Réal Ménard

[Aids, November 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

In Canada, it is estimated that between 26,000 and 35,000 persons carry the AIDS virus. An average of 3,000 new cases are identified each year in Canada. It is a sorry state of affairs, since Canada, along with Australia, is one of the countries where the average age of those with the disease has dropped since the start of the epidemic.

Given the proportions of this scourge, is the minister prepared to renew the national AIDS strategy for five years with its budget of $40.7 million a year? Is he prepared to make the commitment?

[Program For Older Worker Adjustment, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister realize that although the Société québécoise de développement de la main-d'oeuvre, the SQDM, has already set money aside, more than 500 workers currently eligible for the program will be deprived of benefits because he is not honouring his financial commitment to POWA? That is the reality.

[Program For Older Worker Adjustment, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Minister of Human Resources Development has no compassion for children. I hope he does for older workers.

The Program for Older Worker Adjustment, funded jointly by the provinces and the federal government, helps older workers who are victims of mass layoffs. The federal government has informed the provinces that POWA will end on March 31, 1977. Ottawa will accept no new applications, but has agreed to honour its financial obligations in cases currently being processed.

Knowing that the workers of the Peerless company, considered eligible for the POWA program by the Canada-Quebec joint analysis committee, are still awaiting their benefits because Ottawa is refusing to release the funds, would the minister confirm that applications made by older workers between the announcement of

the government's withdrawal from this program and March 31, 1997 will be honoured?

[An Act To Revoke The Conviction Of Louis David Riel, November 22nd, 1996]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You will no doubt appreciate that I readily support the bill introduced by my hon. colleague from Rimouski-Témiscouata. For the benefit of those just joining us, I would like to make it quite clear that, as the official opposition in this House, we sincerely believe that we are putting before Parliament a bill to redress an injustice.

We must not overlook the fact that there was a time in Parliament's history when, within these walls, shame, intolerance and injustice prevailed. Our purpose in recalling such injustice is certainly not to revive old fratricidal conflicts. We will recall that Louis Riel was democratically elected three times by the people of Provencher and given the mandate to do what we as Canadian parliamentarians are doing today, namely representing our communities.

There is a paradox in accusing of high treason a man who, on many occasions in this House, was recognized as an upstanding founder of Manitoba. Louis Riel was recognized as a leader in his own right in the defence of human rights. He advocated principles that still reverberate in Parliament.

There is a paradox in, on the one hand, recognizing that Riel was one of the founders of Manitoba, that he fought for his peers, for the recognition of the right to self-government and self-determination of his community, the Métis community, and on the other hand, regarding him as a traitor. This paradox could become a source of unbearable shame if ever we, as parliamentarians, were so ill-advised as to not support the bill put forward by my colleague, the hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata.

What is this bill all about? It calls for the revocation of Louis Riel's conviction. We are not trying to rewrite history here. Later in the debate, as we have all along, we will review the very specific milestones of Louis Riel's public life.

I think it would be unfair and irresponsible not to recognize that the decision to sentence Louis Riel to death for high treason was historically unfounded. Without rewriting history, but having lucidly considered the facts, we certainly have a duty and responsibility to redress the injustice that unfairly cost Louis Riel his life.

What are the tools at our disposal to effect redress? This is what the hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata, who has a sense of history, is proposing. She is asking this Parliament-let me quote the bill directly:

Whereas Louis David Riel, member of the House of Commons for the electoral district of Provencher from 1873 to 1874, was convicted on August 1, 1885 of high treason and sentenced to death, and was hanged on November 16, 1885 at Regina, North West Territories;

Whereas, notwithstanding his conviction, Louis David Riel has become a symbol and a hero to successive generations of Canadians who have, through their governments, honoured and commemorated him in specific projects and actions;

It is being asked-and this is the thrust of the bill, this is where we will see if, in the House, we are able to act upon words-out of respect for history, since:

-and whereas it is consistent with this recognition that the conviction of Louis David Riel be now revoked-

that this conviction now be revoked.

You will tell me that history cannot be rewritten, and this is a very great truth.

I repeat that, if history cannot be rewritten, we still have the responsibility, as parliamentarians, to set the record straight, considering that it was in this very place that Louis David Riel, whose election was sanctioned by a democratic process, as is the case for all of us here, was not allowed to fulfill his mandate.

But worse than that, what happened? There was a practice Louis Riel, first in 1869-70, as the head of his community located close to the Red River, witnessed, without being consulted, powerless but not impassive, whereby British settlers, people who were not part of his community, occupied the land. Louis Riel was forced to stand by, fully aware and committed, while an act of dispoilment was being committed. I am deliberately using the word "despoilment", because as you probably remember, the central government of the day, with the support of the British authorities, sent surveyors to readjust the maps so as to redistribute the lands to people other than the Metis.

Under these circumstances, prompted by their strong desire for democracy, Louis Riel and his peers formed a temporary government which had to quell a rebellion, a government which, having to deal with the rebellion stirred up by British settlers in Fort Garry, decided to execute Thomas Scott.

Because a community was being despoiled, a man had to die, as was the custom at the time. The Metis were despoiled.

What happened then? Instead of opening up the discussions, of trying to understand the claims which the Metis had often ex-

plained to Parliament, violence was used, because the government felt it could quell the rebellion with the help of its armed forces.

The fundamental problem was that of a community which was being despoiled on an individual basis, because the very existence of the Metis community was being ignored.

Time has gone by and Louis Riel has remained the very significant figure he has always been for the Metis. Ontario and its most aggressive Anglo Protestants demanded Louis Riel's head and they got it.

In a second uprising, this time in the far west, at the end of the railway line, there was a second attempt at removing a community and despoiling the Metis again in what was to become Saskatchewan.

Again in 1865, Louis Riel was part of the struggle and stood up for his people. At that time, we-I say "we", but there is nothing personal to it-the Parliament of Canada was party to a verdict of execution against Louis Riel. What is becoming increasingly clear from the writings of historians of the day, and very few of us could deny these facts, is that Louis Riel was the victim of injustice and that the ideal conditions, the conditions of elementary justice, were not all there for his trial.

I could remind you that Louis Riel was tried in Regina although he should have been in Winnipeg. He was judged in Regina by six English- speaking jurors, but if his trial had been held in Winnipeg, as his peers were requesting at the time, the jury would have been made up of an equal number of English- and French-speaking jurors.

Also, Louis Riel was tried by a judge liable to dismissal.

He was not tried by a Superior Court judge, who could have acted independently from the federal government because he was not liable to dismissal.

Moreover, Louis Riel and his family were not allowed the benefit of the expertise of his attending physician. The government preferred the testimony of a Hamilton doctor, who examined Riel for half an hour, before coming up with the subservient and false medical opinion we are all aware of.

Still on the sad saga of Riel, the jury that condemned him recommended clemency, but the judge nevertheless sentenced him to death. Louis Riel's story is a story of injustice. It is the story of a subservient Parliament and, thus, of a community covered in shame.

You know all the publicity Riel's case had in Quebec. It is certainly not by accident that, after the hanging of Louis Riel, in November 1885, the Premier of Quebec, Honoré Mercier, the fist premier, as you will remember, who asked for an interprovincial conference, the first nationalist premier, said spontaneously in front of a huge crowd of 50,000 people: "Louis Riel, our brother, died unjustly".

And in the opinion of several historians, Louis Riel's death was the first step in what was to become a major national unity crisis.

Allow me, in concluding, to quote a distant cousin of Louis Riel and former member of the other House, who said this: "We have to admit that this sentence alienated the Province of Quebec. This was a major crisis, maybe as serious as the one we living through today. It is hardly surprising that, each year between 1885 and 1900, some 100,000 French Canadians left Quebec to emigrate to the United States. They did not go to western Canada. There is no need to look for the causes underlying this phenomenon. People in Quebec felt they were not welcome in that part of the country, as was evidenced by events of the day, such as the death of Riel and the fact that the use of French was abolished in Manitoba in 1890". These are historical facts.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, think of all we can do in five minutes. It is fantastic.

So, I was reminding you of how pleased I am to speak on Bill C-63 because the type of representative we will establish as parliamentarians depends on it.

I was reminding you of how sad I am to see that the government did not include the opposition parties in this House, that is, the official opposition and the third party, in the consultation and drafting process of this bill.

And I was reminding you of how proud we are, as an opposition party, to have been able to depend on the hon. member for Bellechasse, who combines the qualities of a highly skilled lawyer and those of a seasoned parliamentarian with such flair.

I was also reminding you of all the motions we have to put forward because this bill leaves so much to be desired. We hope that the government will agree to those amendments, because we believe that they will be better for democracy.

I was reminding you of how easy it can be, in this democratic system of ours, to make ourselves heard, even when one comes from a humble background-and I am certainly a case in point-since I, the son of a labourer, was able to run for office and get elected in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve after a campaign that cost only $35,000. When we come to think of it, it is really not much,

compared to the Americans who almost have to be an official member of a lobby to be elected.

We know that the quality of our electoral practices depends on a number of things. We brought to the attention of the government the fact that there is a means to keep the process under control, which is called a list of electors.

You know how important this voters' list is, since it supposedly contains the names of all the people who can vote and who, as we know, meet a number of requirements in terms mainly of citizenship, age and place of residence.

We have questions regarding the government's refusal to allow the age of voters to be shown on the list of electors. It is a questionable position. The more the list will include detailed information, the easier it will be for all parties concerned to identify cheaters. There is nothing partisan about that.

You will certainly understand that if, on election day, workers at a polling station greet at their table a man named Réal Ménard who, according to the list of electors, is 34 years old and the person standing in front of them seems to be 70 years old, they will know that something is wrong. The vigilance of the staff on election day will help identify cheaters and stop the voting process when unauthorized people show up at the poll. I think the government's position to refuse such an argument is questionable.

The same thing applies to gender identification. It is not a matter of quality or quantity, but simply a matter of knowing if we are dealing with a male or a female voter. I take these things very seriously and it seems to me that it would be in our best interests to have as much information as possible in order to identify cheaters.

We cannot accept the rather obsessive argument of the Reform Party that the availability of this information will lead to sexual harassment. It is true that the list of electors is a public document and that the chief electoral officer has to make it available to any individual or group upon request. But I still do not think the Reformers' argument is valid.

The existence of such a list is not the kind of factor that would encourage people who have a predisposition towards sexual harassment to act on their impulses. We do not want to minimize the importance of this extremely complex problem, but there is certainly no correlation between the amendment we are proposing and the kind of legislation the Reform Party wants to see passed in this House.

We are much too aware of the importance of representation. We know only too well what it means to have an elections act that is truly reflective of the wishes of all parties. I believe the member, whose riding escapes me for the moment, but of which he, no doubt, is the worthy representative, knows the importance of consensus in this matter. It is not true that in matters of legitimacy, in matters which concerns us as parliamentarians and members of Parliament, we can afford to do without a real debate.

It is not true that we should be delighted by the haste shown by the government. This government did not show a lack of courtesy when the time came to consult us on the issue of riding redistribution and revision of the electoral map.

The hon. member for Bellechasse is in a very good position to confirm that we were very closely involved in the process. He reminded us that, with the help of all parties represented in the House, we took more than a year to do the required revision work.

Why the sudden haste, the lack of courtesy on the part of the government and its representatives, who decided not to call upon the opposition parties, since we know that the House would have come out of this a better House? Think about the impact we would have had if we had been able to say that the bill before us, Bill C-63 to amend the Elections Act, is truly what all parties in the House wanted. I believe the government treated this matter off-handedly.

I think that the government did not live up to its responsibilities, and certainly lacked courtesy, by not allowing the opposition to fully participate in the review and enhancement of such an important bill.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you are as committed to democracy as I am, and that makes you a very endearing Speaker, but do you not think that it would have been advisable to take advantage of the debate to discuss the funding of political parties?

I know that in a few minutes we will have the opportunity to discuss this matter, but I believe that it would have been wiser for the government to go back to the basic meaning of the word. It would have been a lot better for the government to draw inspiration from the practices currently in effect in Quebec.

As you know, and I will conclude on this, there has been for more than a decade in Quebec a political party financing act which is extremely democratic. And I will get back to this later.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I thought we would never straighten this out, but I will continue. You are right to remind the House that

I support the motion. It may not look like it, but it does mean something when someone supports a motion in this House. When I rose earlier in the House it was as seconder of the motion.

What I mean is that we would like and we would have liked, as the hon. member for Bellechasse put it, to have plenty of time to consider the issue. It would have been terribly courteous, good practice and extremely respectful to invite opposition parties, both the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party, to take part in the drafting of this bill.

As the hon. member for Bellechasse reminded the House, that was done when the issue of redistribution of seats was addressed. Let us not forget that some people fought hard and lost their lives for the right to be heard in Parliament.

It is important to come to an agreement on the issues of democracy and representation. In our system we have a tool called the list of electors. Why do we have such a tool? Because we brag about having the cleanest, most transparent election practices of the whole world, which promote a strong democracy through representation. The voters' list is an extremely important tool.

We are convinced that the more complete it is, the more information it contains, the easier it will be to track down abusers. This is why we want to see on this voters' list the same thing we have in Quebec, which is identity information, like the age and sex of voters. This would be useful come election time, enabling support staff, the clerk, and representatives to ensure that persons-

I believe my time is up. I think I will be able to continue after question period.

[Canada Elections Act, November 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address Bill C-63, whose title, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, tells us parliamentarians about its importance.

You will understand that I cannot discuss the amendments proposed by my party without first congratulating and thanking the hon. member for Bellechasse, for his excellent work regarding this measure.

I am convinced that you share my conviction, as does I am sure the President of the Treasury Board, that this Parliament would be a better institution if it had more members like my colleague for Bellechasse, who believes in the value of words and is well aware that, in a democracy, the best way to oppose an idea is to come up with a better one.

This is why the hon. member for Bellechasse reminded us of certain things. I was told that the President of the Treasury Board received a classical education. We will get back to this, since it has a direct connection with the bill and the motions. You will agree with me that, when we discuss issues relating to electoral democracy, haste is often the enemy of common sense.

It is truly sad that, on an issue such as this one, which deals with the quality of representation, of democracy and of our debates, the government did not ask opposition parties to get much more involved.

We are all mature enough, regardless of the party to which we belong, to know that, when it comes to such issues, it is preferable to seek a consensus. The hon. member for Bellechasse and the President of the Treasury Board are both cultivated individuals. The hon. member for Bellechasse quoted Boileau and reminded us that we had to keep working to improve the bill.

To illustrate the importance of the motions, I too wish to quote Boileau and dedicate the following proverb to the President of the Treasury Board: "There are those whose dull minds forever languish under a cloud, blind to the light of reason. What is well understood can be clearly expressed; the words just flow naturally".

The reason I am quoting Boileau, an author oft quoted in the classical colleges attended by the President of the Treasury Board, who is now in his fifties, is because it is important-

[Canada Labour Code, November 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am feeling better and I will be voting with my party, that is to say, I will be voting nay.

[Committees Of The House, November 20th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to be a nuisance, but I came in late. I would not want you to think ill of me. This is the first time this has happened since I have been in the House, but I did not feel well. I was feeling weak. I apologize, Mr. Speaker.

[Canada Labour Code, November 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the least we can say this morning, and the Minister will agree, is that a review of the Canada Labour Code is long overdue. Several times we stood in this House to ask questions on various provisions of the code and each time the Minister would refer to the review he tabled three weeks ago, parts of which, I must say, are certainly evidence of his good will.

I am well aware that the Minister is a courteous man, but I have a feeling that he did not follow his reform ideas through to their logical conclusion and that he was a little bit inhibited in some of his actions. I certainly hope to have the opportunity in committee to urge the Minister to go further, to surpass himself, and to see to it that the bill be further improved upon, since, as you well know, this is the role of the opposition and a full time job.

This being said, there are positive elements in there. Obviously, when the Minister suggests measures to accelerate the hearing of the parties, we cannot but agree. When the Minister proposes that a one person court may be convened so as to speed up the work of the Canada Labour Relations Board, we are all for it. When the Minister wants to change the name of the Canada Labour Relations Board, which lived last winter a crisis that almost destroyed it, we are in favour of that.

What the minister will have to specify is this: in the bill that will be considered by the human resources development committee, to make the Canada Industrial Relations Board, a quasi-judicial tribunal that is extremely important for the balance he is seeking to strike, does he intend to make it a truly representational body as he was asked to do on many occasions? Will he accept that members of this board be appointed from lists that will be submitted, as is done for other governmental organizations? To ensure that the Canada Industrial Relations Board decisions are not never questioned, the board must become a representational body.

Too often, in the past, appointments were made that did not reflect the kind of talent, expertise and knowledge that is to be expected from people who sit on this quasi-judicial tribunal.

The minister knows perfectly well this bill contains a provision that is rather vague. It says that the minister will consult. Of course, the notion of consultation is not very precise. It is true that consultation is important when making this kind of appointments, but I think balance would be much better served if the minister could use lists that would be submitted by both management and union representatives to fill vacancies on the board.

You will also understand that this reform, and the opposition's position, and the common understanding that will guide us over the coming weeks, because we on this side of the House are very aware that this is the beginning of a relatively lengthy process, since the Canada Labour Code is an extremely important tool in union democracy, that the whole issue of replacement workers will be the focus of our concerns.

I must say that it is undoubtedly this aspect of the bill that is the most disappointing. It is undoubtedly this aspect of the bill that goes most against the grain for the minister, where he did not achieve what he would have liked. The reform the minister is proposing has no central component, only peripheral details.

It is not clear where this came from. Recognizing the right to use replacement workers only in cases where the union's representational capacity is undermined is not something that flows from the Sims report. First of all, there is no case law to support it. There is no partner. I challenge the minister to rise in his place and tell us who asked for such a formula when the Sims task force was conducting its review. Who on the employer side or the union side is calling for such a convoluted formula, the concrete results and ramifications of which are unknown?

The mere fact that negotiations are continuing and the parties sitting down at the same table is evidence that a union's representational capacity will not be undermined and that the employer is not entitled to use replacement workers.

I cannot go along with the minister's statement that he cannot act without a consensus. I think this indicates a lack of knowledge of the context giving rise to the legislation passed by the National Assembly in 1977. If a consensus is required it is clear that, in such an instance, we are condemned to the status quo, and I think both the legislator and members of Parliament could be faulted for lack of courage in their failure to permit this very healthy exercise in democracy to take place in a well defined context. We agree that it must not take place in any old way, but, rather, that the context in which replacement workers are used must be well defined.

I think we have to give in to what has been requested by the FTQ, the CSN and the Canadian Labour Congress and include it very plainly among the unfair labour practices. At the moment, seven unfair practices are set out and defined in the Canada Labour Code.

What is an unfair practice? It is the allegation that an employer, a union or an individual has taken part in an activity prohibited by the Canada Labour Code. Why was it not named clearly and

unambiguously? It would then have been a lot easier for the Canada Labour Relations Board to conduct the arbitrations required.

Everyone agrees that a strike is the ultimate weapon. It is acknowledged that there must be intermediate stages. However, in cases where it is unavoidable-and it is acknowledged to be an element of union democracy-I think it should have been clearly included among unfair practices along with section 24; section 50, which is about bargaining in bad faith; section 94, which deals with interference in union business; section 37, which has to do with a union's duty of fair representation; and section 95, which concerns prohibitions relating to trade unions.

I repeat, this is the thrust of the reform. You are well aware that the official opposition will not let this demand drop. We will encourage the minister to go right to the limit of his reformer tendencies, because I know for a fact that the minister is not a conservative.

There was also a strong demand by the unions regarding technological change. On several occasions, the minister rose in this House and mentioned how much the labour market was changing, and how traditional practices were fast disappearing.

One of the major demands was the right to strike, to reopen a collective agreement whenever significant technological changes occur between the signing of a collective agreement and its renegotiation. I believe we must keep this in mind. The committee will have to do some soul-searching regarding this particular demand.

I believe the minister should have implemented the Sims report as a whole and taken note of a demand, a very important recommendation regarding his powers. This very studious minister could not have forgotten the existence of a very clear recommendation to abolish eight different powers, or eight sections of the act giving the minister powers that appear somewhat archaic in light of current practices and realities.

Cases in point are section 57 regarding the authority to appoint arbitrators and an arbitration board; section 59 regarding the minister's right to receive copies of arbitration decisions; and section 71 regarding the right to receive notices of dispute. There are about eight sections like that. I believe that members of the Sims task force were all agreed that these powers were somewhat outdated.

You will also understand how disappointed the opposition is with regard to the RCMP. We even tabled a motion-which I moved-inviting the minister to put an end to the discrimination against RCMP employees. The RCMP is the only police force in Canada which is not allowed to negotiate working conditions through collective bargaining.

I believe the Sims report was very clear in this regard. The minister must be aware of it. It was recognized that it was not desirable to grant the right to strike. In fact, no one within the RCMP is asking for this right. What they are asking for is the right to collective bargaining with compulsory arbitration, which many municipal police forces currently enjoy.

Another serious omission, which we will have a chance to address in committee, concerns a very important demand made by PSAC, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, an organization the minister has held in high esteem so far. PSAC asked to be excluded from the application of the Public Service Staff Relations Act and be subject to the Canada Labour Code instead.

Why did the Public Service Alliance of Canada and its members democratically express such a demand? Because under the Public Service Staff Relations Act they cannot negotiate provisions as important as those governing job security in legislation other than the staff relations act. The same goes for protection against technological changes, job classification, appointments, promotions, and transfers.

To conclude, while recognizing that the minister is acting in good faith, this proverbial good faith of his, we must take his reform proposal one step further and include a number of substantial changes requested by unions among others. I am convinced that, by the time we are through with our committee work, the minister will heed the official opposition's demands.