Debates of March 30th, 2010

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

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

Mr. Speaker, clearly, Canadians are rallying against this bill and the Liberal amendment. We have received letters from the Council of Canadians, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the B.C. teachers group, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Canadian Auto Workers, the United Church of Canada and the Public Service Alliance. Many other organizations have rallied to oppose this legislation and particularly the Liberal amendment that facilitates it, which until two weeks ago was totally dead in the House. It had been stopped for the last year.

The Liberals have rescued the legislation by making the amendment possible in this deal with the minister and the president of Colombia at some dance club a couple of months ago. The question is whether the amendment makes the agreement worthy of support in the House. Clearly, for some Liberals, it does. For others, I am not so sure.

Does the member think the amendment the Liberals have produced is enough to bring all Liberals onside to support the bill?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is rather obvious that the Liberal amendment is not enough to make this free trade agreement palatable. One cannot revise the terms of an agreement after it has been signed. We must bring forward our requirements before signing the agreement.

In this case, the fundamental requirements would be that there is respect for human rights and that public safety is re-established in Colombia. These two fundamental requirements must be met before signing the free trade agreement. The fact that our economies are dissimilar poses a real problem. Colombia may be a poor choice.

My colleague stated that many Canadians and Quebeckers are against this agreement. This is what the Council of Canadians had to say:

Our first-hand experience contradicts claims the free trade deal will strengthen Colombia's democracy...We found widespread evidence of human rights violations, corruption, resurgent paramilitary groups, and drug violence.

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in regard to what the Liberal member from Mississauga South said and in reply to the question from the New Democratic Party member, I would say this. According to the recommendations in the report of the Standing Committee on International Trade, which was supported by the Liberals, this agreement should not be signed so long as an independent study has not confirmed that the situation is improving and has stabilized. But the Liberals are prepared to sign the agreement first and do the study second.

In answer to the question I asked him earlier, the Liberal member said he tried to find an independent group to do the human rights study, but was not successful.

I want to ask my colleague in the Bloc the following: how can the Liberal member say such a thing in light of all the independent groups that are opposed to this agreement?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in all honesty, I do not know how so much credibility can be attached to the Liberal member’s answer. I do not know how people could search the world over for a credible organization that could do a human rights evaluation in various countries and not be able to find one. It is so obvious that there are credible organizations that I will not even bother to name any.

Maybe they could not find a credible-looking organization that would say what they want to hear. If they want to hear that there is no human rights problem in Colombia, no credible organization in the whole world would say something like that.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak on this issue, but with some despair because, as the House has heard from my party, clearly there is a lot wrong with the free trade agreement with Colombia.

We saw the government attempt to bring this bill forward before prorogation and now after prorogation. It claims to have improved it with a proposed amendment by the Liberals.

If I might comment on that to start, at the inception of this talk on free trade with Colombia there did not seem to be a concern about human rights. The government responded by having the side agreement. Having a side agreement on human rights pretty much says it all. It is like having voluntary human rights, something off to the side and not embedded. When the government clearly could not sell that, it had Liberals come to its rescue with this notion that there would be a review.

I have to say that as the foreign affairs critic, the fact of the matter is that our embassy does reviews on human rights in countries around the world, including Colombia. One of the jobs of diplomats in embassies, wherever they are stationed, is to do an evaluation of human rights within the respective countries they are situated in. I would point to some of those reports and some from other organizations to show that having yet another review of human rights is just that. It is a review and does not actually deal with the issue.

With regard to this trade agreement and others, some have made the argument that just having a free trade agreement will automatically change the human rights profile in the long-term. There is just not clear evidence for that. There is hypothesis for that. We can have a hypothesis and that is fine, but we should not mistake that for evidence. When entering into a free trade agreement, we need actual evidence that it will change the human rights situation.

There are people in Colombia who have suffered repeated retrograde governance that has abused their human rights. We have gone through the list on this side of the House of people who are in the trade union movement and speaking up for their communities. They are being targeted by paramilitary forces and people associated with the government. It is cold comfort to go to them with a hypothesis and say we think that free trade is going to change their situation. That hypothesis does not help them.

If anything, the weakest argument the government, and those who support it on the Liberal side, has put forward is that free trade frees people. The nomenclature might sound good, but the evidence is counter to that. There is no evidence of that. It is hyperbole. It does not have any credence when we look at trade agreements around the world.

We can show that there is a shift in capital and investment, and that there is money changing hands, but where there is no evidence and where the government, and those who support it, has no credible argument is that this will actually change the human rights profile. We have to look at that.

Let us look at one piece of evidence that was brought to the House of Commons recently through the foreign affairs committee by the Special Rapporteur for Refugees from the UN. The committee had prepared for that meeting and looked at the issue of internally displaced persons. It was shocking to learn that the number one country in the entire world with the highest number of internally displaced persons was Colombia.

Guess who was second? It was Iraq. Then we get to Sudan and Afghanistan. There is no surprise for those countries. The fact that Iraq has one of the highest numbers of internally displaced persons is probably not a surprise. Afghanistan is probably not a surprise. It is probably not a surprise that the situation in Sudan is not great and that it has a very high level of internally displaced persons, but did members of the government know and did members of the Liberal Party know and others that Colombia ranks number one for internally displaced persons? That is who we are signing on with.

I think that is evidence. It is not a hypothesis; it is not hyperbole. It is a fact that Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced persons. Why? We have talked about it in this House. People have been pushed out of their communities at gunpoint. People have been forced out of their homelands because paramilitary forces are aligned, by the way, with the government. Why? It is because there is a scramble for power and resources, and everyday people are paying the price. They are being pushed out of their communities.

If a person had to pack up everything tomorrow and move somewhere else in the province of Ontario or elsewhere in the country to keep their family safe, that person would not be fleeing the country. They would be fleeing within their country.

Colombia has the highest percentage of people who are refugees within their own country. I think that matters when we look at who we are doing business with.

This trade deal will not help them. We need to have further changes in justice. We need to have reconciliation. We need to have the leadership that is responsible for that, who will finally acknowledge that there have been crimes against humanity in that country. Until that time, those people who have unfortunately shared the experience, and too many people within their country have been internally displaced, are going to ask us as Canadian parliamentarians and decision makers, “What's in it for me?”

That is a critical question when we are negotiating trade agreements. If we cannot answer how we are going to help people who are suffering the most and provide facts, not hyperbole, not theory, not suggestion, then I think it is not a deal worth signing on to.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order. When we return to this matter, the member for Ottawa Centre will have two minutes remaining.

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's order paper.

The House proceeded to consideration of Bill C-302, An Act to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their “enemy alien” designation and internment during the Second World War, and to provide for restitution and promote education on Italian-Canadian history, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

There being no amendment motions at report stage, the House will now proceed without debate to the putting of the question on the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

moved that Bill C-302, An Act to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their “enemy alien” designation and internment during the Second World War, and to provide for restitution and promote education on Italian-Canadian history, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to)

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, as you said, this bill seeks to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their enemy alien designation and internment during the second world war, and to provide for restitution and promote education on Italian-Canadian history.

It is a pleasure for me to rise on this bill. This is the first hour of the third reading.

It is a parliamentary tradition that debates in the House tend to be repetitive, but today I will try not to repeat what I said during my speech to Parliament at second reading. That will be difficult.

The summary does a good job of explaining the bill:

The purpose of this enactment is to recognize and apologize for the treatment that persons of Italian origin received in Canada during the Second World War in spite of the contribution that they have made and continue to make to the building of Canada.

The enactment also provides for restitution to be made in respect of this treatment. The restitution payment is to be applied to the development and production of educational materials relating to Italian-Canadian history and promoting ethnic and racial harmony, and to other projects agreed to by the Minister of Canadian Heritage and an educational foundation established for this purpose.

I want to begin by saying that this apology is long overdue.

Here it is a question of the injustice that was done to Canadians of Italian origin through their enemy alien designation during the second world war.

There is no question about the internment actually happening. There are some questions as to the actual number of Italians who were interned. If we do some research and a bit of reading, not all the documents are in order. So there are different numbers that have been thrown out there. There are numbers of up to 6,000 people who were arrested after the internment happened.

No one was ever charged.

Not one person was ever charged. Some people were arrested and were simply held overnight, and some were held up to three or even four years in prison camps. So there are extremes from one end of the spectrum to the other. Some people were fingerprinted and then had to report to the police station on a weekly basis. Some of these registers were lost. That is why we cannot have an accurate account of how many were actually affected. The only count that we actually have is of the ones who were held in Petawawa. They were taken as young as 16 years of age and as old as 70.

Most of the people arrested were men, but there were also some women.

In some cases, some were picked up in the middle of the night and taken 3,000 miles away. Imagine that. Of course, not all were Italians. Some were arrested simply because they had a name ending in a vowel.

The exact number of people held in internment camps is unknown, but we know that roughly 700 were held in Petawawa alone. Others were detained in three other camps. There was one on Saint Helen's Island near the island of Montreal, and there were two other camps in Atlantic Canada. My understanding is there was one in Fredericton and one in Nova Scotia.

Just to put the whole item in context, Canada versus the States, the war happened and Canada reacted in the fashion it did, but in the U.S., only 228 were interned out of a possible 300,000 U.S. citizens of Italian origin. In Canada, those of Italian origin were estimated to number about 112,000, roughly 40,000 of whom were born in Canada, and as many as 30,000 were on an undesirable list.

We are talking about 40-odd years ago. We can imagine the impact the internment would have had on people's lives. We have to understand Italian culture and how they would have taken something like this.

I have something to read, right out of a magazine or newspaper article in Il Postino, in English, from May 2007. I will read an excerpt, which says:

But my grandmother didn't speak with her daughter about the internment until the 1950s, and then only briefly. “There was no reason to discuss it,” my grandmother, [a]...citizen of English descent, says unquestioningly. “We put it out of our minds and behind us. I didn't tell any of the children until they were grown. We were so ashamed.”

Imagine. There are families out there who do not even know that this happened to them. It is probably explained best as the article goes on to say:

When my grandfather died in 1957, the story of precisely what he was thinking [at the prison camps] died with him, as he wanted. My grandmother will say only that he was terribly depressed during his weeks there, that he feared the ruin of his career, that his health declined.

It goes on and on, talking about how this single family just kept it secret from the rest of the family. Many who were interned were just sons of Italian parents. Of course, the Italians who came to this country were not the most educated. Many were illiterate, and they were accused of being spies. Imagine a spy not being able to read.

Families were receiving mail that was marked “POW”. Imagine people going down the street to pick up their mail and receiving a big envelope marked “POW”. They could just imagine what their next door neighbours thought of them.

Think again: 40 or 50 years ago, the people who were arrested were primarily males, which meant they were the breadwinners. In those times, people did not necessarily have money put aside but were just living day to day, if not week to week. If they did not have a paycheque, the family could not pay the rent or for groceries. The families had to go and live with another family. Families were directly impacted.

Some were fairly well off. The males were arrested and their family businesses were lost. There are tons of stories about that. If people go on the Internet, there is actually a film by the National Film Board on the internment that shows well-to-do Italian families that lost their businesses.

Even if they were just arrested for a week or a month, rumours and stories continued after they were released. This destroyed families. It destroyed people's character. More importantly what it destroyed was the community, a community of people, some of whom, because of their embarrassment, came home and decided to change their name, to get rid of that vowel at the end of their name, and they decided not to be associated with anybody in the Italian community.

This was 50 years ago, and we can imagine how many of these individuals would have been professionals today, whether it be accountants, my favourite type of profession, or lawyers, doctors, dentists, and so forth. There may have been even a few politicians along the way.

Simply put, their liberty was taken away.

This is a private member's bill. It is very simply drafted with the limited amount of resources we have. I am hoping that we can work together to get this bill passed, as it is supported by members of every party in this House.

What we are doing, very simply, is requesting an apology in the House of Commons. Some people thought this would be a problem. It would be on the record. The bill is asking the Parliament of Canada to hereby acknowledge the unjust treatment received by persons of Italian origin. Obviously that apology would be given by the Prime Minister.

In fact, I do have to be up front here and say that there had been an apology to the Italian community about what happened 45 years earlier, by the then prime minister, Brian Mulroney. It was at an Italian dinner. He did call the event legally wrong and immoral, but the problem was that he never officially apologized in the House of Commons. It is on the record that he was going to apologize in the House of Commons.

Nonetheless, he never did.

The purpose of this bill is to recognize the injustice that was done to Canadians of Italian origin. It is not complicated. This is not a precedent setting measure. This has already been done in the House. This was done during the Brian Mulroney years for the Japanese community. And a few years ago, the current Prime Minister made an apology to the Chinese community.

I also have some of the bills and they are on the record, so this is not something that is made up. The Library of Parliament prepared a report, a research paper. So there were official apologies. We could even include the official apology that was made to the residential schoolchildren.

The other thing that the bill is asking for is compensation. The compensation is not the important part. The compensation is mainly to educate Canadians, and I am not just talking about Canadians of Italian origin, as to what happened in the past, because it is a way to correct the mistakes of the past. We need to keep those, I will not say memories, alive, but we need to find a way to educate our young people. That is what I am getting these days in my office, Italians of third and fourth generation asking me about the internment. They understand that I have a private member's bill. A couple of students have actually won awards across Canada for doing a project on the internment, and they are astounded that most people my age are not even aware of what happened with the internment. Older Italians just want to forget about it. Here we are, as I said before, having lost a couple of generations and not being able to understand what happened to us before.

In terms of the compensation, basically I will just read from the bill what we are asking for:

Restitution

The Minister of Canadian Heritage, in cooperation with the Minister of Finance, shall negotiate with the National Congress of Italian Canadians an agreement for a suitable payment to be made in restitution for the unjust treatment described in section 3, which agreement shall be proposed to Parliament for approval.

The proposed agreement is more or less the same as the one that was reached with the Italian community in another parliament.

I do not think there is any controversy here. We have people from all parties supporting it. I want to put on the record that I thank the Liberals. Pretty well everybody from the Liberal Party supported it, although I think there were a few missing. The NDP, of course, and the Bloc Québécois were very supportive of the bill, not only through their voting but also in committee and through issuing press releases trying to force the government to get its act together and get this bill through so that we can send it to the Senate and move on with history.

I did attend a couple of meetings when this particular bill was studied in committee. We heard from different Italian associations or organizations. There was the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association, the national chapter and some local chapters. We had la Fondation communautaire canadienne-italienne du Québec. We had the Orders Sons of Italy of Canada. We had the National Congress of Italian Canadians, the national and the Quebec chapters. Those were the four organizations that actually signed an agreement with the Government of Canada three or four years ago for some type of restitution in the ballpark of around $12.5 million, but the Minister of Canadian Heritage can negotiate that part of the deal.

Not only do we have full support from these four national organizations, we added another one, Casa d'Italia, which was the first community centre in Montreal where the Italians congregated and they were probably the most affected during the time of the internment.

Oddly enough, we also had a partisan organization, the Italian Canadian advisory committee on this new program that the Conservatives decided they would have. There were three Conservatives on that advisory committee and they were all for the bill.

There is no question that the bill should be put forward. We also had the immigration minister come forward. I am not sure why he came forward. I asked for the heritage minister . I think the immigration minister , no disrespect to him, does not understand the file, and I do not think he should be in charge of the bill. I would like to see the heritage minister pick up the file and push it along so we can get this bill through the Senate.

Again I would like to thank all the MPs who spoke in favour of the bill during the second reading. I look forward to questions and comments from the members.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows quite well that, as an Italian-Canadian, I voted against this bill and I will vote against it again. As I mentioned before, this bill does not seek to unify Italian Canadians. It seeks to divide the Italian Canadian community.

The last time this bill came before this House I asked why the member felt that no less than seven Liberal prime ministers turned their backs on the Italian Canadian community. Under those different prime ministers, a number of Liberal majority governments never felt it important enough to reach out to the Italian Canadian community at that time and bring forward an apology bill.

As the member mentioned in his speech, we also know that an apology did come from former Conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, when he came to the Italian community and apologized for the internment.

I have two questions. First, why does the member think the Liberal Party, for so many years, so many prime ministers and so many majority governments, turned its back on the Italian Canadian community?

Second, why did he choose a minority Parliament to bring forward such a divisive bill that he knows would divide the Italian Canadian community and that does nothing to recognize all of the hard work that the Italian Canadian community has done to build this country?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not address that before because I knew the member would ask that question. It is only about the 100th time that he has asked me the question on and off the record.

Basically, the Liberals have never apologized, and I am not so sure I agree with that philosophy that previous Liberal governments never decided to apologize. With consistency, the Conservatives have decided to just pick and choose who they will apologize to. They have chosen to apologize to the Japanese and the Chinese community but not the Italians. Therefore, if anybody is going to be divisive, it will be the Conservative government.

With the help of the hon. member across the aisle, we can make this bill bigger and better. We can do it with or without his help. I understand that he may not want to participate and that he had a lot to say during committee, but he was one of the few who did not present any amendments to make this bill better.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, I spoke in favour of this bill basically on principle, which is something some of the other members opposite may not appreciate. However, we have a circumstance that is purely Canadian. It involves Canadian citizens who were at the time known as British subjects and who were subjected to an indignity and some duress by a Government of Canada. When charges were not laid, nobody's record was expunged. People have asked for a recognition that there was a tort committed against Canadian citizens.

We have put a label on some of those Canadian citizens. They are called Italian Canadians. What this bill really asks for is a recognition that this indignity was put forward and there is a solution proposed, a solution that was negotiated by all the stakeholder organizations in the Italian community, not only on behalf of the people who had suffered those torts, but by extension, on the community that has dedicated itself to building this country.

There is nothing more that is being asked other than simply to recognize those events, to move forward on a negotiated agreement and to implement that negotiated agreement.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Eglinton—Lawrence has been a great defender of this bill, so I do not know if I can put it any better, but the bill is not about Italians. The bill is about Canadians apologizing to Canadians. Two wrongs do not make a right and in this case we have an opportunity to make a right a right. Let us do it and let us move on.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the reason I did not bring any amendments forward is because I cannot amend what is an incredibly flawed bill from the beginning to the end.

The member again fails to answer the specific question of why it is that the Liberals have turned their backs on the Italian Canadian community for so long, why he has chosen a minority Parliament to bring forward a very divisive bill, and why he has chosen to ignore the current--

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. The hon. member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel has about 20 seconds left.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I did not think he would have a second go-around but typical again where I have answered his question. Since I have been a member, I have tabled this bill on repeated occasions. The member chooses to ignore it and the government may choose to ignore it. The bill is very similar and almost a complete copy of other apologies that were given in the House of Commons. Therefore, if the bill is flawed, the Conservative apologies to the Chinese community and the Japanese community were also flawed.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the bill, a bill that, when it was before committee, certainly stirred up strong emotions on all sides. When the bill was up for second reading I rose from my seat and voted against the bill because, while the bill has good intent, it is actually a very poor bill.

I am pleased to speak to an issue that concerns one of Canada's largest cultural groups. The last census indicated that there were about 1.4 million Canadians of Italian descent. I do not have an English name but I have never looked at myself as anything but a Canadian. I suppose I am a Canadian of Italian descent but I always object to the title “Italian Canadian”.

Italians were among the earliest Europeans to migrate to this continent. They have unquestionably contributed significantly to Canada and to North America if we look to our partners to the south in the United States. Americans of Italian descent have contributed significantly to that country. We can go back as far as 1881 when there were literally cascades of Italians immigrating to Canada and they were contributing toward massive construction projects, like the Canadian Pacific Railway.

This year will mark the 70th anniversary of the Italian internment in Canada. I would like to take members back to when Italy declared war on the Allies in 1940. The prime minister of the day ordered the internment of hundreds of Italian Canadians identified as enemy aliens. The prime minister invoked the War Measures Act known as the Defence of Canada Regulations. Today we look at the War Measures Act, which was repealed, by the way, by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1988, the same Brian Mulroney who apologized to Canadians of Italian descent in 1990. I will get into that in a little while.

However, we look at that time and we look at the prime minister and Parliament invoking the War Measures Act at that time and wonder how they could do that. How could they have done that to Canadian citizens? The government also passed an order in council calling for the registration of all persons of Italian birth and for the confiscation of enemy aliens' property.

Despite the financial hardship and the shame suffered by some of their countrymen, hundreds of Italian Canadians enlisted in the Canadian armed forces because they felt the war against Fascism and Nazism was justified. The most decorated veteran from my city was a Canadian of Italian descent. He actually went to war serving in Italy on a battlefield where he met family members on the other side, but felt passionately enough about the cause to fight for Canada. It is an incredible story. There can be no doubt that Canadians of Italian descent have made enormous contributions to our nation and these historical facts constitute one of the saddest and most dramatic chapters in the annals of Canadian history.

As I said, the hon. member who brought forward Bill C-302, Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, in relation to this dark chapter in our nation's history, has done so I believe with good intent, but it does not change the fact that it is a very bad bill and divides Canadians of Italian descent. In fact it looks backward at a time in Canadian history, but not backward enough to see that the apology that was offered some 20 years ago had a very profound effect on the Italian community.

I just want to reference something from a friend of mine, Annamarie Castrilli, who was the president of the National Congress of Italian Canadians. She was instrumental in obtaining the courageous admission of an apology by the then prime minister, Brian Mulroney. She wrote to me and said, “As you know, this year marks the 70th anniversary of the internment. To commemorate this, I have been asked to write a book which deals with what led up to the apology and the circumstances that existed in 1940. I am one of only two commissioners left who actually talked and corresponded with internees. There is only one left to my knowledge. The book is an analysis of the situation in Canada during World War II and the noble act of one prime minister where all else had failed. Whatever else may be said of Brian Mulroney, this was a significant achievement that set the record straight and profoundly changed the life of a community”.

She goes on to include a copy of the speech given by the then prime minister, Brian Mulroney.

This bill calls for an apology on behalf of Parliament, the Government of Canada and the Canadian people. The problem is that it suggests that there was an injustice, that the government acted illegally. We can look back at that time and ask how they could have done this. How could we actually have a law like the War Measures Act in place in a country like Canada that believes in rights and freedoms? We have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was a Conservative prime minister in 1958, I believe, who brought in the bill of rights protecting the rights of all Canadians.

We look back and wonder how that was possible but, unfortunately, it was not illegal. The then Liberal government acted within the law in enacting the War Measures Act. Bill C-302 calls for restitution to Italian Canadians in the form of educational projects that provide information on Italian Canadian history and promote ethnic and racial harmony. However, it also opens the door for unlimited liability from the Crown to persons who would seek damages from the Crown.

The member referenced other apologies. I acknowledge that we did have an apology for the Chinese head tax. I know that an injustice is an injustice and a crime is a crime, but the scale of what happened to Chinese Canadians or Canadians from the Chinese community occurred over decades of discrimination by the Crown. It was profound. It was unquestionably a sad time in our history. I know that we as Canadians are proud that we have moved beyond that but the scale of it was much larger. However, an agreement was arrived at.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Oh, oh!

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I am pleased to hear that the member for Eglinton—Lawrence is interested in what I have to say.

This government has moved forward where other governments have failed. We have moved forward where every Liberal government, including the one in which the member for Eglinton—Lawrence served, failed.

They had opportunities. While the community was celebrating, healing, coming together, moving forward and celebrating the fact that they were Canadian citizens of equal standing after the prime minister of the day had apologized, then Liberal MP Sergio Marchi came out and berated that apology. He said that it did not matter. He said that there had to be an apology in the House of Commons. Successive Liberal governments, including the one in which the member for Eglinton—Lawrence served, did nothing about it.

Once I was older and knew about this, I often talked to my grandfather about coming to Canada. He grew up in a place called Carpino and he came to Canada in 1927. He arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax after a very difficult trip. He lived through this. He was in Canada for it and was proud to be Canadian.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

What kind of nonsense is that? Everybody here is proud to be a Canadian.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order. We have a long night ahead of us. I would appreciate a bit of order right now.

The hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the Liberal members taking offence at the comments by the hon. member for Peterborough. He is often more partisan than anything else.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of the bill of the hon. member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

Bill C-302 asks three things of the Conservative government: to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their “enemy alien” designation and internment during the second world war; to provide for restitution; and to promote education on Italian-Canadian history.

I am not the one who chose the term “Italian-Canadian”. I do not really see the difference between Canadian of Italian origin and Italian-Canadian.

If Bill C-302 is passed, Parliament would recognize this injustice. And I emphasize “Parliament” because that is what was discussed in committee.

It is important to mention that it is Parliament. Former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney has already made public apologies, but that was at a gathering held outside Parliament. It was not as solemn as it might be if the current Prime Minister rose in the House and apologized on behalf of the Canadian government.

In committee an attempt was made to study the bill. At least three groups came to testify. First there were three Canadians of Italian origin or Quebeckers of Italian origin, who are members of a committee created by theMinister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism and who were hand-picked by the minister and who represented only themselves. These persons came to tell us that all this was unnecessary and that Italians did not want these apologies. I was quite surprised at this, but three persons who seemed to me quite credible came to tell us that.

At the following meeting of the committee on November 24, a great many Quebeckers and Canadians of Italian origin testified: the National Congress of Italian Canadians, Casa D'Italia, the Order Sons of Italy of Canada, and the Italian-Canadian Community Foundation of Quebec. All of these people told us that Brian Mulroney’s apologies were not enough and that they absolutely wanted to make known the history of Canadians of Italian origin. So be it.

Also in committee, the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism said that it would be undignified for the government to apologize too often. I do not recall if I had time to tell him, but I certainly remember this. I am pleased to have the opportunity to say this now. I wanted to respond to the minister that I do not believe it is undignified for a government to apologize too often. Instead, I think it is always dignified to recognize one's mistakes and apologize until our victims are satisfied. Whether in the case of a government or an individual, this shows dignity.

Of course, this bill is not perfect. We would have liked to amend it in committee, adding a suggestion to Canada Post Corporation to issue a postage stamp, rather than instructing it to do so. It seems that that corporation does not take instructions from anyone, especially not the Minister of National Revenue, as set out in the bill. It seems this is not within the powers of the Minister of National Revenue.

To accurately translate the wishes of the people who appeared before us and the sponsor of the bill, perhaps we should have insisted that it be amended in order to make it very clear that any apologies should come from Parliament, through the Prime Minister here in this House.

In the end, however, we ran out of time, because the Conservatives obstructed the committee's work for partisan reasons, forcing us to wrap up our work before we were done.

Despite these imperfections, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill introduced by the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, because it is a way for us to pay tribute to all Quebeckers of Italian heritage and thank them for their support over the decades, particularly in Montreal, and for enriching our culture.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to all Quebeckers of Italian ancestry in my riding, especially the Italian senior's club in Saint-Hubert and its energetic and brilliant president, Guiseffina Vetri. In closing, I say grazie!

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity once again to speak in support of Bill C-302, An Act to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Italian origin through their “enemy alien” designation and internment during the Second World War, and to provide for restitution and promote education on Italian-Canadian history. The New Democrats are pleased to support this bill and to assist with its movement through Parliament.

Our great nation has a history as colourful and as varied as its people. Like many countries, however, Canada has experienced some dark points in its 143 year history or, as Canadian author Kenneth Bagnell would say, this chapter in Italian Canadian history is known as the days of darkness or the days of despair. These dark days took place during the second world war.

The entry of Italy into the second world war brought considerable disruption to the Italian Canadian community. While these communities were able to withstand a number of economic challenges due in large part to their strong family networks, there was one challenge they could not overcome.

In 1935 the actions on the other side of the ocean began to be felt by thousands of Italian Canadians and all Canadians who had settled in Canada, and that year Canadian hostility toward fascism had reached its climax. With Italy joining Germany in the war, Canadians became increasingly antagonistic toward Italian Canadians.

As a consequence of Italy's alliance with Germany in World War II, Italian Canadians were designated as enemy aliens and, as such, were the victims of widespread prejudice and discrimination. Canadian authorities believed that these strong family ties among the Italian community posed a serious potential threat to national security. Men lost their jobs. Shops were vandalized. Civil liberties were suspended under the War Measures Act. Hundreds were interned at Camp Petawawa in northern Ontario.

One of the Italian Canadians who would later be interned at Camp Petawawa was Italian-born Sudburian Dr. Luigi Pancaro. Dr. Pancaro was born on July 8, 1897 in Cosenza, Italy. After graduating with his medical degree from the University of Rome at the age of 28, he made his way to Canada where he became the first Italian-born medical doctor in Canada's north.

During the early 1930s Dr. Pancaro and his wife settled in Sudbury with the large Italian community and became a member of the staff at St. Joseph's Hospital and at the Sudbury Regional Hospital. In addition to joining the hospital staff, Dr. Pancaro also opened a private practice and became the family doctor for many members of the Italian community.

Dr. Pancaro's life dramatically changed on June 11, 1940. That day, Dr. Pancaro was suddenly pulled away from the patient he was seeing, placed in the back of a police van and transported to the Sudbury jail. In his cell, Dr. Pancaro met other Italian-born men, most of them his patients. Dr. Pancaro's abduction happened one day after Italy entered the second world war.

The evening before Dr. Pancaro was taken away in a police van, Prime Minister Mackenzie King ordered the internment of hundreds of Italian Canadians identified by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as enemy aliens. The roundup of Italian Canadians continued until October 1940.

Camp Petawawa was made up of 12 large barracks which housed 60 or more people in each. The entire camp was surrounded by two large barbed-wire fences. Those interned there were boys as young as 16 to men in their 70s. The internees were made to wear jackets adorned with a large red circle on their backs, a target for guards to shoot at if any tried to escape.

While at the camp, none of the internees saw their families. Letters from their loved ones were censored. Some men would stay for months, while others would remain for years. Dr. Pancaro remained at the camp for two years.

After that bitter experience, Dr. Pancaro returned to Italy. He ultimately returned to Sudbury in 1956, where he continued his successful medical practice until 1981.

These men, like Dr. Pancaro, as well as their families, who were denied relief bore the brunt of hostilities during this dark time in Canadian history. As a result, many Italians later anglicized their names and denied their Italian background. It is because of this hostile and hurtful treatment that many second generation Italian Canadians do not know nor fully understand their history.

The fact that this dark chapter in Italian Canadian history has led many to deny their Italian background makes it imperative that the government take the steps outlined in this bill; that is, provide for restitution and promote education on Italian Canadian history.

While our communities wait for governments to do the right thing, many in my riding of Sudbury have proudly carried forth and shared their Italian heritage and achieved success. In fact, despite being one of the city's hardest hit by these days of despair, Sudbury's Italian community has continued to make significant steps toward preserving and passing on its Italian culture and traditions to its future generations.

Nowhere are these Italian traditions of hard work and dedication to family and community more visible than in the vibrant Italian community in Sudbury. Sudbury is home to the Caruso Club, one of the largest Italian associations in all of Ontario. I had the distinct honour of being a guest at the club's membership meeting this past Saturday. Formed in 1947, the club is a not-for-profit organization that promotes, enhances and preserves Italian culture and heritage within the Canadian multicultural mosaic.

For those who are in the Sudbury area in the first week of July, I encourage them to come to the Italian festival and have a fantastic porchetta sandwich.

Something which is very important is that the club also renders assistance to persons of Italian nationality in need. It also maintains a library and archives of Italian heritage.

I would once again offer my thanks to the current board of directors of the Caruso Club, Sav Doni, John Santagapita, my cousin Egidio Manoni, Linda Zanatta-Beaudoin, Danilo Monticelli, Lina Sanchioni, Bob Armiento, Ugo Rocca, and board president Tony Nero, for the club's continued contributions to and support for the local community.

I would also like to extend my thanks to the Caruso Club's umbrella groups, which also make significant contributions to the Sudbury Italian community and to the overall community: Associazione Marchigiana di Sudbury, whose president is Ezio Campanelli; Associazione Veneta, whose president is Leo Silvestri; and the Calabria Social Club, whose president is Sav Doni. There are many others organizations, such as the Caruso Club Choir, the Caruso Club Children's Choir and the Caruso Club Ladies Auxiliary, to name a few.

We have a vibrant Italian community in Sudbury, and that is something I am very proud of.

For documenting and preserving this rich local history and sharing it with me, I would like to thank Diana Iuele-Colilli, who kindly supplied me with her book, Italian Faces: Images of the Italian Community of Sudbury.

Given that official apologies in the House of Commons have been offered for past actions of the Canadian government, I urge all members to join me in voting in favour of sending Bill C-302 to committee.

We will stand again in support of this bill so that the wrongs committed against Italian Canadians in the past can be made right.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I welcome the member's interventions. However, on three separate occasions, he said this is a dark chapter in Italian Canadian history. I am sure that what he meant was that this is a dark chapter in Canadian history, because there is not yet a recognition that there was an Italian Canadian history. This all happened in the context of Canadian history, where some members of Italian origin were victims of the War Measures Act.