John Godfrey

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, in this case it comes down to this. If there are people who are disadvantaged in society how are we to ensure to the maximum that they will cease to be disadvantaged, that they will as individuals, which I stressed in my talk about Liberal principles, have the best possible chance of access to jobs?

I do not discount what the hon. member said about the virtue of community and the importance of individual initiative or community initiative or company initiative. I do not discount that in the slightest. It is a crucial part of the social fabric of the country. I do not think it is only the role of government to do that.

What worries me in that analysis is what happens to the people who are not the neighbour at our gate. What happens to the people who are the strangers in our streets? In the case of aboriginals, many of them are. Look at our large urban cities. Look at who those people are and how disconnected they are from our neighbourhoods and our families and our communities.

If it is not society acting through its state, working with its partners, the private sector and communities, that will take care of those people in some kind of fairly systematic way, then not only will we be an unkind and uncaring society, we will be an inefficient society. We will be forced to use more of our resources for security guards and prisons and deal with people who drop out of schools and all the rest of it.

It is in everybody's interest to behave in a collective manner and to recognize the potentially positive role of government in doing that. We are not saying government is any better than the private sector or individuals or anything else like that. We are simply saying it is no worse. I say this as an economic historian. Its track record in worrying about the betterment of humankind is considerably better over time than that of the business community.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, that was a very confusing question. Let us start with the $105,000 that went to the bankers association to train aboriginals and disabled people. It was intended to do precisely that, to allow people who would not otherwise be in the workforce to cease to be liabilities and to become social assets by entering the work force. They did. The program worked.

The member used the language of force. The banks, he suggested, would not have done that. They were forced to take on board, because of equity legislation, these kinds of people and were therefore forced to train them. What if they had not been forced? Is he telling me they would not have done it, that it was not worthwhile doing it in its own right, that somebody in this society should not take care of aboriginal people and disabled people to integrate them into the workforce?

He may well say if we would let the banks do it on their own, but that is not what he suggested. He suggested they were forced to do it. The implication was that they would not otherwise have done it. If they would not have done it, who would have done it?

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I spoke of the importance of innovation. If the hon. member for Calgary Centre were to read the chapter in the red book on health, he would discover a radically new way of thinking about health care which would link it to our social programs, to the way in which we view education and training and indeed to the way in which we view universities. That is what I mean by innovation.

There was a time when we concentrated on health care. The most advanced thinking in the field is to concentrate on the determinants of health itself. Surely health is what we hope to be the outcome of a health care system, but it is not the outcome of the health care system. Health is the outcome of what happened to us earlier in life, in early childhood for instance.

It is our position that we have to work with the provinces because we do not, as the hon. member well knows, have the constitutional responsibility for the things he mentions. We should work together as partners in a Team Canada approach that looks at how all these issues are connected.

If we get it right with early childhood, from birth to the time children enter the school system, the positive outcomes will not only affect health status of adults, the learning status of adults, but will radically improve crime statistics, which the hon. member is worried about.

What I am suggesting is that they will continue to go up until we take a holistic view of how these things hang together. That is what I mean by innovative thinking and a willingness to rethink old problems.

[Supply, May 30th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, today we are debating a very weighty subject which is the origins of cynicism. I do not know if we pursued the debate to its final conclusion we would have to have a debate on the human condition, but I suppose we would have to do it with the political conditions we find before us today.

I suppose one could ask who is putting the question about cynicism and perhaps ask them a couple of questions back. I want to start with something rather specific that was said by the member for Medicine Hat. In his speech he raised a litany of things which he said would be the source of cynicism about our government. I was curious at his roll call.

One detail leapt out of his speech on which I decided to do a little research. The member informed the House that the Canadian Bankers Association in Vancouver received from the Government of Canada a grant of $105,000. This was cited as an example of waste. Of course there were no details provided so I decided I might try and help out the hon. member by finding some details myself.

It turns out that this much criticized grant which the hon. member referred to was used exclusively to train aboriginal students and persons with disabilities. They would be better prepared to enter the workforce, get off social assistance and expand their skills so they could access entry level positions within the banks.

The banks themselves provided on the spot training and all sorts of support significantly over the period of the grant to help these aboriginal people and disabled persons. There were 55 students from 1991 to 1994. Forty-seven of them graduated and 30 of them were hired by the banks.

I only raise this seemingly minor point simply to ask: If the hon. member had done the research and had found out what I found out, would he have made the point? If he had made the point knowing what he knew, would that not have contributed to the cynicism which surrounds the political process, that he might have deliberately suppressed the most crucial information about the case he cited?

There are broader reasons for political cynicism which can be laid directly at the door of the Reform Party. One might ask what the source is of cynicism about public institutions, governments, politicians and the political process.

I suspect that if one examined the very origins of the Reform Party itself, one might say it is an anti-political political party. I dare say Reformers would not disagree with that. These are politicians who say they hate politicians. Indeed, the entire Reform Party platform is based on catering to a fundamental dislike which human beings have of public institutions, governments, politicians and the political process itself. Therefore, if one likes, the Reform Party was constituted on a principle of self-loathing as a political party.

The origins of those ideas of course are to be found south of the border and across the Atlantic. The origins of those ideas come from that bundle of concepts which could be described as Ronald-Thatcherism. It is a strange view of the world which basically states that governments are not neutral actors, they are bad actors, and that for all of the major social and economic issues of our time the marketplace should decide and the individual must reign in complete freedom. Those are the major tenets of the Reform Party and they belong to a larger school of intellectual thought which we saw active in the 1980s.

There is also a certain connection, which I dare say they would deny, between that chain of ideas and the ideas of the predecessor government to our own. The previous Prime Minister, Mr. Mulroney, very much subscribed to the Ronald-Thatcherite school of thinking with its libertarian ideas. He also subscribed to the notion that the model for society was the United States. He used to state so simply about Canadian foreign policy: "I know who my friends are".

I suspect that the cynicism which Canadians feel about the political process which was certainly accelerated during the Mulroney years comes from two sources, not one. The obvious source was the suggestion of favouritism and patronage. But more subtly the source was a fundamental belief by the leader of the country that the model was somewhere else, that headquarters were somewhere else and we would be very well off if we could emulate those values and that kind of society. That was a subtle undermining of the political process and a major contribution to cynicism. The Reform Party has contributed to the continuation of this cynicism.

It was interesting to observe the Winds of Change conference over the past weekend. There was such a clear distinction between what I would call true Conservatism, which I do not think Mr. Mulroney embodied, and the kind of radical rightist thinking which is characteristic of the Reform Party. I entirely sympathize with the Reform Party because of course there can be no true union between true Conservatives and radical rightists.

What do radical rightists believe? Jeffrey Simpson put it very nicely the other day in an article:

These radical rightists are essentially libertarians with little sense of community. As such, they represent the antithesis of genuine conservatism, which emphasises the organic nature of society, tradition, pragmatism, order and reciprocal obligations. A society that values cohesion and order must have a sense of obligation, of what we owe each other, but a libertarian society is founded on the idea that we owe each other nothing except the ability to protect individuals from interference in the unfettered enjoyment of their liberty and property.

This is the radical rightist or Reform world view. Of course, it represents cynicism not only about governments, politics, institutions and the like referred to in Reform's motion, but it represents-and here I echo the remarks of the member for York North-a cynicism about the human condition, about human beings. It is a meanspirited view of humankind. It is a distrust of society. It is, as I have said, a kind of political and social self-loathing.

One might ask what the alternative is to this and why would our alternative Liberalism be of a different order. There are five principles of Liberalism which help to dissipate cynicism, which give people hope and differentiate us not only from the radical rightists of the Reform Party or of Mr. Frum. They not only differentiate us in some sense from the traditional Conservatives, although we would be closer to them, but also from the New Democratic Party, whatever that is.

The first important distinction which separates us from the pack is a dedication to innovation. It is true, particularly in this century, that the Liberal Party has been innovative in economic reform and innovative in social reform. The Liberals are innovative now in recognizing that when institutions which were created for one purpose, such as unemployment insurance and the health care system, now find themselves in a different situation, we are not afraid to innovate again by going back to the fundamental principles of what it is we are trying to achieve with the social system in question, be it the health care system or social support for individuals. Innovation is at the heart of what we did in the red book and what I hope we will be able to do in the remainder of our mandate.

A second distinguishing characteristic, which is almost a psychological tone if I may say, is optimism: optimism about human beings, optimism about society, optimism about the future of the world. It is an optimism which is not to be taken for granted but to be worked on through innovation. We have to be optimistic about this country, about our families, and about business if we are to make a go of it. We cannot start from the principle that it is dreadful and getting worse. We have to be optimistic.

A third important strand, and here we connect up with some of the other ones I have referred to, is a concern for the individual's welfare, not ignoring vast numbers of humankind because they are not our kind. It is a concern for the individual.

A fourth distinction-and this one really does separate us from the others-is a view of the state which says on the one hand, unlike the NDP, we do not think the state can do it all. On the other hand, unlike the radical right, we do not think there is no role whatsoever for the state. It is a view which says sometimes it is useful and sometimes it is not.

I wish to pick up on some remarks made by the Minister for International Cooperation. More important, the state now has to be in a partnership with all elements of society. We no longer speak of nations in a sense and we no longer speak of states; we speak of societies which compete collectively as state-sharing vessels.

Sometimes I agree with the language of Mr. Bouchard when he talks the language of social solidarity. It is all of the elements coming together to compete. It is the Team Canada approach internalized which will advance the cause of this society. We cannot command and control this economy or this society, but neither can we neglect it.

We have to use our convening power to bring together all the elements of Canadian society to advance the technological agenda, to advance the social agenda because no one person, no one institution, no one situs, in sociological terms, can do the job alone. That is a distinguishing characteristic: that we view the state as having an active but not dominant role. That is the fourth condition of Liberalism.

Finally, and I think this is crucial as well, Liberals do not see themselves either as individual members or collectively as representing the interests of one group of Canadians or one social group as in contradistinction to another. It is the difference between what has happened in Ontario in recent elections where the ins under the NDP represented a certain group of people: the trade unionists, the environmentalists, very worthy people. Then suddenly there was a swing and the new ins represent the country club set and reject the views of labour and all the rest of it.

Liberals do not play that game. Liberals say they protect all those interests and attempt through society to harmonize their interests to a common purpose. That is the distinction between what we do and what the Reform Party does. That is why I think Canadians have a great deal less to be cynical about as they think about the Liberal Party than as they think about the Reform Party.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 9th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton West. I rise to offer my unqualified support for Bill C-33.

It was not my original intention to speak on this bill. I came to Parliament for a number of reasons, as did the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. My reasons were long. I came here to try to promote national unity, to help with wealth and job creation, to deal with Canada's participation in an expanded NAFTA, to promote programs for early childhood support-my contribution to the family other than having a two-year-old-and to support issues in science and technology, to defend Canadian culture and the environment.

I did not really think I would be standing here and speaking on this motion today. My original view of Bill C-33 was that it was so restricted in its application, so obviously necessary, so consistent with the principles of my party that it was hardly worth debating or discussing. It is precisely this debate and this division within the House and indeed within my own party, this passion, which has convinced me not only to support the bill, something I had always intended to do, but to speak today.

What is the bill about? This bill simply adds sexual orientation to a list of prohibited categories for discrimination. We are talking about basic human rights here. We are not talking about lifestyle choices. It is simply about outlawing discrimination for that 10 per cent of Canadians who work within institutions covered by federal jurisdiction.

With respect to the hon. member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, it has nothing but nothing to do with the five examples she gave us from Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, British Columbia and wherever else she spoke. All of those are strictly a matter of provincial jurisdiction. They are covered in the 90 per cent of the population that this bill does not deal with. It is not about provincial jurisdiction, despite the examples she cited.

This bill does not cover 90 per cent of Canadians who live and work outside federal institutions. It does not apply to marriage, which is a provincial matter. It does not apply to adoption, which is a provincial matter. With respect for the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam, it does not apply to the family. Indeed, the preamble to the bill "affirms the importance of family as the foundation of Canadian society".

Oddly enough, it is not even about religion. To suggest such a thing is to read things into the text which simply are not there. We could add a number of things which it does not concern. It is not about the Canadian Wheat Board. It is not about Pearson airport. It is not even about the Great Wall of China. Nowhere do the words Great Wall of China appear in the text.

Let us go through some of the arguments made by the member for Port Moody-Coquitlam. The first one is why a list and why a specific reference to the category of discriminated persons. It is obvious. In the absence of a specific reference to sexual orientation one can quite categorically affirm that there have been examples of blatant discrimination within federal institutions, notably within the armed forces.

The second point is the family, which I have already alluded to. It is not about the family, even though we have reaffirmed our basic faith in the family in the preamble. The member asked why is there no definition of family. The member answered her own question by her inability to give one when pressed without a piece of paper in her hand. If it is that complicated, why on earth should we put the definition of a family in that she could not provide under pressure?

The third argument the hon. member raised had to do with ramming through. Who is ramming through? I thought we had declared this a free vote. I noticed that on our side there was some division of opinion last night and there may even be later today. What I did not detect was any sign of a free vote on the other side of the floor from the very member who made the point. Those who had views on either side seem to have been excluded, whatever the moderation or extremity of the views. Who is ramming through what?

The hon. member said there were no references in the legislation to same sex benefits. I find this a very curious logic. On the one hand the member asked us to add all sorts of detail to define the family, to talk about marriage, benefits and so on, but on the other hand eliminate any reference to categories of discriminated persons. Either in logic one believes everything should be included in the bill, that is to say both lists of discriminated persons and exemptions and exceptions and all the concerns she raised, or one is for simplicity in law. To be half for simplicity and half for complexity leaves me a little confused.

Given what the bill is about, which is modest, and what it is not about, which is vast, what is the real reason for this passion in the debate? Without giving a detailed psychological analysis of all present, which would probably not be appreciated by anyone, it seems the bill carries on its thin and bony shoulders the weight of a tremendous burden; that is, the weight of all changes that have taken place in Canadian society since 1950, plus the Great Wall of China to boot.

It is simply an expression of fear of change. A fear of the differences which are emerging in our new Canadian society. That is what the passion is about. That is not what the bill is about. Therefore those are the reasons that convince me to vote for the bill and to speak in favour of the bill; however, it is this very passion, this very fear, that convinces me we need such a bill.

[The Budget, March 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would rather address my hon. colleague's opening remarks, in which he congratulates me on my speech, but he is very suspicious, very sceptical, very cynical even. I would simply like to talk about a fine example of a national blueprint for society in which Quebec has a very keen interest.

When I was chairman of the Standing Committee on Industry, I was asked to create a sub-committee to look at the defence industries and their conversion in Quebec. This is an example of an industry based in Quebec that depends enormously on the Canadian infrastructure.

At the meeting I mentioned a moment ago, I made a proposition concerning this technology, which I referred to in my speech, to create an urban bus system using a type of electrochemical cell, namely the Ballard system. This is a company that is creating a technology but has no partner in Quebec. And then there is Bombardier, a Quebec company specializing in aerospace and mass transit. Why not form an alliance between this company in British Columbia and the company in Quebec? That would be a form of partnership. That would be a national project in everyone's interest, because it would also entail the conversion of a defence industry. It would mean taking an existing asset, Bombardier, and converting it to environmental technology. That is why we must get involved in this sort of national project.

[The Budget, March 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I want to talk about the future for Canada made possible by this budget. My comments are based on two statements.

The first one comes at the end of the finance minister's budget speech, and I quote:

We must set great national challenges, not small ones because it is only by reaching as high as we are able that we will discover how far we can go.

Why can we not decide together that ten years hence, Canada will be regarded as the world leader in the new industries of the new economy, in bio-technology, in environmental technology, in the cultural industries of the multi-channel universe? Why not decide together that ten years hence increasing child poverty rates will be a thing of the past, that illiteracy will be erased from our communities and that when it comes to international tests, our students will not simply do fine, but in fact be the very finest?

In that statement, the minister talks about national challenges, about challenges facing all of Canada. The second statement comes from the Prime Minister's presentation on the throne speech, and I quote:

Canadians were used to seeing governments compete, first ministers bicker, but with Team Canada they saw us working together. They liked what they saw and they want to see more it.

We can and must prove to Canadians that we, federal and provincial governments and the private sector, do not need to leave Canada in order to work together. Team Canada worked well in Beijing, Bombay and Buenos Aires but it can work as well in Burnaby, Brampton or Bromont. We should put the same Team Canada spirit to work here at home creating jobs in a true national partnership.

Here is one approach, one way of meeting the national challenges the Minister of Finance was talking about. Today, I am proposing a blend of these two great ideas, combining national challenges with a Team Canada approach. I am putting forward an action plan to make ten blueprints for Canadian society a reality within ten years. Ten days ago, on March 2, we held in my riding a symposium on the theme of blueprints for Canadian society in a renewed Canada. What it was not is a constituent assembly. There was no talk of centralization, decentralization, new distribution of powers within the country, Brussels or subsidiarity.

The partitioning of Quebec was not discussed either. There was no plan A, B, C, D or X. All we talked about was the raison d'être of a country. There were discussions about friendly association across the country and about a real country called Canada.

What is a blueprint for Canadian society? First of all, it requires a partnership involving the federal government, the provincial governments, the municipal governments, the private sector, the volunteer sector, the academic sector, the labour movement, and so on.

Canadian history is filled with examples of such plans. The economic situation during the second world war is but one such example. The construction of our railroads, of the Trans-Canada highway and pipelines, and of the St. Lawrence seaway are more examples. We could even add the development of our national health care system.

What should our new blueprints for Canadian society be? The Minister of Finance mentioned a few; here are a few more. The participants in the March 2 seminar looked at three examples: one in the environmental industry, based on the technology developed by Ballard Power Systems, in Vancouver; one dealing with how to better protect and educate our children; and one concerning the information highway.

The methodology used was similar in each case. First, what is the goal, the vision, the mandate? Second, what is the theory supporting this vision and why choose this project as opposed to another one? Third, what resources are available at every level-federal, provincial, private sector, etc.-to fulfil the mandate? Fourth, how could we join our individual efforts to achieve our common goal?

How can we create that famous Team Canada at home? Let me give you an example. Everyone, and politicians in particular, talks about the need to protect our children. However, this is often mere rhetoric. Yet, we all know that positive support to young children until they reach the age of four or five is absolutely essential for their emotional, social and intellectual development. Headstart programs are well worth the initial investment.

We have all the necessary resources to provide our children with the support they need to achieve their full potential. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research on Human Development gathers researchers from across Canada, including a very important player in Montreal, the team of Richard Tremblay and Marc Renaud.

There are also federal and provincial programs. As well, there are community based projects everywhere in Canada. Yet, as a country, we have not succeeded in consolidating all these initiatives in a Canadian blueprint for society.

A country exists to face common challenges. This is why, in the coming decade, we need to have at least ten Canadian blueprints for society, if we are to build a new Canada. People do not belong to a country only for reasons of fear or money. They do so because they are willing to work together to create a better country.

The Order of Canada motto, now the country's motto, reads: Desiderantes Meliorem Patriam . They want a better homeland, like all of us.

[Status Of Women, March 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister for International Co-operation, the Hon. Pierre Pettigrew, I would like to remind the House that today is International Women's Day. The status of women remains a serious concern, particularly in developing countries. This is an enormous challenge, because the human rights of half of the world's population are at stake and, in many cases, the concept of human rights may even include the right to live.

But we have come a long way, and the recent UN conference on women held in Beijing was an important milestone, which followed many others. I am referring to the milestones set through our international development co-operation program. Canada has long been a leader in the advancement of women, as the OECD calls it. We must all support this program of international co-operation, if we want it to continue promoting equality for women around the world.

[Foreign Affairs, February 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite pleased to rise in this House today to support the government's motion for increased Canadian involvement in the UN mission in Haiti.

But first of all, let me stress the fact that this motion is moved in the context of the government's willingness to consult Canadians and parliamentarians on broad foreign policy issues.

This House has been given the opportunity to discuss the government's new foreign policy and, on several occasions, the involvement of our troops in UN missions in Bosnia and elsewhere.

As the minister said, this debate is something of a last minute proposition. I know some members would have liked to have more time to prepare for this debate. I want to say to hon. members that the government will make every effort to give more notice of future debates such as this one, whenever possible.

The government's foreign policy review has indicated that Canadians want to be more involved in the making of our foreign policy. For the first time, the government has asked Canadians to express their views through Internet on Canadian participation in the UN mission in Haiti. I am pleased to report that, out of about a hundred responses, 75 were in favour. We got many relevant comments and useful suggestions.

I am pleased to see that today's debate gives us once again the opportunity to talk about Canada's participation in a mission led by the United Nations. We have the chance not only to reaffirm the unique role our country plays within the United Nations system, but also to review the special contribution Canada has made these last few years to help the Haitian people on its way towards democracy.

In 1990, the Haitian people took a first big step towards democracy when they elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The 1991 coup led by the Haitian army served to show how fragile the movement towards democracy was. The determination of the world community, of the United Nations, of the friends of Haiti and of the president in exile showed however that that was the only way the Haitian people could go.

The Canadian population and the Canadian government never wavered in their support for the Haitian people and for its fight for democracy and freedom.

Besides helping to organize presidential elections in 1990, we worked for the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, we were there to welcome him back to his country, we helped Haiti to hold legislative and presidential elections last year and we were there, a few weeks ago, to assist for the first ever handing of power from one democratically elected president to another.

Our new colleague, the Minister for International Cooperation and the Minister responsible for Francophonie, Mr. Pierre Pettigrew, went to Haiti to attend this event. It was his first official trip, which goes to show how important the Haitian issue is to the government.

And now that a new president has been elected and that Haiti is on the way toward building its civilian society, Canada will still be supporting the Haitian people.

We can be proud of what the international community and Canada have accomplished in Haiti in such a short time after President Aristide's return. We have quickly identified the most urgent needs of the Haitian people and coordinated the activities of all donor nations to provide adequate assistance.

Canada has helped to restore power supply in Port-au-Prince not only by fixing the actual power stations but also by providing back-up stations. As well as providing emergency food aid, we have helped the Haitian people to build schools and health care units.

The sad episode of the de facto government served to show the harsh reality: democracy is fragile in Haiti. It is still threatening for certain interests. That is why we must try to consolidate it so that it can put deep roots in the Haitian society. It must allow all groups in the Haitian society to express themselves and get involved.

To this end, we must continue to favour the onset of a secure environment, to rebuild the judicial infrastructure of the country and to help Haiti embark upon the economic transition it needs to ensure its future and its stability.

As the government stated yesterday in its speech from the throne, the future of our societies depends on the safety of their citizens. This sums up Canada's action in Haiti as well as in other developing countries.

We must give the Haitian people the time it needs to bring about these changes. The more the months to come will be stable and the more the democratic institutions will have the time to develop and to consolidate, the stronger the economy will be.

Haiti is facing huge challenges. And yet, I am sure it will be able to rise to them. Just think about it. Only two years ago, Haiti fell prey to political violence. Haitians were afraid to walk in the streets and rightly so. It is estimated that 4,000 to 5,000 Haitians were killed during the Cédras regime.

Today, there is almost no more political violence. Arbitrary action is a thing of the past. A year ago, setting up a professional police force in Haiti seemed an impossible dream. Let us consider the challenge taken up by the Haitian government more than 12 months ago: abolishing the army, and training and deploying 5,000 police officers, with the help of Canada, among others, before the end of the UNMIH, which is scheduled for tomorrow. Nonetheless, a few days ago, the lastest graduates of the Haiti police academy were deployed throughout the country.

During the next few months, Canadian police officers will continue to help the new Haitian police force learn community police techniques and field methods. At the same time, they will continue to train the new recruits.

I know Canadians will be happy to learn that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, of which we are all proud in this country, has agreed to play an even more active role in Haiti. There is still much to be done, including providing adequate training to senior officers to ensure that the police can face with all kinds of situations in a professional and disciplined manner.

Canada's participation in the multinational police force in Haiti is a good example of what Canadians from all regions of the country can accomplish when they work together. More than 100 police officers from the RCMP and several municipal police forces across the country worked together to train their new Haitian colleagues.

I was impressed to learn that more than 245 police officers of the Communauté urbaine de Montréal applied to serve in Haiti. For me, that enthusiasm shows that the officers of the SPCUM see that exchange as an excellent opportunity to share their knowledge with their new Haitians colleagues, but also, to learn first hand about the harsh reality in Haiti to better understand and interact with the Haitian community in Montreal.

This illustrates perfectly well how international co-operation is not for the sole benefit of others. It must also allow us to learn from others.

A few months ago, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. I believe that what the UN is doing in Haiti is nothing short of remarkable. The United Nations never undertook such a complex mission. It is not the kind of traditional peacekeeping mission Canadians got used to long ago. It is much more than that: it goes from ensuring a stable environment to establishing a new police force, from the reform of the Haitian justice system to the organization and supervision of two elections in less than one year, from meeting basic human needs to establishing the foundation of a civilian and democratic society.

But we must admit that the mission will not be an easy one. There are risks involved. Democratic and social development in Haiti will continue well after the UN have left. Stability in Haiti remains fragile.

However, our successes in the last two years are encouraging for the future, not only of Haiti, but of the UN itself. Canada is eager to play a greater role for the United Nations in Haiti and to help that country to reach its full potential.

[Diabetes Awareness Month, November 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the statistics are staggering. One and a half million Canadians are diabetic. The disease grows at a rate of 6 per cent per year. By the year 2004 experts predict that one in four Canadians over the age of 45 will have developed the disease.

November is Diabetes Awareness Month in Canada. Most people do not realize that diabetes is the leading contributor to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and blindness. Furthermore, most people incorrectly believe that insulin is a cure. Across Canada we spend $200 per person annually to treat diabetes and diabetes related illnesses. That totals $5 billion in government health expenses alone.

I commend the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation for its efforts in this, the 25th year since its formation, for continuing to fight for a cure to this disease.

During Diabetes Awareness Month let us all do our part to raise awareness and dollars to make sure that the slogan of the 1990s is achieved and truly make this the decade of a cure.