Rahim Jaffer

[Canadian Idol, September 16th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, tonight Canadians will choose the first ever Canadian Idol. Ryan Malcolm of Kingston, Ontario, is facing off against Gary Beals of Cherry Brook, Nova Scotia. Both Gary and Ryan have survived the grueling audition process, which narrowed a field of thousands of Canadians down to twelve and now two.

Over the summer millions of Canadians have watched as these two competed against ten other young people from all over Canada, including Edmonton's hometown favourite, Tyler Hamilton.

We have been there to witness the triumphs and the heartbreaks these contestants have felt. Now, only six hours away from tonight's final episode, the votes are in and counted.

Being involved in tonight's show myself as the Idol correspondent in Ottawa, I know the excitement these two young people feel and especially the excitement that host Ben is feeling. The Mulroneys have always had a knack for song and dance.

I urge all Canadians to tune into Canadian Idol tonight and support both Ryan and Gary. I know I will be watching.

[Question No. 240, September 15th, 2003]

With regard to ports of entry into Canada: ( a ) what are the standards used by all customs officers across Canada to determine a high-risk traveller or shipment, and what is the standard procedure as to what to do with such a traveller or shipment once it is determined to be high-risk; ( b ) under what standard procedure are customs officers expected to refer travellers to immigration officers, and is there any standard for immigration officers to notify customs officers as to the results of such referrals; if it is determined that a traveller should be referred to an Immigration officer and there is no immigration officer at that location, what is the standard procedure that a customs officer should follow; ( c ) why are there no joint Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) evaluations planned to determine the effectiveness of customs officers and immigration officers at the border; ( d ) is there a standard for the sharing of data and intelligence between customs officers and immigration officers; ( e ) is there a standard referral procedure by which customs officers can clearly determine by which points should a traveller be referred to immigration officers; ( f ) is there an agreement between the CCRA and CIC that would provide for periodic evaluations to be performed jointly by CCRA and CIC to determine the effectiveness of their joint operations; ( g ) what percentage of the time does the Primary Automated Lookout System-Highway equipment correctly read licence plates of vehicles stopped at border crossing booths; ( h ) what facilities exist for examining commercial shipments at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor and where are they located in relation to the bridge customs site: ( i ) what is the standard procedure for ensuring that truck operators told to report to the facility actually arrive there; and (ii) under what circumstances would procedures dictate that a truck be escorted to that facility, regardless of the amount of traffic at the port; (i) in 2002: (i) how many people passed through customs checkpoints without authorization from Customs officers; (ii) when and where did these incidents occur; (iii) what were the sequences of actions taken following the breach of the checkpoint; and (iv) and were the individuals apprehended; ( j ) how many applications have been denied for: (i) FAST; (ii) CANPASS-Air; (iii) NEXUS-Air; and (iv) NEXUS-Highway; ( k ) at what Customs locations has the CCRA placed the following new technology, how many of each does each facility have, and what portion of incoming traffic does it service: (i) mobile gamma ray scanners; (ii) low-energy baggage and cargo x-ray systems; (iii) ion scanners; (iv) gamma ray pellet scanners; (v) hand-held ion mobility spectrometers; (vi) fibre-scopes; (vii) density meters; and (viii) other new technology that has been purchased by the government within the past two years to be used at ports of entry; and ( l ) for every Custom office reporting to the district offices in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Northern New Brunswick, Central New Brunswick, Southern New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Montérégie, Eastern Townships, Montréal Metro, Montréal Airport, Ottawa, St. Lawrence, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Fort Frances, Greater Toronto Area—Commercial, Pearson International Airport—Passenger Operations, Area Operations (Hamilton), Area Operations (Mississauga), Niagara, Windsor, St. Clair, Winnipeg & Northwest Territories, Emerson, Saskatchewan, North Central Alberta, Southern Alberta, Metro Vancouver, Vancouver International Airport, Pacific Highway, West Coast and Yukon, and Okanagan and Kootenay: (i) how many customs personnel are employed at the location, and of them, how many are Customs inspectors; (ii) are there immigration personnel at the location, and if so, how many; (iii) are there computers at the location, and if so, (1) do they have internet access, and if so, ( A ) what type of internet access do they have (dial-up, broadband, digital subscriber line, etc.); ( B ) do they have access to the Primary Automated Lookout System; ( C ) do they have access to CIC’s lookout system; ( D ) do they have access to US Federal Bureau of Investigation and US Department of Homeland Security databases or watchlists; and ( E ) do they have access to Canadian Police Information Centre; (iv) what is the distance to the nearest US or Canadian village, town, or city, and what is the name of that location; (v) is there a permanent police presence on location, and if not, (1) what is the distance to the nearest police post, (2) what is its location, and (3) what is the minimum number of officers on duty at any time; (vi) is there at least one telephone at this location; (vii) is this facility open 24 hours a day, and if it is not, what steps are taken to ensure that no one passes through while the facility is unattended; (viii) if there are representatives from departments other than CIC and CCRA, (1) what department or agency is represented; and (2) what is the purpose and responsibility of that department or agency at this location; and (ix) if this is a land border crossing, is there equipment for reading license plates at this location?

Return tabled

[Petitions, June 13th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to present a petition today on behalf of Canadians who want their right of informed freedom of choice and access to non-drug medicinal products of their own choosing. As well, the petitioners would like the clarification of the current vague definitions of food and drugs in the outdated 1927-1952 Food and Drugs Act by enacting Bill C-420, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act.

[Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, June 13th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister responsible for the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency has been having a hard time doing her job.

Just as she denied the problem of the stolen billion dollars in GST rebates, she denies the problem of people illegally crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada.

She has said that because we have licence plate readers at our high-volume crossings in Canada, we know the licence plate of any car that tries to the run the border.

That however is wrong. According to the Auditor General's May 2003 report, licence plate readers work properly only 70% of the time.

She also has said that we also at our borders have licence plate readings and that the Americans do not have that on their side. In fact the 2002 annual U.S. customs report states that the U.S. has installed 50 licence plate readers on their side of the border.

If the minister continues to misinform the public, instead of checking licence plates, she will be in the big house making licence plates.

[Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the minister that it was she who called customs agents 3,000 accidents waiting to happen. She is the only one who has ever insulted the customs agents of this country.

Customs agents are responsible for enforcing over 70 statutes, including the Criminal Code, the Controlled Substances Act, the Firearms Act and the Anti-Terrorism Act. The minister refuses to acknowledge that all of these involve potentially violent situations.

The Canadian Alliance has been asking the government to arm these customs agents so they can defend themselves as well as Canadians. Will the minister finally commit to arming our customs agents?

[Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, June 12th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister made recent remarks saying that the Privy Council is looking at consolidating security functions into one department. It is about time. The Liberals have treated the security of Canadians with contempt for far too long.

One department that has been sorely neglected by the Liberals is customs, whose mandate is to protect our borders. Will the Deputy Prime Minister now finally change our customs agents from tax collectors to Canada's front line security?

[Canada Elections Act, June 10th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Group No. 3 amendment to Bill C-24. This is the first opportunity I have had to address this bill. There has been a lot of excitement on both sides of the House pertaining to this legislation. I wish it were more favourable. I wish the government had put more teeth into the legislation and had actually carried through with some of the things that unfortunately are missing from the bill. Within my discourse I will try to address some of the bill's failures.

One thing that is astounding in discussing this bill is the timing of the bill being in the House and the priorities of the government. The government is trying to rush through legislation which, in its opinion, is very important especially at a time when there are crises going on across the country. As members know, SARS is causing problems for many people around the Toronto area and there is the problem of mad cow disease out west and its effect on the livelihoods of cattle producers in that part of the country. We have faced other problems and challenges across the country over the last number of months, and on the eve of the last week of Parliament we are discussing a bill that is strictly in the interests of this particular government.

Bill C-24 has been brought forward because the government wants to address, possibly even corruption, in political financing. It is the same government that has been in power for the last 10 years. There is some sort of ironic logic that comes with this bill if the government is trying to address issues of influence peddling or corruption or whatever it might be or even if it is trying to mask these issues because the government will in fact benefit from the changes in this legislation by receiving more public money in the case of subsidization.

The reason we have this legislation is that the government has been incompetent in dealing with many issues pertaining to transparency and accountability. The government has been incompetent in dealing with all the things that Canadians want to see from their government. The Liberal government has been lacking on those issues and it has to bring in legislation to mask the problem. It is trying to deal with the fact that it has managed things so poorly over the last number of years it has been in power and now we are debating this legislation at this period in time. Bill C-24 contains only half measures when it comes to what Canadians would like to see with regard to having financing legislation in place that would in fact bring in the things the government talks about.

I would like to address for a moment Motion No. 12 which is an NDP motion. We feel there is a lot missing in Bill C-24. We in the Alliance will oppose this motion. We feel the motion would actually work against riding associations across the country. The motion put forward by our colleague from Winnipeg Centre requires a registered association of a political party to provide all information with regard to contributions. Where it becomes problematic is if an association misses its reporting deadline, it could be convicted of a criminal offence and could face up to $5,000 worth of fines.

It seems that this sort of amendment is unnecessary. The bill already contains provisions for associations to do this. I am curious as to why the NDP feels that we need to punish some of the riding associations. If they made an honest mistake, why would we want to punish them in this way?

I do not think we necessarily need this amendment. However our colleagues from the NDP feel it is something that needs to be dealt with. I think it is a short-sighted amendment and one which may not necessarily work in the interests of riding associations. If anything, I think it would work against them. The Canadian Alliance will be voting against Motion No. 12.

I would like to address some of the failures in Bill C-24, and there is no shortage of failures unfortunately. An hon. member across the way is encouraging me to carry on with my discourse. I know he wants to learn about these failures and maybe he will try to amend the legislation.

What does Bill C-24 fail to do? It fails to fix the underlying problem of awarding government grants, contracts and loans to supporters of the party in power. If anything, Bill C-24 would make it more difficult to detect and expose such behaviour.

What is interesting, and this is what I was talking about earlier as I opened my discourse, is the fact that we have this legislation being brought forward by a government that obviously has had one problem after the other when it comes to issues of contracts, scandals, loans, all these particular things that may in fact control the influence of these contracts, how money is spent and how it is awarded. This government has been in power for the last 10 years and now puts forward legislation to deal with these problems that have unfortunately only become worse under this government, yet it fails to address all the particular problems for which it has actually been accused of abuse.

Bill C-24 fails to correct the 50 candidate rule, which was struck down by the courts. I will just address this issue very quickly. In 1999, an Ontario court struck down the sections of the elections act which required a party to run 50 candidates in an election to remain on the register and to have its candidates listed with party affiliation on the ballot. The court indicated that two candidates should be sufficient to be recognized as a party.

During the revision of the elections act in 2000, the Liberals reinstated the 50 candidate rule even though the case is still under appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The government says it is protecting voters from frivolous parties, but it is actually trying to limit competition on the ballot. Voters in countries that have other types of proportional representation systems often make their selections from up to 35 parties on the ballot. They have shown that they are capable of distinguishing between frivolous and serious candidates.

Are the Liberals trying to tell us that Canadian voters are not capable of making the same type of distinctions? I would only expect it from this government. It does not seem to want to allow Canadians to at least make decisions about who they want to represent them. Instead, it is trying to restrict more involvement from other political parties.

I would like to focus specifically on where Bill C-24 fails to end the patronage appointments to positions in Elections Canada. That is something I touched on briefly, but let us just follow up on this problem, where this legislation could have made such a huge impact on changing the way that patronage currently takes place.

Bill C-24 fails to end the practice of the governor in council making patronage appointments to fill returning officer positions at Elections Canada. Returning officers are presently political appointees of the Prime Minister. This is outrageous, considering that Elections Canada is supposed to a non-partisan electoral organization. The voters of Canada should not have to put up with the Prime Minister appointing Liberal Party hacks to prime positions as returning officers within Elections Canada. That works against an open and democratic system. The Chief Electoral Officer has repeatedly stated during committee hearings that it is critical he be given the power to hire returning officers based on merit.

He has also repeatedly stated that ideally he would like to adopt the provisions contained in a private member's bill put forward by one of the Canadian Alliance members, the member for North Vancouver, who also has done an incredible job in researching and working on this bill on behalf of our caucus. I would like to congratulate him for that. He put forward a private member's bill with respect to this. That bill would have eliminated the patronage at all levels of Elections Canada.

During the revisions of the Canada Elections Act a few years ago, the Chief Electoral Officer made it clear that he would not recommend adoption of the Canada Elections Act to a third world country or an emerging democracy. His exact words were:

...obviously when I go out on the international scene I do not recommend that the Canadian system be emulated where it comes to the appointment of returning officers. I clearly indicate, as I do in Canada, that the appointment of returning officers under the present system is an anachronism.

It is archaic. Elections Canada has repeatedly asked the government to release it from the system of patronage and allow it to hire its own staff for elections by advertising and interviewing like any other independent organization.

These are just a couple of the failures of this legislation. I could go on for a while, and I know that the hon. House leader of the government would love me to do so. Unfortunately, in the limited time we have I will have to conclude quite quickly, but hopefully the government will take heed some of the suggestions being made by my colleagues here in the official opposition and improve the legislation in the interest of Canadians, because Canadians deserve it.

[Canada Elections Act, June 10th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I find it astounding, this potentially being the last week of Parliament that we may be sitting, we are dealing with a bill that strictly is going to benefit the government in power, especially in light of this fact. Maybe the Liberals have not even noticed, because they are sitting here on their high horses, that Canadians have been facing crisis after crisis in recent months.

Across the country we have had the closure of the east coast cod fishery, SARS in the Toronto and Ontario area, mad cow in western Canada and the softwood lumber problem, which has been ongoing for years because of this lack of management on the other side. Yet the Prime Minister has avoided, evaded and outright ignored many of these concerns and these problems across the country. Instead his only priority is Bill C-24, which he is trying to push it through the House. It seems the only reason is to improve his own legacy and image.

Could the minister explain to Canadians why the attempts to clean up the Prime Minister's image have taken precedence over their health and livelihood?

[Middle East, June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian government has been absent on the issue of peace in the Middle East. The foreign minister says that it is a good thing but when it is time for action and to put meaning behind those words, the Liberals run for cover.

Now that Prime Ministers Abbas and Sharon have agreed to President Bush's road map, what steps is the Canadian government taking to ensure that both sides live up to the agreement?

[World Partnership Walk, June 3rd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, on Sunday, May 25 the annual World Partnership Walk took place throughout Canada.

It is the largest event of its kind in support of international development and cooperation. Canadians in cities across the country raised over $3 million that will go toward development projects in central Asia and eastern Africa. The money will be matched by a donation from CIDA.

In the city of Edmonton over $300,000 was raised and over 3,000 people participated. I would like to congratulate the 400 volunteers who helped make the Edmonton walk a success, especially Mr. Salim Chatoor, who has been the convenor of the walk for the past five years and once again did a terrific job.

The World Partnership Walk is definitely one of the many great things done by the Aga Khan foundation development network, which was created to realize the social conscience of Islam through institutional action.

I encourage parliamentarians and Canadians everywhere to visit the website, www.worldpartnershipwalk.com, to sign up and to walk in next year's event.