Reed Elley

[Judges Act, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, as I did yesterday, I rise to speak against Bill C-37 but to speak in favour of the amendment put forward by my hon. colleague from Crowfoot.

The criticism we offer on this bill should serve as reason enough for Liberals to support the amendment that has been put forward by my colleague, the member for Crowfoot. However, as very often is the case in the House, the government will ram this bill through pretty much as it is. It is not really interested in hearing any constructive criticism from the opposition or our attempts to make the legislation better. It wants to ram it through and it will.

Bill C-37 will increase the number of appeal court judges from 10 to 13. It also will increase the number of unified family court judges from 12 to 36. On the face of it this in itself is not a bad move by the government. There is a terrific backlog in our courts across the nation. More judges will facilitate the movement of these cases through the court system.

However, given the justice system's penchant for inventing rather than interpreting the laws these days, I do not believe that Canadians generally will see this as a positive move.

The recent supreme court decisions to redefine family in this country is very much a case in point. I do not think Canadians in the long run are going to stand for the supreme court actually being in the business of making laws when, by our Constitution and our parliamentary tradition, the duly elected representatives of the people of Canada in parliament are the ones who should be making the laws, particularly on such important issues as definition of family. Those laws should be made here in the House, certainly not in the Supreme Court of Canada.

However, there is a bad trend across this country which has been recognized by Canadians and which we in the Reform Party will fight that trend as best we can.

The bill would also raise judges' salaries retroactively by 4.1% and an additional 4.1% from April 1, 1998 to March 31, 1999. In other words, judges will get an 8.3% increase over two years. Noting that their average salary now is around $140,000, most Canadians are going to ask whether they really need that kind of raise. I wonder if the judges have come in on bended knee pleading the case that they need more money. I rather doubt it.

Many other Canadians who have been receiving only cost of living raises or perhaps no raise over the past few years will wonder why in the world judges need to receive an 8.3% increase over the next two years. How cynical for this government to award judges, senior bureaucrats and its own ministers with large pay raises and bonuses while at the same time frontline police officers and low level public servants will receive little to nothing. It does not make sense and it is not fair.

Granted, my friends across the way will cry out piously and wave their arms at me saying that is not true. In March they gave RCMP members a raise. My goodness, how good they were to them. I remind everyone that RCMP salaries have been frozen for five years. The last stage of the increase calls for a .75% increase to take effect on October 1, 1998. It does not make sense and it is not fair.

This bill also seeks to establish a judicial compensation and benefits commission to inquire into the adequacy of the salaries and benefits of judges. I want to spend a few moments to discuss that commission in some detail. Indeed it shows that under the guise of judicial reform Liberals still have not lost their taste for pork barrel politics.

The creation of the judicial compensation and benefits commission provides the federal government with yet another opportunity to make patronage appointments and another opportunity for hardworking Liberals to be rewarded with a place at the trough. The activities of this commission will commence September 1, 1999. On September 1 of every fourth year after 1999 the commission is to submit a report with recommendations to the Minister of Justice within nine months after the date of commencement. Eventually the Minister of Justice is to table a copy of the commission's report.

However, that does not really matter because parliament is given no opportunity or authority to respond. Again this underscores the lack of public accountability within this proposal.

The commission will consist of three members appointed by the governor in council. In effect, governor in council appointments are code language for patronage appointments. One member is nominated by the judiciary, one nominated by the Minister of Justice and the one who acts as chair will be nominated by the first two persons nominated. The members will hold office for a term of four years and are eligible to be reappointed for one further term. There is more opportunity for patronage.

As Canadians can see, the appointment process is lacking in transparency and therefore credibility. At no step in the appointment process does the public or parliament have a say. Reformers want to ensure the appointment process is transparent and publicly accountable in order to eliminate this kind of patronage. In fact, our national Reform assembly in Vancouver in 1996 accepted recommendations made in this regard. The report outlined a more populace style of appointment, whereby a committee would review and interview candidates whose names would be put forward to the Prime Minister.

That type of enlightened thinking is not present in this bill. I suspect that is because Liberals are against anything that smacks of populism.

Canadians will be unimpressed with this legislation. Overall it does nothing to address some of the fundamental problems inherent in the justice system. In fact, while pressing issues of criminal justice go unaddressed in this country, this is the third time the Liberals have amended the Judges Act. There are better things for us to do in this parliament.

During the last parliament, in 1996, the government introduced Bills C-2 and C-42. Both bills were inconsequential pieces of legislation and were of little significance to Canadians who are concerned about their safety, and rightly so.

Both Liberal justice ministers have failed to introduce the victims' bill of rights which we in the Reform Party have advocated for many years. It has been given a low priority on the justice agenda, as if they really do not care about the victims of crime in this country. Both the present and past justice ministers failed to substantially amend the Young Offenders Act. Instead they tinker around the edges of it. Both ministers have failed to limit the use of conditional sentences for violent offenders. Instead the justice committee's time is spent dealing with these administrative matters.

There are other shortcomings in the bill, but I want to turn my attention just briefly to the amendment put forward by my Reform colleague from Crowfoot. The amendment would give the appropriate committee an opportunity to review the commission's report, call witnesses and report their findings to the House. Does that not make sense? Is that not democracy in action?

I call upon all of my colleagues in the House to support the amendment and defeat the bill.

[Judges Act, June 3rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to say that I will be voting against Bill C-37 and that I will be supporting this amendment from my Bloc colleague.

I do not think the government is in touch with the average Canadian. It is not listening to what Canadians feel about this issue. If it were it would not bring in a bill like this.

I want to share this afternoon three reasons why the government is out of touch with the Canadian public and three reasons why the Canadian public does not support this kind of wage increase at this time.

If Liberals were truly in touch with the grassroots of this country they would be hearing what we are hearing when we go back to our ridings about the desperate needs of Canadians in the areas of health care, education and crime prevention. These are all very serious issues and priority issues that face Canadians today.

Canadians are telling us as parliamentarians that we have to get back in touch with the priorities, the most important things that concern them.

They see the federal government, as it has over the past number of years, continuing to cut back on the amount of money going to the provinces. In turn, the provinces have a smaller amount of money to put into important areas like health care.

Members should talk to a person who has stood in line for over a year for an operation, or talk to parents who need to have bingos to raise funds for things in the classrooms, or talk to victims who have been caught in some of these consequences of serious crimes being committed. Those are the Canadians who are asking why in the world we would give money to judges who are making $177,000 a year already when we do not have money to put into those priority concerns that certainly all Canadians are worried about across this nation. It does not make sense.

Canadians are angry about this. We as parliamentarians need to remember that it does not really matter what we think about these issues here in the House. This is not the court that settles the issue. It is the court of public opinion that settles the issue. Come election time they will let us know how they feel about this and other issues.

Canadians have another concern about something like this. The government is sending the wrong message to law enforcement officers, the men and women on the frontlines defending us against the criminal element every day. They are the ones who have to do the dirty work for us. They are the ones who have to clean up the messes that are made by crime and criminals.

There are a lot of angry police officers out there who are looking at the 8.3% wage increase for judges while members of the RCMP have had a five year moratorium on their wages. When they finally got the government to act on it what did they get? They got a pittance. These are the people who are actually out there on the firing line.

If this government wants to continue to drive the wedge between those who are actually law enforcement and those who are sitting on the benches meting out the law, then this kind of legislation does that even more. It makes law enforcement officers angry. It increases their frustration of the inability of judges in many cases to actually bring the full extent of the law against the criminals these law enforcement agents are working so hard to apprehend and bring to court.

During the election and after I have had law enforcement officers tell me about their frustration of working so hard to bring the criminals to the courts and then the criminals get off on a technicality or are given a soft sentence. That is not right and Canadians know that is not right. There is a frustration and anger against some judges who do this sort of thing.

We now come to this House to give those judges a raise. The Canadian people are not happy with our giving them that kind of raise.

RCMP officers finally received a 2% raise retroactive to January 1, 1998. They will receive a second increment of 1% on April 1, 1998 and an additional .75% in October 1998. What does that add up? If my math is correct, it will be 3.5% over two years.

What are the judges going to receive? A supreme court justice's salary will go from $208,200 a year to $225,700 by April 1, 1998. I do not think the Canadian people think that is just.

Before anyone on the other side says I am against judges, that is not the case at all. We know there are many good judges who do fine work and work long hours to do their work well. We commend them for the work they do. But in this present economic climate when most Canadians are not receiving an increase at all in their wages or at the most the wage increase is indexed to inflation, this kind of obscene raise does not sit well with Canadians.

It does not sit well with us in the Reform Party. It obviously does not sit well with my colleagues in the Bloc. I am happy our Bloc colleague brought this motion to the floor because it needs to be debated. The government's legislation needs to be challenged and I want to serve notice that I will be voting with my Bloc colleagues in support of this motion.

I think that when we do this there will be a chorus of Canadians across the country saying we voiced their concerns in the House of Commons today and they will be supportive of where we as opposition members stand.

[Supply, May 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her intervention today on what I think we all agree is a very important topic.

It is unfortunate at times that in the heat of debate the atmosphere in the Chamber does not allow for reasoned debate. I think we all participate in that. I know I do. I confess that from time to time we do not allow it to be a chamber of reasoned debate.

It saddens me, as a member of parliament and as a member of the opposition, when we bring in a motion like this, which will hopefully serve to open the debate even further, that sometimes members opposite and even those on my left would heap only scorn and anger upon us because they do not agree with our position. They do not acknowledge that we are speaking for a number of people in the country who are very concerned about this problem perhaps from a little different perspective than theirs.

I met last week with a group of people in my riding who were concerned about the Young Offenders Act. Some of them were young people. I want to pay tribute to a young person in my riding by the name of Sarah Taylor who, in response to concern among young people over youth crime in her school and the surrounding area, started a youth against crime club in her school. I commend this young woman. She has taken an initiative to tackle the problem.

Some of the feedback I get from her and from others is that there is the perception that somehow either there is no fear of consequence of action in our country because of our laws or kids just do not get it.

Should our laws act somehow as a deterrent to crime?

[Justice, May 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan there have been many incidents which highlight the fact that the Young Offenders Act is not working and needs to be changed. The most recent involves Tasha Pederson. She is the owner of a small hairstyling shop in Cassidy which has become the target of a group of youth intent on vandalizing her establishment.

To date, this businesswoman has had to pay over $500 in repairs to property that these youths have damaged on several occasions. That might not seem like a lot of money to the Liberal MPs who recently spent that amount of taxpayer money for each night they stayed in a posh Italian hotel, but to this woman it means the difference between paying her suppliers and putting food on the table for her family.

However, the truly sad part in all this is that the local RCMP is powerless to do anything about it because the Young Offenders Act does not apply to youth under the age of 12 and these young vandals know it.

Rather than address situations like these, this do nothing justice minister has stayed the course again and ignored the justice committee recommendation to lower the age at which a youth can be charged.

[Supply, May 26th, 1998]

The punishment should fit the crime.

[Taxation, May 14th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, one wage earner families in the country have looked for a long time for a tax break from government. The recent budget of the government gave no indication of any help.

In fact by offering more relief only to those families that avail themselves of day care, the finance minister has once again discriminated against stay at home moms and dads. In so doing he perpetuates an economic system with high taxes and high unemployment that forces many Canadian parents to both go to work.

The result is that during the formative years of children's lives they spend most of their time with people who are not their parents. This is at a time when research continues to prove the critical importance of the parent-child bond in long term social development. Many of these children grow up with role models who do not reflect their parents' values and beliefs.

Reformers and Canadian everywhere call for the finance minister and the government to look at Reform's family friendly tax proposals that would serve to keep families together instead of tearing them apart.

[Petitions, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present on behalf of 113 constituents in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan a very timely petition considering the events that have occurred in the House.

They ask that the Parliament of Canada significantly amend the Young Offenders Act, not tinker with it but truly amend it, to publish the names of violent young offenders and to increase the maximum three year sentence for all offences except murder to seven years.

[Hepatitis C, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the health minister has to blow his own horn because the editorialists certainly are not these days.

Jonathon Duncan had 16 blood transfusions between 1983 and 1986. One transfusion falls in the 1986 to 1990 compensation window but because of a technicality he is not eligible. So much for one tiered approaches.

The minister promised his mother that if she hung in there he would help. Instead the minister has hung Jonathon out to dry.

Will the health minister do the right thing and compensate all victims, or will he go back on his word once again?

[Hepatitis C, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the health minister says that this file is closed. It is not and it will not be closed until we get fair compensation for all victims.

I remind the minister of his promise to the mother of one such child in my riding. On March 8 he told Debbie Duncan her son would be compensated. He said “Hang in there and we'll help you to take care of your son”.

Did the minister just say this to get her off his back or will he keep his word tomorrow?

[Canada Labour Code, May 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in the House and speak on Bill C-19 and the amendments that have been put forward at this time.

A number of us will remember the eminent Canadian poet Robert Service who talked about strange things being done in the midnight sun in the Yukon. There have been some strange things done here in the midday sun in this House today. I have heard some. I have seen some.

First of all the government is putting time allocation on another bill that is before the House. The government when it was in opposition so quickly condemned the Conservatives for doing the very same thing and it continues to do this time after time. That concerns me very much, the limit on our free speech and on the democratic process in the House.

All Canadians should be concerned about the way the government is using time allocation to shut down democracy in the House. This is the parliament of all Canadians. We come here to represent them. If we do not have an opportunity to voice the concerns of Canadians here in this place, I ask all hon. members, where will Canadians have that opportunity if it is not here in the House through their duly elected members? I am very concerned about that.

I am also very concerned when I hear NDP members taking shots at the Reform Party inaccurately telling the Canadian people untruths about us, saying that we are against fair wages. What balderdash that we would be against fair wages. That is absolute nonsense. I want to suggest that the NDP cannot teach the Reform Party anything about economic policy or fair labour practices.

Perhaps the member should go to my province of British Columbia to see what an NDP government has done to the economy of that province. The member should see what kind of legislation it has tried to impose upon businesses in that province with unfair labour codes and see the kind of public revolt against that which occasioned that government to take the legislation out of the legislative docket.

We have just gone through a devastating strike in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan at the Fletcher Challenge mill. When we as Reformers say that we stand up for people who do not seem to be able to be heard in this country, that strike was another example of this very thing. That mill produces pulp and paper which contributes 53% of the tax base of the municipality which it is in. When its workers go on strike and labour and management cannot come to some kind of consensus, there are lots of third parties in that riding that are hurt far beyond the union members and far beyond the management and those who own the mill.

All the businesses suffer because of a strike that goes on and on. The small businesses lay off employees because people are no longer buying their goods. Car dealers have seen their sales plummet in January, February and March because of the strike.

The NDP members miss a big point in this whole debate when they only stand up for big unions. Someone has to stand up for the little ordinary guy in this country who feels that he has no voice in these kinds of occurrences in our society when prolonged and protracted labour-management disputes paralyze other industries and other businesses. Something has to be done about that.

In terms of Motions Nos. 18 and 20, we are concerned that there is no provision in the bill to protect the national economy.

We are concerned about Motions Nos. 25 and 29 that prohibit the use of replacement workers if the CIRB determines their presence undermines the union. This was a slight modification from previous Bill C-66, but this provision still leaves too much control in the hands of the CIRB which may view the use of replacement workers as undermining the union.

This provision could very well stop the use of managerial staff from operating the company. It restricts and infringes on the employer's rights. Somewhere along the way in this national debate on restructuring this kind of thing employers have to be able to have their say in this House of Commons and the employers that we hear from are saying that this is unfair and it needs to be changed.

It very well could shift the balance of power in labour management relations in favour of the unions. The Globe and Mail on November 5, 1996 quoted Nancy Riche, the executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, as saying: “I would go so far as to suggest that anybody who does work of a member of a union undermines the representative capacity of the union”. She went on to say: “None of the bureaucrats are going to agree with me—but we'll have to wait and see. The new board will rule”.

We in the Reform Party have some real concerns about this and that is why we have proposed this amendment.

I hope that all hon. colleagues in this House will not close their minds so easily to the amendments that the Reform Party has put forth in this regard, that they will see all sides of the debate and realize that there is more to this country than big business, big government and big union.

There are little people, hard working little people, who need to be heard in this country and it seems that the only party that is willing to stand up for them today, as it did in the hepatitis C debate, is the Reform Party.