Rahim Jaffer

[Kenora—Rainy River, February 25th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in the riding of the minister of Indian affairs there is a different definition of the winning conditions. If people donate to the minister's campaign they win big. If they are members of the Liberal executive and donate to his campaign, the rules will be bent to ensure that they win big.

Businesses in his riding donated just over $16,000 to the 1997 election campaign. That is a fair amount of money, but the return on the investment was a staggering $2.5 million. Why does the Indian affairs minister think that it is okay to repay the generosity of private donors with public funds?

[Human Resources Development, February 24th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources Development refuses to take responsibility for the boondoggle in her department. The same goes for her predecessor. Moreover, the Minister of Finance was in charge of the money throughout that period.

When was the Minister of Finance first informed of the mismanagement and political interference at the Department of Human Resources Development?

[Human Resources Development, February 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I want to clarify this. Yesterday the member for Edmonton North asked a question to which the minister responded “in accordance with Treasury Board guidelines, it was the deputy minister who approved Canada jobs fund money in the riding of Brant in November”. Then to a question from the leader of the Bloc she responded “there is no requirement to undertake this, to create this delegation of authority”.

The minister's credibility is on the line. Will the minister table the legal instrument used to delegate approval authority to her deputy minister?

[Human Resources Development, February 22nd, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Human Resources Development tried to dodge responsibility for approving grants to her own riding. She said that she delegated that authority to her deputy minister. When we showed her access documents which proved that she did not delegate that authority, she said a letter would prove otherwise. It did not.

Yesterday the minister told us that the authority was delegated according to Treasury Board guidelines and 10 minutes later she said there were no guidelines. Which is it?

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I made it clear during my speech that in principle we are supporting the bill. We are hoping that with responsible motions such as this Bloc motion the government will listen and actually put some democratic principles into the committee so that we can improve the legislation. We are hoping that it will happen.

For now I have made it clear and the opposition has made it clear that 50% plus one is a standard of democracy that we are willing to respect. Let us challenge that and see what happens in the committee.

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from the Bloc for his question. To answer it very quickly, I do not believe the government is committed to hearing more witnesses or allowing this process to go forward. It is trying to rush it through. It is trying to rush the amount of witnesses through the committee.

Even though the ceiling as the hon. member has correctly mentioned is 45 witnesses, we do not even know if we will get through those witnesses or if we will be able to replace those who, as I mentioned earlier, were not given proper notice in time to be able to come here.

I would love to have some of the other provincial representatives give their thoughts or give Canadians from different organizations across the country the chance to be heard on this legislation. For many of them it is tough to come to Ottawa on such short notice. That is why we should expand the ability of the committee to do better work and more work and to allow it to travel to hear from Canadians across the country.

It is a simple request. If the hon. parliamentary secretary were serious about his demands for democracy and commitment to the country, perhaps he would not find it so difficult to expand that view of the committee.

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. As he has correctly identified, we have only heard from three witnesses on this committee. We have not had the chance to hear any opposing views. For all that we could put on the record, maybe those witnesses were from the government side.

If we had the chance to invoke democracy as I talked about in this place and have the committee travel to different parts of the country, maybe then the hon. member would hear a different story from Canadians. The fact of the matter is that many Canadians across the country actually endorse the position of the official opposition and the idea of 50 plus one.

I encourage the member to open his eyes and encourage democracy to work and Canadians to speak out. Maybe he will hear the same message.

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Exactly. As my colleague from the Bloc has just said, what committee?

We will rush through this procedure. There has not been a time restriction put on the committee as yet, but half the 45 witnesses scheduled have not appeared. I am hoping the rest will be given the time allowed to come here. How are we to deal with the issue seriously? How are we to include the amendments to the bill required to make it satisfactory to the rest of Canadians?

I stress once again that if the committee were allowed to travel as the Bloc is proposing, if it were allowed to go to different parts of the country, we would get a different view from Canadians of what they would like to see the government show in the area of leadership when it comes to national unity.

I know the government is afraid to start discussing these options because it has shown no leadership when it comes to vision, when it comes to how to make the country work better. We in the official opposition have talked about it quite clearly. We have put forward what we feel Canada should do in order to make it work better. Our proposals have been outlined in the new Canada Act. We are not afraid to talk about this and put forward positive solutions to make this federation work better.

It seems to me that the government is satisfied with status quo federalism which most Canadians have rejected time and time again. Canadians want more from their government. They want leadership. They want to see their country put aside alienation and differences and build on the strengths of diversity, the strengths the official opposition has outlined in the new Canada Act on how we can make our federation work better.

Travelling across the country as I try to do I hear from Canadians. I hear they would like to see more leadership from the government. That leadership could start with democracy in this place and democracy at the committee level.

From the motion put forward by the Bloc today, I hope the government will take seriously the idea of democracy in the committee, the idea of Canadians from across the country taking part in such an important issue, and give the opportunity for the committee to do its work in a pertinent fashion.

I will leave those comments with the government. If as the parliamentary secretary said it is committed to democracy, I hope it will consider them. We on the opposition side support the effort to try to make the work of the committee more democratic.

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This motion says:

That this House instruct the Legislative Committee on Bill C-20, an Act to give effect to the requirement for clarity as set out in the opinion of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Quebec secession Reference, to hold public hearings in all regions of Quebec and Canada so as to hear as many witnesses having an interest in the Bill as possible, that the hearings be broadcast and that the Committee be given sufficient resources to hold such hearings, all in accordance with the rules and practices of the House.

Contrary to Bill C-20, the motion proposed by the Bloc today is very clear.

I would like to talk about some of the comments we heard earlier from the hon. parliamentary secretary to the minister. He spoke quite eloquently and quite passionately about his concern about what the law addressed when it came to pulling the country apart. He felt that his party was standing in the House defending democracy, while the Bloc on the other hand was not, and in the process of dealing with this law was adding clarity to something he felt was very important.

However on reading this motion it seems that the Bloc is very concerned about pushing ahead with the idea of democracy in the House and extending it to a very important part of the committee procedure of the House of Commons.

One of the fears many of us have had in dealing with this important legislation, as my hon. colleague mentioned, is that we are not giving enough time to deal with an issue that affects all of us in Canada, no matter what the result would be of a potential referendum to secede from the country.

Dealing with the issue does not only apply to one region. My colleagues in the Bloc have said that as well. If the law sets a precedent we know that in the future there could be other regions of the country that may well go through the same process of referendums to secede from the country. I hope not, but in the event that it happens we need to hear from Canadians across the country about what they might feel should be added to the law or what they might feel is missing from the law.

How can we get as many Canadians as possible involved in this issue which, as my colleague mentioned, is one of the most important issues that we face in the country? In speaking passionately about the hon. member's feelings for democracy and about democracy in this place, I was very shocked to hear him disagree with the motion and say that the committee should not be allowed to travel.

I sat on the committee with two of my colleagues in the official opposition. So far we have unfortunately seen a very disorganized committee. We have seen the committee propose to hear from 45 witnesses in the span of a week. Because of the time allowed to notify the witnesses to come to Ottawa, some of them will not have a chance to make it. How is that participation in democracy? How is that including Canadians from across the country?

If the hon. member were serious about his comments on democracy and serious about his love for this country, he would not be scared to have Canadians from coast to coast join in debating a particular law as I aforementioned that is of paramount importance to almost all Canadians. This is the irony of the government.

We heard from the parliamentary secretary his belief in democracy and his commitment to democracy. We have seen in the House the most time allocation motions put forward by any government in our history. We have had restrictions on debate. We have had restrictions on trying to allow democracy to unfold in the country. The government is at the root of the problem.

The parliamentary secretary flatly rejects the idea of putting forward a simple motion on an issue that is so important to Canadians, that of giving the committee the ability to travel and hear from Canadians across the country. Where is his commitment to democracy?

As members know, the root of the motion today comes from Bill C-20 which is supposed to add clarity to the idea of a question being formed on the issue of a referendum but also clarity surrounding majority as it pertains to a referendum. When I talk to my colleagues across the country I know many of them feel they would like to see some issues addressed in the bill that have not been addressed thus far.

We have continuously raised one of these issues. My colleague, the parliamentary secretary, correctly pointed out that the official opposition wants to know what will constitute a clear majority in the bill. We have proposed our solution. We have discussed the idea of 50 plus one, a standard in democracy that is accepted around the world in other modern democracies. We know there are some concerns in that regard.

We would like the government to make clear where it plans to go on the important question of what it will respect in the event of a referendum vote. Will it change the bar halfway through the game? Will it alienate various Canadians in the process of making a decision on whether they want to stay in this country? These are important questions to which we still have no answers. There is not the clarity we would like to see in this bill.

As my hon. colleague from Macleod has said, we support the bill in principle. The Reform Party has been calling for clarity surrounding this issue far longer than the government. We would like to see these things outlined clearly. We hope the committee process will be able to deal with some amendments to the bill.

[Supply, February 17th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to split my time with my colleague for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley.

First, I would like to read the motion proposed today by the Bloc Quebecois. This motion says—