House of Commons Hansard #107 of the 38th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was workers.
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, promises, promises. I have been after the minister for some time to actually deliver the money on this. We have not actually seen it delivered. We would like to see the cheque on the west coast. The government is undermining an initiative that communities close to the resource have fought for and continue to support and one that could become a resource management model that works.
Will the minister renew that funding today? Will he deliver the cheque today?
Geoff Regan LiberalMinister of Fisheries and Oceans
Mr. Speaker, this reminds me of the lawyer who, upon having his client acquitted, was asked by the judge if he had anything to add. He said, “No, Your Honour. I can take yes for an answer”.
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Mr. Speaker, housing cooperatives are extremely important to the housing sector in Canada. Thousands of Canadians depend on access to low-cost housing designed for low income families.
Can the minister tell the House what commitments the government has made to ensure the sustainability of housing cooperatives?
Joe Fontana LiberalMinister of Labour and Housing
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member and all in her caucus for their hard work on cooperative housing. As everyone knows, we have signed a historic agreement with the Co-operative Housing Programs Administration Agency to better administer and work with us as we continue to build more and more cooperative housing.
It is incredible that the Bloc Québécois, which purports to support cooperative housing, has never asked the question of how we could do it. Let me say this.
It is my firm conviction that this kind of collaboration will ensure the sustainability and prosperity of an extremely important sector of the population—
HousingOral Question Period
The Speaker
The hon. member for Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock.
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Mr. Speaker, farmers across Canada are burdened by increasing government interference in their lives. They are concerned about the way the Canadian Food Inspection Agency goes about its business.
Bill C-27 should be focused on reorganizing the CFIA to make it more accountable and responsive to producers. Bill C-27 does not include any significant appeals process for producers. Can the minister tell us why?
Andy Mitchell LiberalMinister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Mr. Speaker, I need to point out to the hon. member that Bill C-27 was referred to committee before second reading. That provided members of the House, government members and indeed opposition members as well, the opportunity to shape the legislation in the way they felt was best. If there are specific recommendations that he would like to see in that legislation, I suggest that the hon. member come to committee and lay on the table amendments to achieve that.
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the minister does not have any problem with improving the appeals process as it is currently included in the flawed bill.
Is the minister prepared to stand in the House today and make his commitment to the farmers of Canada that he will urge government members on that committee to make sure there is a real and meaningful appeals process for the farmers so they do not have to be dragged through the courts when they disagree with a CFIA decision?
Andy Mitchell LiberalMinister of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the hon. member fundamentally misunderstands how the process works. When a bill is referred to committee before second reading, a process which the opposition has encouraged the government to do on an ongoing basis and which the government did in this case, it gives the committee the opportunity to shape the legislation.
The committee is in the process of doing that work. I look forward to the committee completing that work in the near future.
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Mr. Speaker, over $500 million was spent to speed the movement of truck traffic across borders, so that security measures are not excessively detrimental to our economy. In the meantime, the RCMP is dragging its feet when it comes to checking the criminal records of candidates for federal public service jobs. People are waiting at least four months and sometimes even over a year before their fingerprints are analyzed. As a result, a number of applicants lose employment for which they were deemed qualified, and many students are not able to take the summer job in their field of study.
Is it too much to ask that people be treated with the same care and speed as trucks?
Anne McLellan LiberalDeputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a very important question. The hon. member raised it with me in committee, and I think one other member of his party raised it on the floor of the House during question period.
Obviously security checks need to be done. If people are going to work for the Government of Canada, as for most private sector employers today, provincial governments and so on, security checks are done. There is no question that we need to develop a system where especially those who are summer students applying for summer work have their security checks done in an expeditious and timely way so they are able to take up their work.
The commissioner of the RCMP was at committee when the hon. member raised that question--
Public SafetyOral Question Period
The Speaker
The hon. member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Exploits, NL
Mr. Speaker, recently the government issued citations to a Russian trawler known as the Odoevsk . Could the minister please update the House on that situation and the violations made on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and Labrador?
Geoff Regan LiberalMinister of Fisheries and Oceans
Mr. Speaker, we take issues like this very seriously. Russia has acted responsibly by calling the vessel home and revoking its fishing licence. This is welcome news in the wake of the St. John's conference where all international participants agreed that more must be done to combat overfishing on the high seas.
Presence in GalleryOral Question Period
The Speaker
Order. I would like to draw to the attention of hon. members the presence in the gallery of the Honourable Phil Goff, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Minister of Justice of New Zealand.
Jay Hill Conservative Prince George—Peace River, BC
Mr. Speaker, it being Thursday, could the government House leader enlighten not only the House but by extension the general public who I am sure are curious to know what the government business will be for the remainder of this week and next week?
I wonder if he is now prepared to admit that by cancelling opposition days in April to prevent non-confidence motions, he now must schedule all of the remaining opposition days in June, exactly as I said he originally intended to do.
Tony Valeri LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, before I get to the weekly business statement, I said at that time that I would begin to schedule opposition days before the end of May and that is exactly what I have done. There are a number more to schedule.
Today and tomorrow, of course, are allotted days. I also wish to designate next Tuesday and next Thursday as allotted days.
When the budget bills, Bill C-43 and Bill C-48 are reported from committee, they will certainly become our highest priority.
In the meantime, we will proceed with third reading of Bill C-22, the social development bill; report stage and third reading of Bill C-26, the border services legislation; second reading of Bill S-18, respecting the census; and Bill C-52, the Fisheries Act amendment.
We will then turn to report stage and third reading of bills that have been or are soon to be reported from committee. These include Bill C-25 respecting RADARSAT; Bill C-37, the do not call bill; Bill C-28, the food and drug legislation; and Bill C-38, the civil marriage bill. If there is time during the next three weeks, we will also start to debate the legislation that has been introduced during the last few weeks.
Don Boudria Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Speaker, two days ago I rose in the House on a question of privilege to talk about the fact that there had been tampering with electronic equipment in the offices of members of Parliament, namely the telephone systems hooked up to fax lines. Six or seven MPs at least have been affected by this situation. I want to add to this today by bringing the following to the attention of your honour. We now have a situation where people are engaged in what is commonly referred to as cybersquatting. People have now taken over the websites of members of Parliament in much the same way.
We cannot refer to names of MPs in the House, not even one's own, but I bring to the attention of the House that “my name”.ca, which for years has been my website, now appears under the name of an organization calling itself the Defend Marriage Coalition. It instructs people on how to object to my voting in favour of Bill C-38 regarding the definition of civil marriage. It makes disparaging remarks against me as a member of the House and so on.
I also want to draw to the attention of the House that I am not the only member affected. There are some 40 or 50 members of Parliament whose names have been similarly taken over by this organization. I have the list and I am willing to provide it to the Speaker, table it, or both.
Finally, in about 15 such cases of the 50 that I have just enumerated, the members of Parliament are now subject to this actual cybersquatting. In other words, it is not only that the sites have been taken over, and many of them were previously held by the members and were paid for personally and otherwise, but now some of them have already been converted to these right-wing religious organizations.
For instance, the site names of the following members have been taken over by someone else: the hon. member for Durham; the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre on the Liberal side; the hon. member for North Vancouver, a Liberal member; and an hon. member of the Conservative Party from South Shore, Nova Scotia.
The point I am making is that our fax lines which we use to communicate with our constituents have been overtaken and plugged up by people. Now our websites have been taken over by cybersquatters. A number of them not only have captured the domain names, but they have published information about members of Parliament, using the member of Parliament's name as access, when in some cases, such as mine, I had personally held that site for years.
The threshold has now increased. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a bona fide case of privilege. I ask that this matter be referred forthwith to the procedure and House affairs committee.
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Speaker, the only additional element that the hon. member has brought to the Chair's attention relates to a matter which is in no way, shape or form within the purview of this House or your honour and it never has been, and hopefully never will be, that is to say, the registration of domain names on the World Wide Web.
I understand my hon. friend opposite is learned with respect to parliamentary procedure but I must infer from his remarks that he is stupefiedly ignorant about the commercial practices on the Internet.
PrivilegeOral Question Period
The Speaker
Honestly, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast need not suggest that any hon. member of this House is ignorant.
PrivilegeOral Question Period
The Speaker
That does not make it better. He could say that he has perhaps missed the point or something. We do not need to use this kind of language.
I would urge the hon. member to show some restraint.
Jason Kenney Conservative Calgary Southeast, AB
Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. I did not mean ignorant in the pejorative sense but in an objective sense that the member apparently does not understand the process by which domain names are registered on the Internet.
Quite frankly, I would suggest that should not be entertained by the Chair as a prospective item for consideration as a point of privilege.
The House of Commons, the Parliament of Canada and the Government of Canada do not own, regulate or manage in any way, shape or form the registration of domain names on the Internet.
There are independent agencies, .com, .ca, .org, .net, et cetera, that manage this on a commercial basis. Any sequence of letters that constitute a name can be registered for a fee. It is incumbent upon a member or any citizen, should they wish to protect and own those domain names, to take the initiative to do so, as many of us have.
What the member said was that our websites have been taken over. This is patently not the case. If members operate parliamentary websites, it is possible for them to have the House reimburse them for the cost of registering the domain name and for the maintenance of that site.
I do not believe the member has suggested that his or any other member's official parliamentary websites have in any way been affected by third parties. What he is suggesting is that third parties have quite legally made payments to acquire domain names on the Internet.
He or I or all of us may disagree with the tactics of individuals choosing to do so but the operation of domain names on the Internet is a matter of free enterprise and is not in the purview of this House. The member knows better and should not be inviting the Speaker of the House of Commons to intervene in the operation of private businesses.
Gary Carr Liberal Halton, ON
Mr. Speaker, my name was one that was taken as well.
I think the problem is that what happens with this is that it looks like a real site. If people were to go to that site they would see that my picture from the House of Commons was stolen to make it look like a real site. What they have written down in the very corner is, “This is not the official site of Gary Carr”.
As the House knows, I was one of those who voted against the bill. Most of the people who are on those websites are people who voted in favour of the bill. They have also taken the names of people who were opposed to the bill.
The trouble is that when people look at this site they think it is an official site. I am .ca. All a person has to do is make one mistake, and people do that very readily, they hit .com instead of .ca, with my name. What happened I guess is that a lot of us did not think we needed to protect our names against those people out there.
Quite frankly, when they stole my House of Commons picture, which actually is a very good picture of me, and put it up on that site it has my phone number and my constituency address. If someone were to go to that site they would be led to believe that it was an official website. This is the problem I have. Down at the very bottom they then have their association. I find it very troubling that they are doing this.
Mr. Speaker, I look forward to your ruling and would be guided by your ruling.