Brian Fitzpatrick

[Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Cruelty to Animals), June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to address the House on the bill and the amendments.

I want to make it absolutely clear that the Canadian Alliance does not in any fashion condone or support cruelty to animals. We believe that cruelty to animals should be vigorously enforced by our criminal justice system and that wrongdoers receive severe and just penalties for cruelty to animals.

When the bill was in the House last fall I believe, we had concerns about the wording of the amendments and the changes to the Criminal Code. We were in close contact with many groups and organizations that are involved with the care of animals: the livestock industry, the hog industry, the poultry industry, people involved in medical research and a long list of other people, fishers and so on. They had major concerns about the definition of cruelty to animals under this legislation.

When we looked at the wording of the legislation we could see why there would be concerns. The wording was very wide, very loose, very ambiguous and very confusing. The Canadian Alliance tried, through committee and amendments in the House, to get the draftsmanship of that section amended and straightened out. At that time the government would not listen to our appeal and our concerns.

The other concern that legitimate caregivers of animals and people who work with animals had was that the amendments had the effect of eliminating a longstanding defence that people had toward cruelty to animal charges, a defence that I think, in all fairness, was a legitimate one. Government officials told us that we should not be concerned because that really was not the intent. However our position was that we should make it crystal clear and leave that type of defence in the Criminal Code so the courts and everyone would know what the intent of Parliament was but the government refused to do that.

Fortunately, the other House has addressed the concerns that we had on some of the wording, the definition and on the defence area. We support those amendments. There are provisions in the bill that we reject and we support the government's position. That would be amendments two and three.

We are in close contact with people who are involved in providing care to animals, livestock and agricultural producers and so on. It could be fairly said that a lot of those producers are pleased with the amendments and support them. With that being the case, we support them as well. We feel it does take away a lot of the concern that we have with the bill.

There are other provisions in the bill that are far from perfect, which I wish the other House had addressed as well, but that is not the nature of the amendments so I will not deal with that today.

As a final point, the opposition and particularly the Canadian Alliance in committee and in the House made a huge effort to address the deficiencies in the bill when it was in this House and we were stonewalled by the government. It would not listen to us. It now comes back from the other House with pretty much the same sort of changes we supported in this House in the first instance. If the government had listened to the opposition in the first place we would not have to be doing a lot of this follow up work at this stage.

Our basic position is that we support the amendments proposed with the exceptions of amendments two and three which we reject.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I was on the industry committee that studied gas prices too. One of my observations was that some of the highest priced provinces in Canada were in the NDP socialist provinces. Saskatchewan was one of them. Close to 40% to 50% of the costs of gasoline in some provinces is taxes so governments are part of this problem as well.

However one thing I do recall was a report that was filed at the industry committee which said that Canadian gas prices were the second lowest prices in the whole world. If high federal and provincial taxes were eliminated and they were on par with the United States, we might even have the lowest gas prices in the world.

Now that seems to me to be pretty strong evidence that things are working reasonably well in Canada, to have the second lowest gas price in the world. I know a lot of European socialist countries have gas prices that are four and five times as high as we have in Canada. France probably has prices four and five times as high as Canada.

How can the member say we have collusion in the country when we have the second lowest gas prices in the world?

[Committees of the House, June 5th, 2003]

I rise on a point of order. There has been specific reference to me on two occasions here, and both are incorrect.

The first one is that David Orchard is one of my constituents. David Orchard lives in Borden, Saskatchewan. That is not in the Prince Albert constituency.

The second point is that David Orchard has been referred to as one of my best friends. I want to make it clear to my constituents back home that David Orchard is not one of my best friends.

[Committees of the House, June 5th, 2003]

David Orchard.

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we have 50,000 people in our armed forces and we really do not have any military capacity at all. I said that we have a freeloader capacity.

The Americans had to go to Afghanistan and they carried the ball there. We put some money into it, but let us be honest, the Americans put billions of dollars into that, into Iraq and then into homeland security.

Homeland security, post-September 11 is a real shock. It has affected our economy big time. We are trying to recover from it too. For the Prime Minister to attack the President of the United States for reacting to extraordinary circumstances is beyond amazement.

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with the sentiment of the question. I think if members opposite do not understand that there is a connection between our deteriorating relationship with the United States and the way we carry out foreign policy, we are missing an awful lot.

I have a short list to add to this. On the anniversary of September 11, if I understood our Prime Minister correctly, one interpretation of his comments, and it is hard sometimes to interpret what he saying, was that the United States, through its policies, was really getting back what they had cost. I find that totally unacceptable.

There is a whole list of others. On that same anniversary, a member of the Liberal government in the House said that September 11 was a minor inconvenience. I wonder what she was doing on September 11. Did she not have her TV on? Another minister in that context said it was too bad the Soviet Union collapsed because it was a good counterbalance to the United States. Josef Stalin and Lenin and the misery they brought on this world is something we should be wanting to preserve? I cannot believe that.

Then there was the comment, “I hate those bastards”. As well, a chief adviser called Bush a “moron”. During the American election the comment was that Gore would be better than Bush for Canada. Another minister said that Bush is not a statesman.

Then we have the latest tirade, where the Prime Minister did what he did not want the ambassador of the United States to do, which was to interfere with our domestic relations, and started running down the United States for being right wing southern conservative, saying it is running up deficits and saying we know how to do things here. The United States has 5% of the world's population and 40% of the world's GDP. It has nothing to be embarrassed about. And if we did not have access to that market, our standard of living would be substantially lower. I find this whole response of these Liberal MPs, cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister insulting to my American friends.

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

The billion dollar boondoggle.

Of course we have the Minister of Canadian Heritage and everybody in this House knows that when the minister of heritage spends money, we always get great value for that money. There is no waste in that department.

There are a lot of these ministries in the government. The Auditor General can certainly give me a lot of support on that and I wish she had more people in her department so we could find out the full extent of this. If we had our priorities right and the government was doing the things it should be doing in this country rather than squandering and wasting money on useless programs such as the firearms registry and other such programs, we would have no problem financing our way in areas that are really important to Canadians.

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, some ministers of the Crown come to mind right off the bat. I could go back over the Minister of Industry's portfolio. How much is the firearms registry? It is $1 billion. In fact, I think someone counted $3 billion or $4 billion for that alone. What was what it called for the Minister of Human Resources Development a few years back?

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, sovereignty is about the capacity to make one's own decisions. Too many members of our government believe that cooperation with our allies undermines our sovereignty. When we cooperate with trusted allies to protect our vital national interests, we are exercising our sovereignty; we are making a responsible and intelligent choice.

I want to use this motion as an occasion to make some observations about our very special relationship with our American friends. Our trading relationship with the U.S. is seriously being undermined. Lumber, grain and now beef cattle are the objects of problems in obtaining access to the American market. Too many of my government friends assume that we have a God given right or a constitutional right to gain access to the American market.

There is nothing in the American constitution that I know of that gives Canada a special right or access to that market. Access to that market is a privilege which we should cherish and value. We should not take it for granted and assume it is some sort of right that we have. This is a seriously flawed assumption on the government's part. NAFTA and world trade rules and so on are only partial solutions to that sort of problem.

Our access and our economic and social well-being as a nation really depend on identifying shared common values and interests we have with the Americans and working closely with them. This is nothing against our sovereignty. It is common sense. It is good policy. Our nation depends very much on a healthy, friendly relationship with our American friends. It is in our national interest to maintain that friendly, healthy relationship.

The government, especially in recent years, has poorly managed that relationship right down the line. Besides the trade situation, we are seeing signs of a deteriorating situation in terms of the investment climate. DaimlerChrysler announced recently that it is not going ahead with a $1.7 billion investment in Windsor. Honda Motor Company has stated on a number of occasions that it is concerned about long term investments in Canada because of potentially deteriorating economic circumstances with the United States. There are signs that the investment climate is working against this nation because of government policies and actions toward the Americans.

Another sign of the deteriorating relationship is that this country is increasingly being left out of the loop. I recall post September 11 when George Bush addressed the house of representatives. Who was in attendance that day? Tony Blair. George Bush read off the names of the countries of the world that he sees as American allies and friends. There were many countries on that list but one country that he did not mention was Canada. At that level it is something that is not overlooked or forgotten. We have to assume it is deliberate.

The Prime Minister has not been invited to the President's ranch. Just about anyone who counts for anything in the world has visited the President's ranch in Texas but the Prime Minister has not been there. The President's announced visit to Canada was cancelled. That again is a sign that things are not good on this front. This is disturbing.

Not long ago a poll in the United States asked American citizens whether they saw Canadians as friends and allies. A substantially large number of Americans do not see Canadians as their friends or allies any more. That is serious.

I am pleased that today the minister of defence announced that the government has embarked upon negotiations with the Americans on this missile defence system. It is a step in the right direction. There have been so many backward steps on the American-Canadian relationship file, it is causing a lot of damage to this country and our future as a nation. This is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, we do not have an agreement concluded with the Americans on the missile system. That is a whole different story. At least we have indicated that we are going to embark upon that area and hopefully it will work out.

I sincerely hope that our government will make a decision that will put Canadian security and national defence first and foremost. I hope it will set aside the temptation to pander for political purposes to the left-wing anti-American element that exists in this country and in the government, and some days I get the impression it is the majority of the government.

I come from a province that has been dominated by left wing socialist thinking. I know what it has done to that province. I become concerned that what we really have here in Canada is an informal socialist left-wing government which will do the same thing to the nation as what was slowly done to my province of Saskatchewan. What it did was drive people to the United States, to Alberta and to other parts of the country. In the government's case it would be driving them out of the country, which is already happening in some cases.

Let me make some comments about the proposed North American missile defence system. In a historical sense, we have a new paradigm. The cold war is over. The Prime Minister does not seem to understand that. He seems to be talking as if it were the 1950s, 1960s, or 1970s. The world has changed. We are not looking at superpower versus superpower any more. That is over with. Nazism is gone.

Most enlightened countries realize that socialism and communism do not work and have since rejected them. Some people still cling to it and try to maintain it. Some people travel to France and talk to their friends over there, trying to perpetuate this myth and keep it going. However they are really wasting their time and selling out the interests of the country.

In today's paradigm there are rogue nations in the world run by people who have absolutely no respect for human rights, no respect for our values of freedom, liberty and democracy and wealth creation and so on. They are evil people who are motivated by hate. If they had the means to strike at the heart of our system and cause mass destruction, they would do it tomorrow.

That is something my friend across the way ignored in his speech. He ignored history. Freedom-loving people who do not understand this reality will sooner or later be attacked by evil people. Hearing a man like that speak reminds me of the peacemaker Neville Chamberlain who did not like war, but sometimes war is necessary. I am sure the six million deceased Jewish people would have said that sometimes war is necessary.

We cannot let evil knock down our door, walk in and take over our country. If our neighbour is being attacked, we do not sit back and say it is not our problem because our door will be knocked down sooner or later and we need a defence system against that.

That is not the end of this paradigm. The other part of this paradigm is that we have international terrorism today in this world and in my view it is motivated by religious fanatics and zealots who do not respect anything we stand for. I do not mean just the values of the United States. They do not respect anything we stand for as Canadians. If they had their way, they would destroy and annihilate everything we stand for. They would eliminate it tomorrow. They have no toleration for it. They are motivated by hate and they are out to destroy us. If we were to sit idly by and say it is an American problem or somebody else's problem and we are peace loving country and these people will not bother us, we would be very naive. We are ignoring a clear and present danger to the civilized world as we know it.

My government friends say that it is an American problem and not our problem, but it is our problem. When the border closes down in the United States or the American economy slows down or we cannot sell beef, lumber, Bombardier jets or Nortel optical technology in the United States, guess what happens? People get laid off, our economy goes in the tank, and the first thing we know the government does not have the revenue to start paying for social programs, and unemployment rates start going up and so on. We have to look at some realities in this country and respect the people we should be respecting.

A national government that ignores these realities is putting the national security and the health of this nation at risk. I really think it is putting the future identity and the strength of our nation at risk too. A country that cannot understand these basic simple realities will not last that long.

I believe it is incumbent on us to fully participate in a North American missile defence system. I think we have to participate, not just negotiate. We have to do our part to make sure that this system is up and running and that we are protected as well, because this new paradigm does not distinguish between New York or Chicago or Toronto and Canadians or Americans. We have been declared enemies as well, so let us make this clear.

I want to make some comments about this system. First, this is not a weapons system. It is designed to intercept weapons heading toward North America which, if they were to reach their destination, would cause unbelievable harm to people's lives, our environment and our future. It is not a weapon. Let us get that clear. If we put a lock on our door to keep criminals from breaking into our house, that is not a weapon. Let us be clear what we are talking about when we use this language in the House. We are not talking about weapons.

Also, there is some confusion about star wars or escalation of weapons into space. Again let us be clear. This is a ground to air system. It is not a space system. I do not know why people keep on coming up with this idea. It is not part of the scenario. It is a ground to air system.

My learned friend has gone again, but would he be saying that if the Americans had had advance notice about the jets flying into the twin towers he would not have sent up some F-16s or something to take down those planes before they hit their destination? That is ground to air. It did not come down from the stars or the moon or something. I really do not know where this argument is coming from, unless there are some people who just do not want to deal with the truth and the facts.

I just bring that matter to your attention, Mr. Speaker, because I know you would really like to understand that point and I am sure you could probably help other colleagues understand it too.

There are all these harmful decisions that have been made which have hurt our relationship with our American friends, so this is a really good opportunity to start rebuilding this relationship. It is in pretty bad shape right now. We had better do something to send a signal to our American friends that we are on side with them and that we have ceased pandering to all these left wing, socialistic types of people who seem to have had the favour of the government over the last two or three years when it comes to foreign policy.

There is another area I want to deal with. I have run into a fair number of people on the government side, and their supporters, who say that Canada does not need a defence system. They say the world has changed, we are a peace loving nation and we do not need a defence system.

With all due respect, that shows an ignorance of history. Countries that do not prepare to defend themselves against people who have no respect for other people's rights, and that applies to nations, will pay a very heavy price for it. They will pay a very heavy price for it. We all want peace, but some people in the world are bound and determined to cause war and to cause problems and we have to be prepared for that.

Saying that Canada does not need a defence system is also based on the assumption that all problems can be solved through diplomatic channels and peacekeeping methods. History shows us that is not the case. In 1919-20 the world created the League of Nations, an organization that would ensure there would never be a war again. We would collectively prevent war from happening again. What happened in the 1930s? The Nazi movement and Hitler arose and we had the beginning of the second world war, with Mussolini in Italy and the Japanese in Manchuria and China and so on. Millions of people were slaughtered. What did the League of Nations do with its diplomacy and peacekeeping? Nothing. It did not stop it. What really stopped it was war.

I do not like war, but the alternative was to surrender to Hitler. Is that an alternative? Sometimes we have to fight in this world. That is a problem I see with this government. It is so focused on diplomacy and peacekeeping it does not understand that sometimes this does not work and conflict is necessary, whether we like it or not. It is the same as wishing we did not have criminals. Maybe the Liberals could pass a law banning criminals and they would disappear and be gone, but we all know there are people who are not going to abide by the laws and they are not going to disappear just because a law is passed.

I do understand what William Shakespeare was thinking when he said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There are a lot of good intentions in the House, but I am not exactly sure if the road is all that smooth. If it is smooth, it is going the wrong way.

The third point I want to raise is that some people say we do not really need a defence system because if there is a problem the Americans will defend us. These are the people who are arguing sovereignty on the other side of the House. The Americans will protect us. I am not a freeloader. I believe that in this world we all have to pull our own weight. I am not counting on somebody else to defend my home or my nation. That is our responsibility. That is the responsibility of our federal government. It has neglected that file. Implicitly what their unofficial defence policy in this nation has been--and they are not looking up at me right now--and what the Liberals are really saying is that the Americans will protect us if this happens, that we cannot protect ourselves but we will have the Americans to do it for us.

I wanted to make a few comments about some of the statements made in the last couple of years that have really undermined our relationship with the Americans, but I understand I am out of time, Mr. Speaker.

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with the innovation as an outgrowth of this sort of decision.

A lot of Canadian contractors are involved in the defence industry. I have been following the Iraq situation. Bechtel has been given a big contract to rebuild Iraq. I certainly will be watching to see how many Canadian subcontractors will be involved in rebuilding in Iraq. Whether we like it or not, a lot of the innovation and technology that we have in this world is an outgrowth of the defence industry. All we have to do is look at the aerospace industry.

Will the defence minister be putting a lot of emphasis on our defence industry and its participation in this whole process when these negotiations are pursued and not be left out, although we probably will be because of our Iraq decision?