Réal Ménard

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. Could you quote from Beauchesne's?

We maintain that you cannot count members that way, and

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that if we were to look in Beauchesne's, we would find that only members in their seats can be counted.

I know that you have too long an experience in this place to think that rules could dictate otherwise; we know for a fact that we did not have quorum. We are asking you to reconsider.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

What do they say in introductory law? They say that the best legislative texts are the shortest ones.

If the law maker is unable, in one sentence—subject, verb, object—to express an idea, the public is in trouble.

I want to point out, and we can never do so often enough, that what we are seeing today is not a desire to protect personal information originating with private organizations, but a basely mercenary attempt to make it easier for business to access private information.

We will not let that happen. Clearly, it is not too late. If the government, which as members know belatedly included the new elements, wants to co-operate with the opposition, we can have the bill withdrawn. We could ask pages immediately to go from desk to desk to collect the copies of the bill.

No, that will not happen, because the government is stubborn. As my grandmother used to say it is “hardheaded”. Fortunately, the Bloc Quebecois is here and we will not allow the government to move unchallenged toward dictatorial powers. That should be made clear.

I hasten to say, to the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine in particular, that there is a Quebec model in the area of co-operation and respect for human rights, a model enacted by the Parti Quebecois which, as we all know, will be re-elected.

That model has been endorsed by the people of Quebec. A few years ago, Quebec passed a bill that protects privacy in the public sector, which goes without saying, and another bill passed in 1994 by the National Assembly, the only assembly in North America controlled by francophones and other Quebec residents. In 1994, the National Assembly extended the protection of the act to personal information in the private sector.

I challenge the government members to name one organisation in Quebec that did not applaud this excellent measure, that not only did not applaud it, but that also did not wish it applied throughout North America?

Would it not have been wiser for the government to learn from this and to propose a bill including principles similar to those found in the Quebec legislation.

I see that my time is almost up. However, in the spirit of true co-operation that exists on both sides, I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if you would be so kind as to seek the unanimous consent of the House to extend my allotted time by 10 minutes or so, to share with the information I have with the House.

I would appreciate this extension and I would ask the hon. members to be co-operative in this regard, because I worked really hard to prepare this speech, and I have things I wish to share with the House. The responsibility of the opposition is to ensure that the government always improves itself. As everyone knows, it is a full time job. It is also an exhausting job.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

Let us talk about this bill. The hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine should pay attention, to the extent of course that she can.

We are dealing with a bill that goes against one of our human rights, namely personal information.

Anyone with a bit of common sense would have thought that the Minister of Justice would be the one to rise in this House, since we are dealing with human rights, the Canadian Human Rights Act, the human rights declaration, the Canadian charter of rights which is, in many respects, mediocre, but which nevertheless has the merit of providing some protection for one's privacy.

Because this government is warped, because its thinking is muddled, it is attempting and proposing to deal with the whole issue of the protection of privacy, an area which is of paramount importance, as pointed out by the hon. member for Charlesbourg. Today, with computers, new technologies and electronic data processing, there is a considerable flow of information in the private sector.

The very title of the bill is unbelievable. Any law student at UQAM, Université Laval, University of Ottawa or wherever who handed in a draft with a title as convoluted as the one I am about to read would be immediately and roundly criticized by the professor.

I ask members to brace themselves—again, I urge the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine to listen—and take a look at the title. They will understand the Bloc Quebecois' objections. Had it not been for the Bloc Quebecois, this government of sheep, this blind and insensitive government, would once again have tried to pull a fast one on Quebec.

The title says it all. It goes like this:

An act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances, by providing for the use of electronic means to communicate or record information or transactions and by amending the Canada Evidence Act, the Statutory Instruments Act and the Statute Revision Act.

Talk about confused. What blatant dishonesty—I think the word is parliamentary—telling us that the bill we are debating today is an attempt to respect people's privacy.

I hope that the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, who has a law degree, if I am not mistaken, will remember her introductory course—

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

Today, we must deal with the bill before us. Members can imagine the paradox. This started as an ordinary Friday, like any other. However, the Bloc Quebecois—under the great leadership of the hon. member for Mercier, and since there is far too little leadership from the government across the way—changed everything and will do its utmost to block this bill, when it could have passed very easily.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise following the excellent speech made by my colleague from Charlesbourg, who has two great qualities. He is a lawyer and a humanist, and I think being a humanist makes him prouder than being a lawyer.

I would like to dedicate my speech to the charming member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, but first, I want to wish all the best to the Bouchard government. As we all know, that government is headed for an election and will be re-elected with an overwhelming majority, although we are not taking anything for granted.

That government will be re-elected because it has done a good job. Spontaneously, when reflecting on the outgoing government, one obviously thinks of how it defended Quebec's interests at every turn, but one also thinks of a whole series of very important measures.

There is the $5 day care program. I think many people in the riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine benefited from that program. There is also the work the CLDs are doing on employment.

I could provide numerous examples of a dynamic government that has protected Quebec's interests and paved the way to sovereignty, always keeping in mind the need to implement a social democratic project.

I am taking it upon myself to prepare the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, who, as we know, is a sensitive woman, to the inevitable fact that, if we all do our part, it will be re-elected, because it was a good government. I invite my colleagues to take part in a show of exuberance.

[Personal Information Protection And Electronic Documents Act, October 22nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the member for Mercier, our colleague from the Bloc Quebecois, for raising the alarm. She reminded us that privacy and personal information are issues of great importance and concern in our modern world and that the bill before us is not acceptable.

This is not the first time that the member for Mercier tries, with intelligent and forceful arguments, to make the government see the light. She did so for the employment insurance. She did so for the special legislation on the rail industry. However, we are constantly faced with a government that is dense, stubborn, insensitive and blissfully ignorant, one that rejects any possibility of co-operation.

Now, what we have to do is refer the bill to the committee, where the members can contribute fully. It is in committee that we can really improve a bill and ensure that we hear from our fellow citizens and understand their wishes.

The debate surrounding this bill is about the whole issue of protecting personal information, particularly in this case personal information detained by the private sector.

Mr. Speaker, you are a scholar and a human rights defender, so you will argue that it is a basic right in a world where electronics are so powerful, in a world where one can access extremely personal information just by pushing a button. It is a basic right and the question is why should it be considered, primarily, as a business matter.

Should we not be entitled to expect that the whole issue of protecting personal information be related to the Canadian Human Rights Act? That part should be related as much to the Canadian Human Rights Act which, as we know, not only forbids discrimination on several grounds but ensures that individuals can feel protected in an extremely important legislation governing the relations between the government and citizens as well as the relations between individuals within federally regulated corporations.

Before this bill can pass, the opposition, led by the member for Mercier, will use every means to see that this bill does not pass. I say bill, but I mean a mishmash piece of junk, written in the conditional, whose essence lies in the schedule.

Any law student knows as well as my colleague, the member for Berthier—Montcalm, a distinguished lawyer, that what is quintessential in a bill is its main body and its architecture. In this case, we have an absolutely incredible situation where what we are asked to pass as legislators lies in a schedule drafted in the conditional, with all sorts of confusions and imprecisions, so much so that any well-informed lawyer would give a C to a bill as bad as it is dreadful.

At this moment, I ask you to refrain from laughing. The strangest part in all of this is that we do not seem to be able to approach this bill in the context of privacy and access to information, and in the light of our sacred human rights—something which should be protected against all indiscretion and disclosure. The very title of the bill will help you understand readily the kind of confusion this government is dragging us into. Let me read it: “An Act to support and promote electronic commerce by protecting personal information that is collected, used or disclosed in certain circumstances, by providing for the use of electronic means to communicate or record information or transactions and by amending the Canada Evidence Act, the Statutory Instruments Act and the Statute Revision Act.”

How blurry can you get? How far can you go to confuse things. These people must be living on some other planet to be able to write so awkward a title. Not a single freshman in law school would dare hand in an assignment containing a title like this.

What is the message we get from this bill? What are we to understand as legislators? I would not want to disturb government members, but I would like to know what we should make of this bill. We are told that the government should be concerned about privacy only in a commercial context or, more narrowly, in a context of electronic commerce.

For once in his life, could we not have expected the Minister of Industry to see reason and model this legislation on the one we have in Quebec, one of the most modern and avant-garde pieces of legislation, one which has stood the test of time during the four years it has been in force and which could have been built on by this government?

No, that is not what happened. After all, it is out of the question to take Quebec as a model. As the member for Mercier indicated, with clause 27, the federal government reserves the option of deciding whether or not a province that has similar or related legislation should be exempted from the application of the act.

This does not make sense. Mr. Speaker, you should herewith call back the bill, call on the government to do so immediately. The government would come away enriched from this debate, having gained the support of the member for Mercier, and of the Bloc Quebecois. I think it would also have the support of the Progressive Conservative Party, which obviously still has a long way to go before forming a government. It would also have the support of the NDP. Then we would all go to the committee and keep improving the bill, based on the legislation we already have in Quebec, to ensure that this half-baked, poorly drafted rag, which lacks vision and whose main feature is a schedule tacked on to the back of the bill, reflects the true guidance any state concerned with the public good should offer its citizens.

This is no trifling matter, when one thinks of it. As I said, had they taken Quebec as a model, they would have found out that our legislation on the protection of personal information deals not only with commercial transactions but also with labour relations.

I know that we have to treat the government members like school children, because they do not catch on very quickly; so, let me give the House an example. Let us take the example of an employee at Eaton's. His employer has in his file, in Toronto, personal information about him, about his career plan and other personal matters. This employee works at Eaton's in Montreal. Pursuant to the act that has been in effect for four years in the province of Quebec, that employee working in Montreal could have access to every bit of information that is related to him, even though the head office is in Toronto.

Would it be the case if Bill C-54 was in effect? No, because, in its present form and if it is not amended, the bill would not apply to staff relations. Even though there is interprovincial trade and Eaton's has branches outside the province of Quebec, the access to information will not be in a business context but in a staff relations one. We were told this is a flaw in the bill and that that Eaton's employee would not have access to that information.

Mr. Speaker, I see that my time is up, so I urge you to recall this bill. It does not make any sense. For heaven's sake, let us send it to committee so that it can be reworked.

[Poverty, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the suffering generated by poverty is one of the worst violations of human rights and the greatest failure of our political institutions.

I salute the courage of the millions of children, women and men who, every day, struggle to survive, without ever having the right to express their distress.

Moisson Montréal tells us that the number of meals served in various help centers in Montreal has increased 38% in the last two years, and that children now make up 40% of their clientele.

What is the millionaire who owns Canada Steamship Lines doing in the face of this ever increasing poverty? He is about to take the $20 billion surplus accumulated in the employment insurance fund and give it to the rich.

As if this were not enough, the Minister of Finance refuses to repay the billions taken from the provinces and needed for health care, income security and education.

We condemn the insensitivity of a minister who is more concerned with his ships than with fairness and social justice.

[Solicitor General Of Canada, October 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

Yesterday, my colleague from Mercier appealed to the dignity of the Solicitor General to put an end to the circus atmosphere into which this House has been plunged for the past week because of him. I am offering the minister another chance.

Will the Solicitor General do the honourable thing and step down, so we can get on with real issues when we come back in another week?

[Extradition Act, October 8th, 1998]

I also wish much success to a new clerk of the House of Commons, Nancy Hall, with whom I had the pleasure of working in the subcommittee on HIV and AIDS.

Let us now turn our attention to Bill C-40. This is an important piece of legislation, because extradition must be viewed with two realities in mind. The first one is of course the movement of people between countries. We are well aware that one of the reasons for this bill is that 100 years ago, the means of communication were not what they are now.

We must remember that, 100 years ago, people traveled by train. A hundred years ago, there was no Internet. A hundred years ago, the whole issue of telemarketing did not exist. A hundred years ago, the burning issues were railroads and electrical energy. Those were the days of Sigmund Freud, with whose name people will be familiar. I myself am an admirer of Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, a man who left his mark.

A hundred years later, we realize that the question of population flows—the word itself suggests mobility—is connected with crime. There are all sorts of new types of crime one must think about.

Before going into Bill C-40 in detail, let us think about money laundering alone. If any one member in this House has raised this matter, it is the very one who speaks to you now, because money laundering is connected with the most troubling threat, the parallel economy. If I asked you to bet on the figures involved in money laundering, I am sure you could not hit on the figure.

That is why I will promptly provide you with that figure: somewhere in the order of $20 billion involved in money laundering. Not a figure to be sneezed at.

The merit of the bill lies in its desire to bring the legislation up to date, to simplify it. For this reason, it must be understood right off the bat that, in reality, two pieces of legislation are involved when we are discussing Bill C-40: the Extradition Act, for there is such a piece of legislation, and the Fugitive Offenders Act.

Until very recently, Canada was not in a position to honour its obligations on the international level. The parliamentary secretary has said so, eloquently moreover, and I must congratulate her on this. She reminded us that this hundred-year-old legislation was completely unsuited to the realities of modern extradition.

We are seeing an international consciousness, in which the Bloc Quebecois is playing a large role, and an increasing interest in the concept of international tribunals. As we speak, there are 97 conflicts going on in the world. Amazingly, of this number, 94 are intra-state, meaning that they do not extend beyond a country's borders.

In such conflicts, there are people who commit crimes and leave their own country for another, hence the need for extradition legislation.

I have forgotten to mention the two lawyers who briefed me. I am thinking of Mr. Lemire, and of Mr. Roy. I wish to thank them. I think they are seated nearby. I thank them for the serious and professional manner in which they shared their knowledge with me. I cannot claim to have attained their level of expertise, but I did my best.

The bill we are discussing, Bill C-40, will combine two statutes. It will amend the principle of extradition, producing a completely modern bill.

In times gone by, extradition was associated with a list of offences for which an individual was sought, here and in other countries. This posed a problem because there were certain acts that were considered offences in Canada, that were not necessarily viewed that way in other countries.

Nowadays, I understand that, with this bill, there is less interest in maintaining lists, which necessitated legislative amendment to make the changes; we are now going with the legal concept of comparable offences. The offence we are talking about must carry with it a sentence of a minimum of two years. I think we will find this flexibility very useful in the future.

Another very important aspect of the bill is that it clarifies the roles of the department, that is, the minister, and the various courts. We are talking about a regular court of law here, if my notions of law are correct. This in fact was one of the exam questions when I was interested in such things. The difference between a court of law and an administrative tribunal—I imagine all my colleagues could slip me the answer, but I am going to continue with my own theory—is that a court of law does not administer a specific law, but responds to a set of laws.

As my example of an administrative tribunal, I cite the Régie du logement and the CSSTs. The Immigration and Refugee Board is an administrative tribunal, which administers a law, and therefore may develop a certain specialization.

It establishes a division of labour, a specialization under which the law establishes very specific and defined roles for the judges whose prime responsibility will be to ensure that an offence against Canada has truly occurred.

They will also have to assess the evidence, and that is extremely important. As you know, justice is not served if the evidence cannot be objectively, intelligently and impartially assessed.

Then there is the Department of Justice. Our fine and attractive Minister of Justice will, under all circumstances, have to make a decision on the extradition process. She will have to ratify—I say ratify, but members will understand that in each case that is submitted to her—

I was surprised to learn of the level of intimacy in the process. I thought it was automatic, until Mr. Lemire and Mr. Roy told me otherwise. In a way this is reassuring, because it means that political authority is more than just political authority.

The human authority must take a look at the extradition issue. Why? First, to make sure that when a state asks for the extradition of an individual who is guilty of an offence both in Canada and in his country of origin, his extradition will not expose that individual to abuse or to violations of his rights as a human being.

I was very pleased to learn during a briefing that a provision of the bill specifically provides that when human rights are violated, when the individual committed a punishable offence that carries a two-year jail term, and when it is feared that the individual will be discriminated against for motives that are prohibited under the Canadian law and charter, then the minister can reject the request for extradition.

We are, referring to possible violations based on political beliefs or marital status. One's sexual orientation is not included in the legislation, but I know we can count on the parliamentary secretary to agree to an amendment that the Bloc Quebecois will table in committee.

The minister will have the option, when she is concerned about the conditions surrounding the extradition of an individual detained in Canada, to oppose such extradition.

Again, the great merit of this bill is, of course, that it updates a century old act that was rarely amended, but it is also that it targets the new forms of crime.

Crime is a national reality, but it is also an international one. This is something that reaches across borders. In fact, until recently, and I am not sure it is not still the case to some extent, Canada was considered a haven for organized crime.

Mr. Speaker, you know—not from personal experience but from what you heard—how organized crime works. There are usually three phases. I had this explained to me at the time when I was taking a special interest in this issue.

In 1995, the late Daniel Desrochers, a 13-year old boy, was the innocent victim of a car bombing a few feet away from my constituency office in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. This incident reminded us of the battle going on in the underworld, especially between two biker gangs, namely the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machines, for control over the drug market. Following this incident, many of my fellows citizens and I felt the urge to find out more about organized crime.

I then came to realize that it is not only a national but also an international phenomenon.

I also came to realize that organized crime works in stages or phases. The first stage consists in taking control over a territory. That makes sense. Members of criminal organization need a place to operate. These places meet very specific criteria.

There is no organized crime to speak of in the third world. There is a lot of corruption of course. There are drug traffickers, and several countries come to mind. But organized crime as we know it in Canada and Quebec is only possible in a country of plenty.

There are a number of prerequisites for organized crime to flourish. First, this requires a state with a highly complex legal system. We already know how many people hold that the charter of rights adopted in 1982, without the consent of Quebec, constitutes a hindrance in the battle against organized crime, because in a bureaucratized state with a highly complex legal system there are fundamental guarantees, over and above sections 7 through 14 of the charter, which slow down the judiciary process.

Of course, like my colleagues on the other side of the House, we in the Bloc Quebecois would not like to go back to a time when there were no judiciary guarantees and a person could fall victim to wrongful acts by the judiciary without much hope of redress.

A brief aside: some of my colleagues, militants from way back, who lived through the 1970 October Crisis, when habeas corpus was suspended, know what it is to live with discretionary imprisonment, hateful as that is, and other judiciary abuses. This is why it is so important to have judiciary guarantees in a constitutional state.

Now, back to the bread and butter of the issue, or perhaps I should speak instead of sheep and lambs, to please the hon. member for Louis-Hébert. Our thanks to her, incidentally, for the excellent lamb she offered us this morning. I wish our Liberal colleagues could have been there too. It brought our thoughts back to the battle this hon. member has been waging, along with some of her colleagues, for instance the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques. The excellent lamb served reminds us of the Department of Agriculture's need to review its policy on scrapie.

That said, back to organized crime. Organized crime runs in stages, and this is a national reality. With cross-border trade, the figure of $20 million laundered has become an international reality.

The first stage of organized crime is gaining control over a territory, and the second, almost inevitably, is money laundering. I do not wish to go too far off-topic, but what does it take to convince this government—

I would like the parliamentary secretary to look up and take note when I ask her to work very hard within her caucus to convince the Minister of Justice—a woman who is generally easy to get along with, except when she is speaking about constitutional law and can get carried away—to take $1,000 bank notes out of circulation, because it leads directly to money laundering.

If we were to do a little informal survey of our colleagues, of those in the gallery, of listeners, and ask how many of them had a $1,000 bill on them, with the notable exception of yourself, Mr. Speaker, there would be very few. That is why the $1,000 bank note lends itself to money laundering. Canada is the only country to have this denomination.

The first phase, therefore, is taking over an area. The second is money laundering. The third, and most important, is the phase which, according to a certain number of analysts, Canada is well into, in which the underworld invests in legal and illegal activities. This is a cause for concern.

It is a cause for concern because, without strong legislation, and of course Bill C-40 is a step in the right direction, legal and illegal activities can cover quite a range.

For example, the underworld is now investing in luxury items such as jewels and fur coats, and, we have to be honest, casinos. And of course, the drug culture provides it with its main source of income.

Crime is a very real concern. Just recently, perhaps a year and a half ago, I believe we passed an extremely memorable milestone, providing our society with more weapons for the battle we must wage against those on the other side of the law. That milestone was the passage of legislation on gangs, and I believe I made a modest contribution to this.

Of course, it will always be the government that gets credit for its enactment, but I believe that, without the political pressure brought to bear and the arguments made daily by myself and my Bloc Quebecois colleagues from Montreal and other regions, there would not have been such early awareness of the necessity of legislation against organized crime. That legislation created a new criminal offence, and provided both police forces and judges with additional tools.

For those who may have just joined us, Bill C-40 is a bill which combines two existing laws with the intent of bringing the extradition process into the present day. not only bringing it into the present day, but also simplifying it, by not only listing the criminal offences but also including the concept of offences punishable in both states.

As we know, Canada has extradition agreements with 49 states, as well as being a signatory of eight multilateral conventions. If there should happen not to be a treaty with the states concerned, it will be possible to proceed on a case-specific base and the law will allow extradition without a treaty, using the process of a designation or agreement specific to a particular case.

Another quite interesting clause in the bill concerns the Immigration and Refugee Board, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Immigration, the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie.

It may happen within the extradition process that the person involved is also claiming political refugee status. We know how the refugee status determination process works. It is a pretty rotten, petty and patronage-ridden system, in my opinion. Essentially, however, how it works is that it allows a person from another country to come into Canadian territory and apply for political refugee status under the Geneva Convention, asking for asylum in Canada.

Generally, it is because we have reasons to believe that, in his or her country of origin, the person could be persecuted on the basis of political or religious beliefs. It is also increasingly frequent to grant refugee status to people because we fear for their physical integrity and are concerned that they might suffer some kind of reprisals because of their sexual orientation.

Since Canada is a signatory to the Geneva convention, refugee status is determined by first accepting a person into the country. An officer meets the person, who fills out a personal information card. The officer then determines if there is a credible basis for the claim.

If so, the person is allowed to continue the process. The file is then referred to the Immigration and Refugee Board, more specifically to the Convention Refugee Determination Division. The board makes decisions. It makes its decisions through an accelerated process, or with two board members being present.

We hope, of course, that the process will change. It must change, if only because, on average, it takes three years to reach a decision. This is rather unbelievable, considering that if a person comes here as a political refugee, it is because that person is in trouble. The process should be a lot faster than it is.

What happens when a decision takes a long time, when it takes three years? As the member for Jonquière pointed out, people get used to being here. They learn the language, they find a job, they develop relationships with their neighbours and they become part of our society.

Sometimes, after having been here two or three years and having integrated themselves to the Canadian society, they are told they are not recognized as political refugees. They must then leave the country. Some will argue there are ways to appeal the decision. It is true, particularly through the federal court. But in reality, the decisions made by the Immigration and Refugee Board are very rarely overturned at the appeal level.

The process is somewhat inefficient, but with Bill C-40, it will be possible to consider that a decision made by the justice department on refugee status determination will also apply for the purposes of the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Some may construe this as interference. I for one think it is a sensible approach and that it makes sense, for the sake of consistency, that a decision made by the justice department on refugee status determination be binding and apply to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

I hope that we will dispose quickly of Bill C-40, which is not a very controversial bill. I heard our colleagues from the Reform Party express a number of grievances, and there is nothing wrong with that. They probably had more to do with the cost of implementing the legislation. This is a concern—I was about to say an obsession—but I personally believe that the real challenge, as events will show, should lead us to consider and thoroughly review the Immigration Act. We can agree that twho here is work to be done in that area.

Yesterday, the Minister of Immigration, a woman always perfectly in control of her faculties, who is not prone to anger and verbal abuse and always speaks in a soft voice whether the moment is grave and solemn or festive, told us “We will be tabling legislation shortly”.

That is not enough. We must know when legislation will be tabled. It is especially important since the Trempe commission, masterfully presided by the former deputy minister of immigration in Quebec, concluded in its report that the immigration system did not make any sense. If there is one priority we must raise as members of parliament, that is it.

The Trempe report asked that a distinction be made between people who come here as immigrants, who chose Quebec or Canada often on the basis of professional skills, and those who come here because of hardship due to the international situation or to problems inherent to their country of origin and seek political asylum. The Trempe report suggested that a distinction be made and that a protection agency be established.

There is a problem that must be mentioned, that I think people should be aware of. I am sure the parliamentary secretary knows what I am referring to. The Immigration and Refugee Board is a patronage haven.

I could give examples. I do not know whether it parliamentary to do so? I will take a chance. There is Mrs. Robic, the former Minister of Immigration for Quebec, for instance. That is a good appointment, because she was the Minister of Immigration. She was a Liberal, of course, but nobody is perfect.

There were other appointments to this Immigration and Refugee Board, including the president of Alliance Quebec. We are hearing a lot about Alliance Quebec. The shock waves can surly be felt all the way out in Edmonton. He was appointed. Is there anyone that can say to the House that the former president of Alliance Quebec was familiar with international law? Was he interested in immigration? Of course not. That has nothing to do with his ability to learn. I would agree, but could we not leave patronage behind, and follow the example of the Parti Quebecois, which will have an objective procedure and where the candidates chosen will be career public servants?

That was what the Trempe report called for. It recommended that there be a process whereby people with an interest in immigration law and international law and who would make it their career would be appointed to the public service, by competition. Is there anything nobler than a career in the public service of one's country?

This is the direction that should be taken. For my part, as a member of parliament, I hope that we move rapidly to adopt such a process. Let me say right off that the government will be able to rely on the enthusiastic, not to say ardent, support of the opposition, particularly yours truly.

Those are my comments. I will conclude by saying that we will support the general philosophy behind the bill, as well as its economic impact. Certainly, there will be a few amendments, because we have a dual objective. First, we want to attain sovereignty, as everyone knows, but our more immediate goal is to improve government. That is what the opposition is all about. It is arduous work, with no end in sight. We will work in committee to improve the bill. We will move a few amendments but, on the whole, this is a worthy bill that we will support.