Debates of March 29th, 2004

Sponsorship Program

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

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a lot to say about the democratic deficit. I feel that he is an excellent poster boy for that deficit. This is question period, I realize, not answer period.

I would, however, like to ask him to exercise his memory a little and tell me whether, looking back from today, March 29, 2004 to the fall of 2000, he ever made the effort to read the Public Works internal audit report, either as finance minister, vice-president of the Treasury Board, or Prime Minister, all positions he has held? Since that is their defence, has he at least made the effort to read this report, as it was his duty to do?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I have read the deputy minister's testimony before the committee in which he referred to administrative problems. As well, I read the executive summary.

[Stephen Harper, Canadian Alliance, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister just failed to answer the question put. I would really like the Prime Minister to stop embarrassing himself by just getting up and answering questions put about his own conduct.

The question is this. When the Prime Minister interviewed for the cabinet, did the Prime Minister ask the President of the Privy Council and was he told about that minister's relationship with Pierre Tremblay? Was he told, yes or no?

[Jacques Saada, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister responsible for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, the question the Prime Minister asked all of us was to say if we knew anything about any wrongdoing, and the answer was no. We were not asked if anybody had done a good job. We suppose that each of us does a good job and takes responsibility for the work we do.

Ways and Means

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing 83(1) I wish to table a notice of a ways and means motion respecting an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 23, and I would ask that an order of the day be designated for consideration of the motion.

If hon. members would like, I would be happy to run over the budget speech yet once again.

Government Response to Petitions

[Roger Gallaway, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I am pleased to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 15 petitions.

Criminal Code

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Minister of Justice]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-29, an act to amend the Criminal Code (mental disorder) and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

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

Income Tax Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-505, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction for volunteer emergency service).

Mr. Speaker, I rise to introduce an act to amend the Income Tax Act to make possible a deduction for volunteer emergency services.

I thank the member for Bras d'Or—Cape Breton for seconding the motion and the member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac for such strong support.

The bill would amend the Income Tax Act to allow volunteer emergency workers to deduct from their taxable income the amount of $500 if they performed at least 50 hours of volunteer service and $1,000 if they performed at least 100 hours of volunteer service.

The bill would recognize the tremendous work of volunteer emergency service workers who are not paid an honorarium for their services but give of their time, take time away from their fields, their farms and the fisheries to do this work for the good of society.

I encourage everyone to support the bill.

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

Copyright Act

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-506, an act to amend the Copyright Act.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Kitchener Centre for seconding this bill.

This bill amends the Copyright Act in order to give programming undertakings more time to destroy ephemeral recordings of a work. It also requires broadcasting undertakings to destroy reproductions of an ephemeral recording as soon as they no longer possess the sound recording or the performance or work fixed by means of a sound recording.

Repealing subsections 30.8(8) and 30.9(6) will allow programming and broadcasting undertakings to benefit from the application of sections 30.8 and 30.9 even if a licence to copy the work is available from a collective society.

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

Breast Implant Registry Act

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-507, an act to establish and maintain a national breast implant registry.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce this bill to establish a national breast implant registry.

The legislation before the House seeks to establish a registry to monitor implant procedures and to further scientific research. It fills a critical gap in women's health protection by collecting currently unavailable data about implant procedures and data that is needed as a base for informed health based decisions by women and physicians. It would protect individual privacy while providing an effective means of notifying women of threats to their health.

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

Petitions

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today. The first petition is on the subject of marriage.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that marriage is the best foundation for families and for the raising of children and that marriage is the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament. The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to recognize the institution of marriage in federal law as being the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition relates to Bill C-250.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that all Canadians are appalled by hate motivated attacks and believe that promoting hatred toward any person or group is wrong. They also point out that they are concerned about the impact of the proposed amendments to section 318 of the Criminal Code on freedom of religion and freedom of expression.

The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to take all measures necessary to protect the rights of Canadians to freely share their religious and moral beliefs without fear of prosecution.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition is on a subject matter dear to my heart, stem cells.

The petitioners would like to draw to the attention of the House that Canadians do support ethical stem cell research which has already shown very encouraging potential to provide cures and therapies for Canadians. They also want to point out that non-embryonic stem cells, also known as adult stem cells, have shown significant research progress without the immune rejection or ethical problems associated with embryonic stem cells.

The petitioners therefore call upon Parliament to focus its legislative support on adult stem cell research for those cures and therapies and also that the regulations, yet to be forthcoming on Bill C-6, will reflect their concerns.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition from my constituents in Okanagan—Shuswap.

The petitioners state that marriage is the best foundation for families and the raising of children. They want to remind the House that a motion was passed in June 1999 that called for marriage to continue to be defined as the union of one man and one woman and that Parliament therefore pass legislation to recognize the institution of marriage in federal law as being the lifelong union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to present three petitions.

The first petition is from residents of Ottawa Centre who have not had a member of Parliament since September 8, 2003, thus causing the longest vacancy in a constituency in the history of Canada.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation that would replace the current writ of election in Ottawa Centre with a writ of election making the byelection day as soon as possible.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition recognizes that family reunification has long been and remains a cornerstone of Canada's immigration policy and that the current regulations are very narrow, excluding many family members, and that these concerns can be addressed by the swift passage of Bill C-436.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the last petition is from Canadians who point out that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equality to all Canadians; and the Supreme Court of Canada has held that this requires the equal treatment of same sex couples; and that denying same sex couples the equal right to marry reinforces attitudes of intolerance and discrimination and is inconsistent with Canadian values.

The petition calls upon Parliament to enact legislation providing same sex couples with the equal right to marry.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present another petition for National Kidney Month on behalf all those in Canada and around the world who suffer from kidney disease, for the people who support them and, in particular, for the researchers who do research into kidney diseases.

I have presented a series of these petitions, some of the petitions supporting research into bio-artificial kidney and others supporting a national kidney institute. These were all initiated by Ken Sharp of my riding. He has enormously increased awareness of kidney disease. He and the petitioners call upon Parliament to encourage the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to explicitly include kidney research as one of the institutions in its system to be named the institute of kidney and urinary tract diseases.

[Peter Adams, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present another petition on the ongoing tragedy of BSE. The petition is signed by representatives and supporters of the Canadian beef cattle, dairy, goat and sheep industries which are all in a crisis as a result of the BSE problem. The entire industry in fact, not just the farmers, are in crises. In my riding 1,000 families are directly affected.

These citizens call upon Parliament to open the U.S.-Canadian border as soon as possible and to develop a long term solution and economic relief that is fair and reflects the importance of these industries to Canada.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition to the House of Commons on behalf of the Vancouver Island Regional Library and 400,000 people living on the west coast of Canada. It has to do with proposed changes to the Canada Post library book rate.

The petitioners are asking that the agreement be renegotiated to continue to allow books to be transported between libraries. If that fails to be renewed, it will cost about $250,000 for many remote communities to make up for this book rate that has been subsidized. They are therefore asking that this be renegotiated to continue to supply the books to remote communities.

Also they are asking that there be an expansion to include all materials loaned by public libraries. It has been signed by about 1,900 constituents.

[James Lunney, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have two more petitions on the subject of the definition of marriage. About 500 petitioners are calling upon Parliament to recognize the defence of traditional marriage as the bond between one man and one woman as a serious, moral good, and that marriage as the lasting union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others cannot and should not be modified by a legislative act or by a court of law.

They are calling upon Parliament to take whatever action necessary to maintain the current definition of marriage in law in perpetuity and to prevent any court from overturning or amending that definition.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have four petitions all on the matter of alcohol warning labels. Today I have 2,000 names of Canadians to add to the thousands of Canadians who have already called on the government to ensure that the motion adopted by the House on affixing labels on all alcohol beverage containers that state “Warning: Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause birth defects”, be enacted.

Canadians are concerned about the impact of alcohol on the fetus and the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome and call upon the government to do what this place has asked it to do and what Canadians want it to do.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions.

The first petition comes from in excess of 400 petitioners in the greater Toronto area, including my own constituency of Scarborough—Rouge River.

The petitioners are calling upon Parliament to enact legislation to protect against child exploitation and to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 18 years of age.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition contains approximately 450 signatures. It comes from petitioners in my own constituency and in the greater Toronto area.

It calls upon Parliament to recall that it passed a motion in June 1999 and they ask Parliament to recognize its own jurisdiction in the definition of marriage. They call upon Parliament to enact legislation to recognize marriage as being a union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today I have two petitions to present. The first is a list of names of 462 people, mostly in Sherwood Park in my riding but also in the outlying areas. This is a petition which basically states that the duty of Parliament is to exercise its supremacy. The petitioners urge us to practise that supremacy to make the laws with respect to marriage and not have an unelected court do it. The petitioners urge us to do everything possible, legislatively and administratively, to protect the definition of marriage as being that between one man and one woman exclusively.

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am presenting is worded somewhat differently but it is on the same topic. This petition comes from most of my constituents in the Fort Saskatchewan, Gibbons, Lamont and Bruderheim areas, as well as St. Michael and Star, Alberta, two towns in my riding that I do not know if members have heard of. The petitioners are very frustrated with what is happening in Ottawa with respect to marriage.

At great effort they had many people sign this petition, which basically calls upon Parliament to immediately hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to reaffirm, as it did in 1999, its commitment to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

I am delighted to represent the people of my riding in presenting these petitions and urge the government to listen carefully to what these and thousands of other Canadians are saying on this very important topic.