Eleni Bakopanos

[Immigration And Refugee Board, December 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, during the past 50 years, Canada has welcomed more than 200,000 refugees.

[Protection Of Personal Information Obtained By Certain Corporations Act, December 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in today's debate on Bill C-315. I wish to acknowledge the initiative put forward by the hon. member for Cariboo-Chilcotin in his desire to see the privacy of Canadian citizens protected. However, I feel there are several weaknesses with the bill. As a result, I will not be lending my support to its passage.

The issue of privacy is perhaps a very central one in the technological society of today. However, we must not confuse the broader issue of privacy protection, an issue which we are pleased to see debated in the House in the context of this bill, with the reality of Bill C-315. While it is designed to protect privacy in the context of the sale of marketing lists, it will scarcely achieve that because it is so narrowly crafted.

Here again are some of the features of the bill. It is designed to stop the sale of marketing lists without the consent of individuals whose names are on the list. Before selling a list containing names and personal information of individuals, a federal corporation must send a notice to the individual seeking consent for the sale.

The firm must ensure it receives consent and has not received a request to remove the name from the list. If it has, it must remove the name or particulars pertaining to the individual within 10 days.

A firm which buys a list must also send a notice to the individual informing the person of what is on the list, where it came from and that he or she may request to have their names or data removed from the list. Requests for removal of names or data must be processed within 10 days and corporations must send confirmation to the individual.

Contraventions of the act are punishable by fines of up to $5,000 for the first offence and up to $10,000 for subsequent offences.

I do not support Bill C-315, because I feel that it is flawed in several ways. The definition of "personal information" is not comprehensive and does not meet the current standards of related federal and provincial acts. Marketing lists are not sold, they are rented. In its present form, this bill would not affect customary business practices.

It would be inconsistent with the Quebec privacy act, which includes a carefully drafted section on the use of name lists. Moreover, the bill only applies to a limited number of federally regulated corporations. It would not prevent the vast majority of list sales and would affect only a fraction of the problem of protecting personal information, which would give consumers a false sense of security.

The cost to businesses would be prohibitive, and consumers would receive notices seeking their consent as another wave of intrusive advertising.

The government is considering various aspects of the protection of personal information. Consumers are becoming increasingly concerned about what will happen to their personal information in the interconnected world of the information highway. They want the government to react and legislate.

Canadian businesses want to enjoy the advantages of an electronic business environment where bureaucracy and paperwork can be reduced, where they can create a closer relationship with their customers and business partners and administrative processes can be simplified and computerized.

If there are to be rules regulating the use and protection of personal information, businesses want those rules to be consistent and predictable.

The information highway advisory council presented a number of recommendations in its final report, including a call for the federal government to table flexible framework legislation based on the Canadian Standards Association model privacy code. This model privacy code is the product of a consensus committee of consumer representatives, key industry players such as the banks, telecom companies and the direct marketing association and provincial and federal government representatives. It makes a sound basis of consensus for us to start from when we are thinking about the protection of privacy.

We are studying these recommendations now with a view to action and to presenting a much more comprehensive approach to the problem. The Minister of Industry will be making an announce-

ment for the protection of personal information in the context of the government's response to the report of the information highway advisory council.

While I agree with the spirit of Bill C-315, I believe the points which I have outlined clearly explain why the scope of the bill is too narrow and why it cannot be as effective as the hon. member would like it to be.

[Committees Of The House, December 7th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to table today the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

I thank members of the House for their unanimous consent.

[Recognition Of Quebec As A Distinct Society, December 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the hon. members of the Bloc Quebecois are once more forgetting that the people of Quebec have reaffirmed their sense of belonging to this country.

[Gun Control, December 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice.

The passage of Bill C-68 marked an historical moment for Canada and for the families of the 14 École Polytechnique victims.

Bill C-68 is the greatest memorial this government could have erected to the young women and their families. In the spirit of this national day of remembrance and action on violence against women, what specifically does the minister feel Bill C-68 will accomplish?

[The Balkans, December 4th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to lend my support to the motion we are debating today. It is the second time I have risen in the House on this issue. Although nearly two years have passed since that time, my position remains the same.

We must continue to lend our support to the international community's efforts to bring enduring peace and security to the Balkans. It was these efforts after all that brought about the Dayton peace agreement and we must do our part to show our continued commitment.

As the vice-president of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, I have followed NATO's involvement in the Balkan crisis very closely. Through my participation I learned firsthand of the important role Canada plays in NATO.

For 45 years now Canada has been one of the key supporters of NATO because it was, and still is, in our national interest to do so. NATO membership has been beneficial for Canada in a number of ways: it has prevented world conflicts; it has helped us economically, by enabling us to maintain reduced armed forces, knowing that we could call for help if necessary; and, most important of all, perhaps, it has given us a voice in one of the key fora in the western world on issues of Euro-Atlantic and world security.

The greatest value of these benefits can only be achieved if Canada has credibility with its allies and continues to be an active member of NATO. It is therefore essential that Canada participate in IFOR.

We must not turn our backs on NATO, as if it were turning into a partner we could no longer trust to produce Euro-Atlantic and world security arrangements. It would not be in our interests to do so, particularly since the creation of IFOR is a key element in the changing structures and operations of NATO.

NATO's integrated command structure has always been one of its strong points. The Alliance is the only organization that has created an effective military force from the contributions of its various member states. During the cold war, however, this was a static structure spread out as widely as possible throughout its member states, with its eyes resolutely glued to the eastern bloc. This is not what we need now to ensure our security or that of our allies.

We need a NATO which is cheaper, which is flexible, which can act in any direction from which a threat can emerge and which can assemble forces organized, trained and tailored to a range of possible uses from classical peacekeeping to humanitarian intervention to collective defence.

As well, the NATO for the modern era must also be able to work with others, be they multilateral institutions like the UN or SCE which need organized military muscle or other countries, big and small, which see an interest in what concerns NATO.

In January 1994 such a concept for the evolution of NATO was endorsed by the North Atlantic Council under the concept of combined joint task forces. However, since then, the concept has been stalled in spite of Canada's best efforts to move it along.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the need for NATO to get its act together to enforce the peace in Bosnia is resulting in the alliance's first combined joint task force, the IFOR. There must be no going back for NATO and Canada's voice will only be heard in making these lessons stick if it is part of this latest great step forward in the adaptation of NATO.

Now would be perhaps the worst of times to turn our back on NATO and our allies but the value of participating in IFOR to maintain allied solidarity is at most only half the story. For the past three years, Canada and Canadians have seen participation in multilateral military operations in the former Yugoslavia as being in our national interest.

It was in our national interest because we consider European security part and parcel of our own. We have trade, historical, military and emotional ties with Europe. We have learned from

experience that European conflicts can spread to our allies, and even to our own country. In the past, Balkan conflicts have had a particularly strong tendency to spread with a ripple effect, as far as Canada even.

If we wish to be able to continue to depend on the protection of an effective system of international security for ourselves, we must make a significant contribution to it when the system is being used to protect others.

Many Canadians originally come from these areas and an even larger number come from neighbouring countries whose stability is at risk.

Canadians cannot stand aside while others suffer. Many people in Bosnia today owe their lives to the presence of Canadians.

The signing of a peace agreement has not obscured this aspect of our national interest, and we will not be satisfied until Bosnia and the surrounding region once again enjoy stability, peace and security. This will require the full implementation of the Dayton peace agreement. This, after what has happened in the past, will require the presence on the ground of a multinational military force under the command of NATO.

We have struggled and bled through the worst of times in Bosnia. What do the effort, money and lives that have been spent to date mean if the job is not carried through to its conclusion? It is for these reasons that I support the motion and Canadian participation in IFOR.

My support and what I hope will be the support of this House does not give the government, the military planners or NATO carte blanche to send Canadian troops on the mission. Canadian participation in IFOR should conform with the principles for multilateral missions laid out in the 1994 white paper, including a clear and enforceable mandate, an effective consultation process among mission partners, a defined concept of operations and clear rules of engagement.

The Dayton agreement provides the foundation for a clear and binding mandate. NATO's participation guarantees the presence of a separate agency to monitor the situation. It also provides guarantees for an effective consultation process, until now often lacking in UN operations in Bosnia.

The membership of IFOR, which includes nearly all NATO member countries, Russia and up to 19 other countries, should be

sufficiently diverse to be acceptable to all parties. There is every indication that principles fairly similar to ours formed the basis for planning operations.

Clearly Canada's participation in implementing the peace plan cannot be open ended. The seemingly never ending peacekeeping mission in Cyprus must not be repeated. While the UN operation in Cyprus was an example of classical peacekeeping, different from the peace enforcement initiatives being put forward by IFOR, it is imperative that a definitive timetable be put forward.

The UN security council has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Cyprus, the voluntary return of refugees to their homes, the cessation of all interference in the internal affairs of Cyprus and respect for its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity. Now more than 20 years later, the situation on the ground is no different with more than 30,000 heavily armed Turkish troops continuing to illegally occupy nearly 40 per cent of the territory of Cyprus. The UN mission in Cyprus has been hampered time and time again by the intransigence of Turkey.

The proposal for the complete demilitarization of the Republic of Cyprus put forward by the president of Cyprus, Mr. Glafcos Clerides, is the concrete solution to this longstanding problem. Similar resolutions have been supported in the United States congress and most recently the Australian Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution in support of the demilitarization of Cyprus. Canada must also put forward a resolution in support of this to indicate that the status quo is no longer acceptable and negotiated settlements must be brought forward.

Time and time again it has been seen that only a united effort will bring about the resolution of the most complex disputes. Today's debate will lend Canada's voice to the united effort that is being put forward in helping to bring peace to the Balkans.

At this point I wish to refer to the continued response of Canada to the humanitarian issues in the former Yugoslavia. As chair of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration I applaud the initiatives of the government through the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Under the special measures program nearly 7,000 citizens of the former Yugoslavia have been landed in Canada since 1992. As well, the joint sponsorship program has seen more 270 persons in need of resettlement sponsored to date.

The government will continue these programs for as long as a need for humanitarian aid continues. It is part of our commitment to the United Nations and our responsibility to the international community to ease the suffering of citizens in the formerYugoslavia.

The people of Canada will not rest until peace and security have been restored in Bosnia. As parliamentarians we have a duty to support them and to oblige the government to report on the progress of this mission.

In conclusion, I believe that Canada should participate under NATO command first because it is in our national interest to take our three years of efforts to bring peace and succour to Bosnia to the logical and positive conclusion and second, because it is a demonstration of our commitment to NATO which is a vital component of our national security.

[World Aids Day, December 1st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention on this first day of December to World AIDS Day. This day brings to mind the significant numbers of individuals affected by this disease, one for which to this day there is still no cure. In North America it is a dramatic fact that AIDS is the top ranking cause of death for people between the ages of 25 and 44.

Health Canada reports that last year alone almost 3,000 Canadians were reported as having contracted the AIDS virus. That is about eight Canadians per day. It is indeed a shocking amount, but what is more shocking is that we are not doing enough to find a cure.

The federal government must strengthen its national AIDS strategy and do more to help researchers across the country who are working to develop an AIDS vaccine, researchers like Dr. Christos

Tsoukas of the Montreal General Hospital whose research is seriously jeopardized by this lack of funding.

We owe it to Canadians, especially to the young people of the country.

[Leader Of The Bloc Quebecois, November 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois reiterated once again that he is not interested in working to ensure that Quebec is recognized as a distinct society within the Canadian federation.

The leader of the Bloc suggested that he was more concerned with getting ready to be crowned leader of the PQ and appointed Premier of Quebec than with looking after the interests of all Quebecers.

By refusing to accept the federal government's proposal to recognize Quebec's distinct society, the leader of the Bloc has demonstrated that he is more concerned about preparing for his ascension to the PQ throne than responding to the demands of Quebecers.

The people of Quebec are finding out with dismay that the man they believed would champion their rights is actually prepared to sacrifice the recognition of distinct society for a separatist throne in Quebec. That is why the leader of the Bloc Quebecois has lost interest in distinct society.

[Renewal Of Canadian Federalism, November 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, as he had promised during the recent referendum campaign in Quebec, the Prime Minister of Canada outlined the first elements of the strategy to renew Canadian federalism.

Through this proposal, we are tackling head-on the notions of distinct society, regional veto and job training. It shows that this government responds to the legitimate demands expressed by all Canadians.

Yesterday, Quebecers found out that, more than ever before, they can count on the Prime Minister of Canada and his government to address the issues they care about.

Yesterday, all Canadians learned that when their Prime Minister promises something, he delivers.

Yesterday Quebecers received yet another confirmation that the Prime Minister of Canada is listening to their concerns and that they can count on the government to address the issues that are important to Quebec.

Quebecers once again see proof that when their Prime Minister promises something, he delivers.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, November 22nd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 10th report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, which represented Canada at the 41st annual session of the North Atlantic Assembly held in Turin, Italy, from October 5 to 9, 1995.