Debates of March 11th, 2010

Protection of Insignia of Military Orders, Decorations and Medals Act

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-473.

I listened with great interest to all the contributions of the speakers. I thought the Bloc member for Berthier—Maskinongé summed up the bill quite well. He and I were on a U.S.-Canada parliamentary trip to Washington a couple of weeks ago and had occasion to meet with many congress people and senators where we managed to get Canada's message across that we needed changes in some areas.

Tonight I follow my colleague, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, who is very passionate about this subject. It is almost impossible to upstage him because he knows the subject so well. I do not think there is any better expert in the House on this whole area than the member. I sure hope he stays here. I read a story the other day that he might entertain the idea of running for mayor in a couple of years,. That would be a big loss and a big disappointment to members on all sides of the House because he adds so much to this chamber.

He did have some serious observations about this particular bill. He has his own bill, Bill C-208, which if he and the member opposite could somehow get together at committee on this issue, we could get the best of two bills, almost a perfect composition. There is a lot of room for compromise on both sides.

I do like the member's suggestion that these medals should not be viewed as currency. If the heirs of the person who earned the medal no longer require the medal, then it should really go to a Canadian museum. The member pointed out to me that the Order of Canada cannot be sold.

There has been some good solid thinking about this. I appreciate the member dealing with the bill in view of the property rights issue. An important part of the bill would make certain that these medals do not leave the country. The worry that we have is that if the medals are sold on eBay and become a commercial asset, that would in some ways defeat the purpose of the bill.

I personally feel that the special tax incentive in the bill has some merit, although I know my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore does not agree with that element of it either.

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

We will talk.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

My colleague says that we will talk. I feel that somehow a tax credit situation is a different proposition than selling it to the highest bidder. However, like my colleague said, we will talk about this.

I went to considerable effort to dig up a lot of material on this subject and even went into the history of medals. I have so many pages here I really do not know where to start. I thought I might have 10 minutes to do this subject justice but I now know that I do not have a full 10 minutes.

Before I start explaining the history of the medals, I do want to point out that one of my sons, Kevin, is in the Canadian reserves. He is in the 735 Communication Regiment in the Minto Armoury in Winnipeg. As he is only 23 years old, he has not won any medals yet, but he has a very strong interest in this subject. The military certainly hands out a lot of certificates for courses and he has been taking a lot of courses and has brought home a lot of certificates.

If I do have time, and I see that you are nodding, Mr. Speaker, that I do not have a lot of time.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member will have five minutes left to conclude his remarks the next time this bill is before the House.

The time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired, and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

It being 6:30 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24.

(The House adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)