturally, everything is connected. The FTAA is connected to the WTO, to the OAS. Canada is concerned with the creation in the Americas of a system not only of justice and social solidarity, but also of international trade that will benefit all the people of South and North America.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the minister is well aware, the Bloc Quebecois wants to see a social development fund created to cushion the blow some countries may experience when the FTAA is implemented. We are not alone in this; it is an opinion shared by a number of the stakeholders, Mexican President Vicente Fox among them.

Will the minister acknowledge that the lack of such a social development fund accounts in large part for the resistance of certain Latin American countries to the FTAA?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, it is obvious that our goal, and the goal of all the countries, is to have a trade regime that will contribute to prosperity and thus to social justice in all of the countries.

The creation of a development fund is one thing that ought to be discussed, but we do have several major banks for this already, including the Bank for the Americas and the World Bank. The Canadian government believes that we now have the tools in place to help the developing countries.

As I have said, we are going to continue to work with these countries for prosperity and social justice throughout the Americas.

Fisheries and Oceans

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

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has been sailing some rough water lately. Although he is trying to hide it, a new issue is quietly emerging. Users of inland waterways deemed uncharted are being abandoned by Liberals and put in peril.

The minister's intent is that the charting and marking of inland waterways no longer be a federal responsibility. Why are the Liberals ignoring the threat this poses to recreational sailors and the liability factor faced by municipal and regional governments?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, the House and the member will know that we are constantly evaluating our services to see that they are current, to ensure that we are using our resources appropriately.

Some waterways are no longer used commercially by a wide variety of people or there are single users. We attempt in those cases to divest them to the local communities or to other interests prior to removing the buoys.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is not a case of new law. It is a case of convenient interpretation of existing legislation. This was a deliberate Liberal choice. The minister knows those inland waterways have been uncharted for many years under the Liberal watch.

How can the minister demand that municipal or regional governments assume federal responsibilities and meet higher standards than those that were in place when the work was done by his department?

[Robert Thibault, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, we make no demands on local governments.

Where we decide that our services are no longer required, where it is the best investment of Canadian resources for public goods and services and we choose to withdraw the services for those reasons, we first offer all those assets to the community. That is what we are doing in this case.

The Environment

[Charles Caccia, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The 2003 budget improves tax benefits and expense provisions for small business owners and their employees when using automobiles for work related purposes.

In view of the government's Kyoto commitment, could the minister indicate when a budgetary measure will be introduced to extend similar benefits to small business owners and employees using public transit?

[John Manley, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, first, I would observe of course that we all know in the House of the hon. member's firm commitment to sustainable development, a cleaner environment and public transit in principle.

I would say though that this kind of measure was considered by the finance committee over the last year. It was found that what we were really trying to do was promote incremental use of public transit and the best way to do that was to flow funds to expand the availability of public transit. That is why the government introduced a $435 million offer to the Toronto region to improve public transit and make it more available to users.

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

Mr. Speaker, Ontario along with France, Spain and Japan are the four international sites being considered for the $12 billion international thermonuclear experimental reactor project. The goal of the project is to develop fusion as a sustainable clean energy source for the future.

The province of Ontario has committed $300 million to the project and is willing to fund more to win the bid.

Does the federal government plan to make a financial commitment to the ITER project regardless of whether we get the project?

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. Minister of Natural Resources has been examining this issue together with our cabinet colleagues. Obviously no announcement has been forthcoming yet. We have had excellent representation made by a large number of Liberal MPs. Of course, that does not shock us because they always make excellent representations to all of us sitting around the cabinet table.