Bob Mills

[Criminal Code, March 22nd, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for bringing forward the bill, but I ask him about the difficulty we as members of Parliament have, for instance, when we speak to the parents in regard to a pedophile case. I stood in the House and spoke about the pedophile who committed his tenth offence and went to prison. He was then let out and at that time I asked the justice minister, “What do I tell the parents of the eleventh victim?” All the experts were saying that this pedophile would reoffend. Within the year he reoffended. There was an eleventh victim and a twelfth.

Obviously the justice system failed those two sets of parents. Of course he is about to get out again and this will go on. I wonder what the member thinks of that sort of situation.

[Haiti, March 10th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, this is sort of déjà vu, because I remember debating 10 years ago with the same member on the same issues. Basically he knows my position on embargos and knows that they do not work very well. Particularly in areas like that, they do not work at all. We just do not have enough ships and control to be able to prevent them.

An embargo on a place like Haiti is not the reason that there is a problem today. The problem today is the deterioration of the very social fabric of the country and that is what I would hope we are dedicated to returning. I would hope that in this debate tonight, the Prime Minister--if he hears it--will hear that we want to return that social stability, the rule of law, safety for citizens, education, and all those factors that make it that way. We must also not forget to get those orphan kids to their Canadian parents as soon as possible.

To get into what should have been and what might have been, nobody is always right and wrong on these issues. I am sure the Americans made mistakes and I am sure that Aristide made mistakes, but I do not think we are here to solve that tonight.

[Haiti, March 10th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, if we were to ask the Americans or the French I would bet the last place they want to be is Haiti. I think it was strictly a matter of the situation deteriorating. The UN identified it as a critical site as there was killing going on. We could examine the deterioration; from some of the people I have talked to, we could ask if it was in fact a true democracy in 2000. I do not think too many people would agree that it was a true democracy in the year 2004. It was an appeal by the international community.

The parents I represent and am talking about here were pleading for somebody to go there to stop the shooting and killing around the orphanages. There are gangs of thugs, some of them representing Mr. Aristide, shooting and killing people. For the most part, these parents were pretty happy to hear that U.S. marines were offshore and that they were landing and stabilizing the situation in a very democratic way. It is tough to be the policeman of the world; it is a tough position to be in. Many of the people I have talked to are very glad that the marines went there.

Of course, as I said, Canada has a unique position, particularly in the linguistic and historical areas and in the fact that we have many Haitians here, particularly in the Montreal area and in Calgary. They are asking us to please stabilize their homeland and get it to a place where they can go and visit their relatives and feel safe and secure. I do not see the bad guys as much as the hon. member does. I see it as a stabilizing and very welcome effort by the Americans, the French and now the Canadians.

[Haiti, March 10th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, I have a little trouble answering that question. I am not the foreign affairs critic now; I am the environment critic. I cannot put forward my party's position, but I will put forward my position as the member of Parliament for Red Deer.

Having been to Haiti under difficult circumstances, I was not very impressed with Mr. Aristide and his administration. I do not feel that Papa Doc did a very good job. I do not think Baby Doc did a much better job. I think that poor country has been subject to dictators and has been very lacking in democracy.

I do not dislike the French and the Americans for trying to bring stability in the best way possible. It seemed to me, again looking from the outside, that the only way to stabilize that country was in fact to remove Mr. Aristide.

I think that his removal was for his own benefit and that of his family. I do not believe he would have survived staying there.

Whether it was done, as the member might put it, by force or whether it was done voluntarily, I would trust the authorities who did it. It was in the best interests of the people of Haiti. It has been stabilized now and there is increasing stability. I do not really see that an inquiry, another attack on France or the Americans, would accomplish anything for those children or the people of Haiti.

Let us stabilize the place. Let us get it back and teach the people democracy, law and order and help their judicial system. That will do a heck of a lot more than wasting our money on an inquiry into something where there could be many points of view and could be seen as simply an attack on the United States of America.

[Haiti, March 10th, 2004]

Mr. Chair, it is a privilege to speak on this subject.

I want to talk about three things. They will be a little different from what other people have talked about.

First, I want to talk a little about take note debates; second, I would like to talk about my experience with Haiti; and third, I would like to talk about the adopted children who are in Haiti. There are a great many people in central Alberta, and in Alberta generally, who I have been dealing with to try and help expedite the adopted children leaving Haiti. I think these are three areas that are worthy of a few minutes, rather than talking about the military and some of the other issues.

I arrived here some 11 years ago. Shortly after my arrival as the foreign affairs critic, we had a take note debate. The take note debate was similar in attendance to what we have here tonight. It was rather shocking for me because I thought that I came here to present a point of view, to debate an issue, and to talk about what I thought my constituents wanted. I thought that people would be listening, and people would respond and react to the kinds of things that they would hear in this House.

Instead, what I found with take note debates was that they are exactly that. We talk to ourselves, and possibly to the T.V. cameras, and maybe someone out there is listening to our point of view about a certain subject. I find it very frustrating and a poor way to do it.

At that time, I developed a concept. Why do we not have a real take note debate, where we spend the first third part of the debate bringing in experts to tell parliamentarians what the details are of the issue? Then we spend the next third of the debate with the critics from each party, maybe two from each party, presenting their point of view of the particular subject. Then the third part would be an actual free vote where we would vote about things that really mattered as they pertained to that subject. That seemed to me like a real way to do it democratically and to make these take note debates meaningful.

Instead, we come sincerely, on all sides of the House, to present our points of view, but I really question how much of that is heard or really valued.

I again put that forward as a concept and hopefully our new Prime Minister will look at the democratic deficit and review take note debates so that they actually become meaningful.

The second subject is about Haiti itself. As the foreign affairs critic, I travelled with Mr. Axworthy, then foreign affairs minister, to Haiti during the last revolt and got a chance to visit pretty well the entire country. I was pretty shocked by what I saw. I was shocked by the poverty. I was shocked by the lack of clean water, health care, and the very basic needs that human beings should have.

I went on patrol with our troops. I will probably never forget the dedication of those police and military who were there--great young men and women--but I was shocked by what we saw. We walked down a lane and all of a sudden we knew people were watching us, something was watching us. Of course, the military took some pleasure out of shining their lights and seeing a bunch of rats standing on their hind legs, literally ready to come after us. It certainly impressed upon me the situation in that poor country. It also made me think that we must do something better.

We met with some parliamentarians. One of their major concerns was what kind of new parliament building they could build. And yet, on the streets at night were the kinds of things that we saw.

I look at that country, as well, coming from a tourist industry background, and I say it has everything. It has been deforested and so on. But it really has the beaches, the climate, and the weather. It has great potential. And of course, there is the politics, the history of the lack of law and order, and the destruction that has occurred in that sad country.

At that time I was very impressed with the fact that Canada was involved in the training of police by police forces from across the country. We had a school for judges where we tried to teach the rule of law. We had teachers and professors who were trying to show them how to develop an education system. And we had the health people who were trying to establish some semblance of a normal health care system.

I have to wonder what happened because we are back to almost square one or even worse with the kinds of events that we have seen on television.

When we talk about Haiti and places like that, we cannot just say we are going to send some troops and they will be there for three months. We need to talk about how we could rebuild a country like that so that it would be sustainable, so we do not have to go back again and start from square one.

That becomes an issue for Canadian parliamentarians. We are naturals in terms of helping Haiti. The language there is French and that gives us a step up in that area.

The third issue deals with the orphans who have been adopted by many Canadian parents. I am aware of 28 such parents and many of them I am sure are watching this debate tonight.

The people in foreign affairs and immigration have been fantastic to work with. They have phoned me at 7:00 a.m. They have phoned me on a Sunday night. They have communicated with me above and beyond the call of duty. I certainly appreciate that and I commend them in the House and trust that hopefully they might read Hansard to hear that they were commended. I will not mention names but there are two outstanding people who will know who they are that work in Citizenship and Immigration Canada who have helped and kept us informed.

My job has been to inform these parents. I have letters from typical parents, and again I will not use their names without permission, from my constituency of Red Deer. They have been involved in the adoption of a baby in Haiti and they have an adoption number. Everything has been done except a release by the Haitian government. Some have been waiting months and some have been waiting longer to have that piece of paper signed.

I totally understand why the Canadian government cannot go in and take those children out of the orphanage and take them out of the country. However, I would implore the government to do everything in its power to get those papers signed to release those children and get them out to safety so that these parents could pick them up.

That is an issue that I am not sure anyone else has talked about, but it is a very important issue. Many of these adoptive parents are in Quebec. I am aware of 28 of them and there are seven in my riding who I have been working with on this issue.

Our troops are going there to stabilize a difficult situation. I would urge them, and I know this will be high on their priority list, to help these parents to get these very young babies out of the country so that they can come to Canada and have a new life.

In conclusion, I thank the government for that part of it. I am glad we are going there, but let us look at the long term of what we can do.

Then, let us take a look at take note debates because my opinion is the same as the Prime Minister's. I believe that members of Parliament do have a right to make their voices heard. Parliament should be the centre of national debate on policy. I would like to see that happen here so that we could actually vote on sending our troops places and express these kind of concerns that exist across the country.

[The Environment, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, while the Liberal government lurches from scandal to scandal, some very important and terrifying announcements have come from the mouth of the environment minister.

His zeal to implement the flawed Kyoto accord has no bounds; $5 billion will not be enough to pay for his boondoggle. Now the environment minister wants to raise gas taxes or income taxes to feed his Kyoto monster.

When this government made a commitment to Kyoto, we said that the only way it could reach the goals was to shut down entire industries or implement a carbon tax. Well, we know which way the environment minister is going.

One would think, after a week away from this place, that even the Liberals would have be able to hear what Canadians are saying. Canadians cannot stomach another tax and they cannot stomach a government that takes their taxes and gives it to Liberal friends. It is time to shelve both Kyoto and this Liberal government.

[Contraventions Act, March 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend our member for his statements and I would like to know what his point of view is or what he is hearing from the people out there, most importantly from the RCMP and the police officers on the ground. Certainly the message they are giving me is that legislation like this is sending the wrong message.

It in fact is sending a message that marijuana is okay and that if one is young and uses it, it is even better. In fact, this is the sort of thing the RCMP and police see day after day in their working careers and which leads to the use of much more dangerous drugs. They also see the severe problem of crystal meth being put into marijuana, hooking kids at a much younger age and in a much more severe manner. I wonder if he is hearing that same thing from the RCMP and police forces across this country.

[Petitions, February 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by members of my constituency. The petitioners call upon Parliament to immediately hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Privilege, February 25th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege. During question period the Minister of Public Works and Government Services implied a number of things.

He often lectures us about the truth and makes sure that statements in the House are factual. In his answer in reply to a question he implied, first, that I wrote a letter to Mr. Gagliano on behalf of my constituents. That could well be but I have been unable to find it in the last half hour or so. However when my constituents approach me and ask whether there are government ministers or departments that can help them with whatever project, of course we forward that on to the minister.

However the implication that the minister gave was that there was something sleazy or wrong about that.

Second, he implied that I used the term sponsorship slush fund in my request; that I thus knew about the slush fund, much as my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, might have known, and that I was trying to take advantage of that.

Third, he implied that I got money from the slush fund. When I checked the record just now I found that in that period of time my riding received absolutely nothing. I can only conclude that the reason for that is because I am not a Liberal and probably me sending letters to ministers is the wrong thing to do because that means I do not get the money.

Mr. Speaker, I am asking for an apology from the minister and, more important, that he table that letter so that the truth, which he always talks about, is available to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House.

[Supply, February 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for allowing me to clarify this. I also want to let him know that we raised over $100,000 for the Sandra Schmirler Foundation for sick children. It went extremely well. Those five hours were probably the best five hours I spent on the weekend.

In answer to his question, companies must and should want to provide pensions for their employees. That should not be an option. I did not in any way suggest it should be optional. It must be there. Companies should always provide encouragement to individuals to do that. I certainly did not want to leave that impression.

People should have the right to control that money. The government can run it if it wants to, but if we find out it can be done better and in a different way, we should at least examine that. I suggested Chile, Great Britain and the U.S. as examples. We should encourage pensions even more than we do.