Debates of Oct. 15th, 2004

Justice

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, in relation to seeking a designation upon conviction, such as for a dangerous offender, that discretion rests with the prosecutor. Those prosecutors are in fact within the employ and direction of provincial attorneys general.

Therefore, the question as to why in a given case such a designation was not sought would be better put to the provincial attorney general involved.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, without commenting on the specific case, could the minister explain why repeat violent offenders are being let out on the street?

Will the government admit that the current system is simply not working? How many more tragedies have to occur before the Liberal government realizes that we need to be tougher with violent offenders?

Why do the rights of convicted criminals continue to supercede the rights of law-abiding citizens and innocent victims?

[Anne McLellan, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Mr. Speaker, we have a corrections system and a parole system, the main objective of which is the safety of the public.

I think it is also fair to say that we have a corrections and parole system that is viewed globally as one of the very best. We do. We must always put public safety first but we also know that the reintegration of offenders is also an important part of our justice system.

I have indicated that I am willing, as are the heads of Correctional Service Canada and the Parole Board, to review both the substance of the law and existing policies--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Hamilton Mountain.

Youth Justice

[Beth Phinney, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, could the justice minister tell Canadians and this House the results of the most recent report on youth custody and community services?

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that we had a 4% drop in the youth population in custody from 2001 to 2002, but in particular the overall youth incarceration rate was 12.5% per 10,000 youth population, which represents a decrease of 5% from the previous year but, most important, a significant 33% decline since 2003 and 2004.

I would like to add that we do have to address the disproportionate incidence of aboriginal youth in the criminal justice system.

Economic Development

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the day before the election call, eastern Ontario Liberal MPs announced that our region's CFDCs would receive $10 million.

Then the Liberals lost the seats. Five months went by with no hint of the funds, until my office called the department this morning at 9 a.m. to inform it that I would be raising this fact in question period at 11 a.m.

Within an hour, CFDCs were informed that at last the funds were on their way.

Now it is nice, I guess, that Fednor is capable of such partisan hypersensitivity, but could I ask that from now on it base the timing of its announcements on genuine community needs instead of on partisan considerations?

[Joe Comuzzi, Liberal, Minister of State (Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario)]

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to the hon. member that the eastern section of our province was granted a $10 million economic development program.

I am pleased to report that before 9 o'clock this morning that program was well on its way. My colleagues and the colleagues on that side of the House are in the process now of being advised where those moneys are being spent.

Softwood Lumber

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Americans filed a NAFTA extraordinary challenge in the softwood dispute which will extend NAFTA legal action into next year.

Five senators, obviously prompted by the U.S. lumber lobby, recently spoke on the congressional record urging major changes to chapter 19 of NAFTA because of their unhappiness with losing at the NAFTA panel on the softwood dispute.

Their statements represent a major threat to NAFTA. Why has the government remained silent to this hostile attack on NAFTA?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite the contrary. To go back to his speech coming out of Sun Valley, the Prime Minister raised how important it was that the very provisions of NAFTA be respected by all parties.

I am glad the hon. member is going to join with us in advocating throughout the United States that the rule of law be respected.

National Defence

[Odina Desrochers, Bloc, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the list of troubling facts surrounding the construction and commissioning of the submarines purchased in Great Britain is growing. The papers reported again this morning that the problems with the Chicoutimi appear to date back as far as 1988.

Does the government agree that these daily revelations on the misadventures of these submarines are proof that an independent investigation is needed more than ever?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows full well, an investigation is being carried out by navy experts. It is in the navy's interest to determine the problem in order to rectify it. Our navy carried out the acquisition in a very responsible manner, and I am confident that it will act in the same manner during its investigation. Let us allow this investigation to unfold without us MPs jumping to irresponsible conclusions.

Infrastructure Programs

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the recent Speech from the Throne, we learned of the government's wish to continue to invest in communities, and I congratulate it on that. However, the municipalities in my riding are waiting with impatience for the rural component of the Canada-Ontario infrastructure agreement to be signed and the project to start.

Can the minister tell us when this commitment made by the government in the throne speech will become reality, and whether projects in my riding and elsewhere will be forthcoming?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Minister of State (Infrastructure and Communities)]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member can look forward to two pieces of good news.

First of all, we will shortly, within weeks in fact, be concluding discussions with our colleagues in Ontario in connection with the municipal rural infrastructure program.

Second, in our 2005 budget we plan to share a portion of the gas tax with communities of all sizes, in his riding and in every other riding in Canada.

International Trade

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada and other member countries have successfully challenged U.S. legislation, known as the Byrd amendment, which encourages trade disputes by providing that tariffs collected as a result of U.S. industry complaints are paid to those same complainants.

The WTO ruling gives Canada retaliatory rights until the U.S. repeals the legislation. What retaliatory measures is the Canadian government planning?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, we have, in accordance with the rights awarded to us by the WTO to retaliate in terms of Byrd, worked on a preliminary list. This is a list we are working on in conjunction with the eight other countries that will be taking retaliatory actions against the United States. We will be working in conjunction with them.

I think hon. members will probably see our preliminary list within the next month.

[The Speaker]

The Chair has notice of a question of privilege from the hon. member for Calgary Southeast.

Privilege

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today under the provisions of Standing Order 48 that involves two matters of privilege arising from yesterday's question period and about which I gave you notice yesterday.

I submit that in responding to a question put by me, the Minister of Canadian Heritage deliberately misled the House and that her reckless remarks have had a second effect of tarnishing my reputation as a member of Parliament.

On page 119 of Erskine May's 21st edition it states:

The Commons may treat the making of a deliberately misleading statement as a contempt.

The minister clearly misled the House in an effort to attack my integrity when she said:

According to an article in the National Post, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast spent $121,000 of taxpayers' money in airline trips during the Alliance leadership campaign. Shame, shame.

She further said:

--where is the $121,000 of taxpayers' money for airline trips that the hon. member took during the Canadian Alliance leadership campaign?

Those statements are patently false. The minister was apparently referring to a Southam News story that appeared on June 16, 2001, which cited the annual report on MPs expenses for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001.

As Your Honour will know, this report included all expenses related to parliamentary travel for the full 12 months of the fiscal year.

The Canadian Alliance leadership campaign in the year 2000 was held between March and June of that year, some three months of the 12 month period covered by the parliamentary travel report that the minister cited. She therefore patently misled the House when she said that my travel expenses were incurred “during the Canadian Alliance leadership campaign”.

I anticipate that the minister will seek to blame her serious and, I believe, deliberate error on the National Post article that she cited. However the article in question makes very clear that the amount in question constituted my parliamentary travel “over the past year” and “for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001”.

The article cited by the minister does not make the claim that she suggested it makes, i.e., that the entirety of my parliamentary travel occurred during a three month period.

Furthermore, the minister said twice that I had “spent $121,000 of taxpayers' money for airline trips”. This too is patently false, as you, Mr. Speaker, will know and as the minister will know.

The public accounts disclosure report for the House of Commons includes all travel expenses, including the travel status expense allowance and all other forms of travel. In other words, the figure cited by the minister includes the cost of maintaining a secondary residence in the national capital and a host of other necessary receipted expenses incurred by all members, which have nothing whatsoever to do with “airline trips”. The cost of flights for the year in question was therefore considerably less than the minister claimed, as she well knows.

I therefore submit that she wilfully misled the House in at least two respects. I further submit that the minister did so in order to defame me and thereby breached my privileges as a member.

According to our practice, as stated on page 214 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada :

The House of Commons is prepared to find contempt in respect of utterances within the category of libel and slander and also in respect of utterances which do not meet that standard. As put by Bourinot, “any scandalous and libellous reflection on the proceedings of the House...” and “libels upon members individually...”--

On March 16, 1983, Mr. Mackasey raised a question of privilege in order to denounce accusations made in a series of articles appearing in the Montreal Gazette . On March 22, 1983, on page 24027 of Hansard the Speaker ruled that he had a prima facie question of privilege.

The reasons given by the Speaker, from page 29 of Jeanne Sauvé's selected decisions, are:

Not only do defamatory allegations about Members place the entire institution of Parliament under a cloud, they also prevent Members from performing their duties as long as the matter remains unresolved, since, as one authority states, such allegations bring members into “hatred, contempt or ridicule”. Moreover, authorities and precedents agree that even though a Member can “seek a remedy in the courts, he cannot function effectively as a Member while this slur upon his reputation remains.” Since there is no way of knowing how long litigation would take, the Member must be allowed to re-establish his reputation as speedily as possible by referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.

I would also refer you to a Speaker's ruling from October 29, 1980, at page 4213 of Hansard . The Speaker said:

--in the context of contempt, it seems to me that to amount to contempt, representations or statements about...members should not only be erroneous or incorrect, but, rather, should be purposely untrue and improper and import a ring of deceit.

I submit that the hon. Minister of Canadian Heritage defamed me and thereby violated my privilege by deliberately implying that I had somehow “spent taxpayers' money for airline trips” illicitly.

Indeed the blues show her saying “Shame, shame”, and “Where is...the taxpayers' money for airline trips that the hon. member took during the Canadian Alliance leadership campaign? Where is it? Did he give it back?”

These comments were clearly intended to leave the implication that my annual parliamentary travel expenses, albeit erroneously cited as I have detailed, were somehow illicit and that I am under some legal or ethical obligation to repay this amount. This implication is clearly defamatory.

Any expenses that I have claimed as a member of Parliament have been in full compliance with the rules of the House and have been approved by officers of the House for reimbursement. In carefully complying with those rules any travel costs that I charged to the House travel program were related to parliamentary business alone, while any non-parliamentary travel was paid for by myself personally, or my party, or organs of my party.

The minister presented no evidence to the contrary to support her attack on my integrity. She merely engaged in free and reckless conjecture and innuendo.

In this regard, I would note that my travel costs for the year in question were entirely within the norm for western members. For instance, the travel disclosure for the year in question shows that the hon. Deputy Prime Minister spent $116,000, a comparable amount, in the last fiscal year for which records are available.

Indeed, the Minister of Canadian Heritage herself spent $33,000 in travel costs in the last year to represent a constituency that is considerably closer than my own. In fact, Montreal is 89 nautical miles from the national capital region, which means that she spent $370 per nautical mile, whereas Calgary is 1,790 nautical miles from Ottawa, which means that I spent $67 per nautical mile. That is to say, the minister claimed 540% more in travel expenses--

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Calgary--Southeast is going a little beyond the arguments necessary to outline his question of privilege. While it may be of great interest to hear about the expense per nautical mile of various trips around the country, it is not helpful to the Speaker in dealing with a question of privilege which he raised in a serious tone at the beginning. Perhaps he would go back and complete his argument on the principal point here.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, indeed, I was just about to do that. I wanted to assure that you had all the relevant information before you for your consideration.

In closing, the minister effectively cast an ethical cloud over my entirely legal and appropriate travel costs which were incurred in the performance of my parliamentary duties. In so doing, she indirectly cast aspersions on all members who conduct the same kind of travel that I do in full compliance with the rules of the House.

If you find this to be a prima facie question of privilege, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion.

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will certainly examine the hon. member's remarks and respond later. As the hon. member was going through that information, I hope that it would apply to all members of the House, that we in fact do take caution when we cast these so called aspersions. I know members of the other side often quote from documents as well. Mr. Speaker, as you take this under advisement, we will review those remarks and certainly respond as appropriate.

[The Speaker]

I am certainly prepared to take the matter under advisement. I would like to hear from either the government House leader or from the Minister of Canadian Heritage on this point before rendering a decision in the House on the matter. I thank the hon. member for Calgary--Southeast for his usual able argument in advancing the case that he has made.

Ways and Means

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1) I have the honour to table a notice of ways and means motion to implement certain provisions of the Tlicho land claims and self-government agreement and the Tlicho tax treatment agreement which is part of this notice, and I ask that an order of the day be designated for consideration of this motion.

Criminal Code

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-13, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the DNA Identification Act and the National Defence Act.

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

Canadian Safe Drinking Water Act

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-209, An Act to ensure safe drinking water throughout Canada.

Mr. Speaker, this particular bill has been introduced in the House for several years now. I am re-introducing it on behalf of all Canadians who are very concerned about the quality of their drinking water.

From coast to coast to coast, many provinces and municipalities have boil orders. We know exactly what happened years ago in Ontario and how people can easily die from the mistreatment of our safe drinking water.

The bill would encourage the federal government to work with the provinces and municipalities to establish a national safe drinking water policy so that all Canadians can rest assured that the water they drink will be safe now and in the years to come.

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