Bob Mills

[Corruption Of Foreign Public Officials Act, December 7th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, to reiterate where I was coming from, the first major concern we have is that the bill was put forward in December 1997. It is now a year later and the bill is coming before us to be rushed through on literally the last day of debate. That is the first point.

The second is that this came via the Senate. We have to ask ourselves why an unelected, unaccountable body such as the Senate would bring forward a bill that is as important as has been mentioned in the committee.

The government obviously should manage its affairs much better. It should bring bills through the House of Commons and not through the Senate.

[Corruption Of Foreign Public Officials Act, December 7th, 1998]

There is close to $50 billion in interest. Think of what we could do with $50 billion if we had it. Look at the $12 billion spent on health care by the federal government. Look at the $14 billion spent on education. Look at the $22 billion spent on pensions. Close to $50 billion is spent on interest payments. That is the kind of mismanagement that the OECD talks about.

It also talks about the level of taxes in this country. It talks about how we have some of the highest corporate and personal tax rates of the 29 OECD countries. That also is mismanagement by the government not responding to what the OECD has been telling it for so many years.

When we talk about being naive we also look at things like getting our UN seat. Are we going to say that we did not try to influence some of the foreign embassies in getting that seat? Are we going to deny that that is part of an Olympic bid? Are we going to say that we are so perfect that we will never, ever try to coerce someone into supporting us in a position? That is not true. That is not how the real world works. That is not how this government operates.

While it would like to stand in this place and talk about how wonderful it is, what a great manager it is and how good a job it does, when we look at it we do not have to go very far below the surface to see the level of mismanagement and how it handles the way the House operates. The whole process of presenting this bill is a perfect example of that sort of mismanagement.

We can talk about corruption in many different ways and I will try to explore some of them. Obviously, we oppose corruption. We are, after all, one of the countries in the world that has a great role to play in setting an example.

We can see how corruption can undermine the very workings of various governments. It can destroy developing democracies. It can literally cause countries in transition to go backward. We can talk about countries such as Sudan and others which are in transition and have moved back and forth.

Corruption distorts public confidence in the whole process. I would even say that public confidence has been held up to question because of the mismanagement of this government. It leads to the misallocation of valuable resources.

When there is corruption, there are resources going off to the wrong place to do the wrong thing, ultimately to the detriment of the people of that country.

Again, I would come back to Canada and look at the allocation of resources. I would ask, are these being allocated according to what is best for the people of Canada?

It hurts the private sector. It distorts the operation of the markets. It deprives ordinary citizens of receiving the benefits of the flow of wealth. Whenever there is corruption within the system that obviously can happen. Above all else, it hurts the poor people of the world. From this government's standpoint, we often hear about their concerns and about human rights abuses around the world. We see very limited action in that regard, but we certainly hear the words being spoken from the other side.

We need transparency in international reporting and in international business deals. We could look at the way NGOs operate and go a long way in increasing our transparency. We could also look at CIDA.

[Corruption Of Foreign Public Officials Act, December 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to speak to this bill today.

Before I start talking about the corruption bill, I would like to make a couple of points before the House. The first one is that this bill came into our hands late on Friday and depending on what happened in the Senate determined whether it was actually going to show up today or not.

This is an important bill to businesses and to the international community and, as usual, we are ramming it through the last week of parliament. There has been very little planning on this bill. It was signed in December of 1997. We have waited or stalled or put it off and now all of a sudden this bill is so vitally important that we have it before us today.

This is government management. This is the way it handles things. This is the way it takes care of business. Of course we have seen a lot of this. We have seen it in the case of the Somalia report. Murders were committed. There was a cover-up. A commission was set up. It held hearings for months, which extended into years, and finally the cabinet waffled it away and suspended any action on it. A few little guys took the fall and then we moved on.

Right now there is the APEC inquiry. It is the same sort of thing, mismanagement of the issues. Among the APEC protesters was a very well known teacher from my community who is a student at UBC. He has told me all about what happened. He was standing on the front line, around the pepper spray.

Again we have the government's mishandling of this sort of situation, stalled investigations and stalled handling. I point this out because this is how the government manages things, or mismanages things. It waits until it has a crisis. Someone in the OECD said this thing has to be signed and it should have been done yesterday. All of a sudden, here it is in the House and we are expected to ram the thing through with little time to look at it.

The second part of this motion, to which I object strenuously, is the fact that it is coming straight from the unelected, unaccountable Senate. We have a body proposing that this legislation is good for Canadians and good for our businesses. However, it is coming out of a place that has absolutely no credibility, a place that totally lacks legitimacy.

Obviously there are solutions. For instance, Alberta has recently held Senate elections. Mr. Brown receive 331,000 votes. Mr. Morton received more than 261,000 votes. And yet this government, in its wisdom, will not even acknowledge that this happened.

The government is proposing a bill on corruption and, literally, on credibility when it has made so many inappropriate actions and has such a lack of ability to deal with any kind of an issue.

Our concerns are obvious. We would like to have the opportunity to call witnesses. We would like to have the opportunity to look at the various problems and the good points of this bill. We would like to have the opportunity to become informed on this issue. However, it was handed to us on Friday afternoon and we were told that on Monday we were going to deal with it and ram it through the House.

The OECD is made of up of a group of 29 of the most industrialized countries. It is one of the most important think tanks in the free world. Obviously combating bribery in business transactions and what that would do for the international trade scene is something that all of us care about. However, we have desperately handicapped ourselves because of the lack of management.

While the whole bill is very credible, and while we support the principle of it, we have to raise some very great concerns. Above everything, when we look at this we see how naive the government has been in dealing with this.

I cannot help but think of our most recent look at the nuclear situation in our foreign affairs committee. Would it not be great if we had no nuclear weapons? Obviously it would be great to not have nuclear weapons. But what is the reality of the situation? The government seems to have a great deal of problem dealing with reality. It likes to live in a glass house. It likes to think that everything is going along so nicely, so friendly and so well organized. What is the real situation?

The OECD says, above other things, that Canada has a big problem. Our dollar is too low. Our debt is much too high. We have a $600 billion debt which is dragging us down every time we try to get ahead. Will that ever be dealt with?

[Human Rights, December 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, after crying for the release of convicted kidnappers in Brazil, the foreign affairs minister is begging for the release of a convicted murderer in Texas, is helping this convicted murderer.

Why has the minister ignored Mr. Michael Kapoustin, a Canadian citizen who has been held without charges in a Bulgarian jail for the last three years?

[Petitions, December 1st, 1998]

The second petition, Mr. Speaker, signed by 85 people, asks that parliament review and change relevant provisions of the Criminal Code to ensure that men take responsibility for their violent behaviour toward women.

[Petitions, December 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present.

The first one is signed by 25 people from my riding of Red Deer. These constituents request parliament to support Bill C-304 which would strengthen the protection of property rights in the Canadian bill of rights.

[Petitions, November 23rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, my second petition is for the repeal of Bill C-68 and to redirect the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to license responsible firearms owners to cost effective reduction of violent crime and improving public safety.

[Petitions, November 23rd, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I have two petitions today from my constituents in Red Deer.

The first, signed by 175 people, states that Canadians deserve an accountable Senate. Therefore the petitioners call for parliament to request the Prime Minister to accept the results of the Senate elections in Alberta.

[Foreign Affairs, November 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I asked for a briefing at 6 o'clock last night and again at 10 o'clock. A briefing was set up at 9 o'clock this morning which was cancelled. Finally I got a briefing at 1.15 this afternoon.

Canadians need to feel confident in their passports. We also are against terrorism but not with the Canadian passport. Let us get it straight. The minister is saying that the allegations made by W5 last night are untrue. Yes or no.

[Foreign Affairs, November 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, CTV also stands behind its story. What Canadians want to know is whom should they believe. Should they believe—