Bob Mills

[Natural Resources, May 9th, 1996]

Elected senators?

[Child Labour, May 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to this motion which deals with a very serious and important topic, the exploitation of child labour.

We in the House should be doing whatever we can in the best interests of children who are forced into labour throughout the world. The member who put forward this motion genuinely believes, as we all do, that we must address this problem. In the course of my remarks I hope to outline a non-partisan way to find some answers to this problem.

While Motion No. M-189 makes a very strong statement by prohibiting the importation of goods manufactured through child labour, will it really improve the lives of the children we are talking about? I believe there are other solutions. I welcome what we have heard here tonight. It is certainly a start, but I think there is another approach which I will try to explain.

The main problem with implementing Motion No. M-189 is that many of the children who work in the developing world absolutely need the income to survive. If these kids lose their jobs right away without the simultaneous implementation of programs to feed, house and educate them, we would actually be hurting them, not helping them. This is not just my opinion. I have made a real attempt to try to get answers or at least some possible answers.

I thank the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville who has provided me with information from agencies such as UNICEF and some of the other NGOs around the world. These organizations have looked at this problem for a long time. They are there, they deal with it on a day to day basis. They know where it exists, how it exists and they know the abuses that occur and the evils of it.

This afternoon some of us had an opportunity to talk to five members from CCIC. It is an umbrella organization which tries to bring together the NGOs and put forth a common front not only to parliamentarians but to the donors, industry, labour and to all of the other areas.

I did not have a long time with those people but I did get the opportunity to present this motion to them. I said I would be giving a speech in a couple of hours and wanted to know what they thought of the overview of what I had to say. I was pleased that we were all are opposed to child exploitation but that we cannot jump right into it, that we must come up with a program, a complete package to deal with this problem. They tended to reinforce what my other research had demonstrated.

UNICEF officials oppose a ban on child labour because they have learned through experience how devastating the results of that can be. For example, just the threat of such a ban in the U.S. led to mass dismissals of children from garment factories in countries like Bangladesh. That is documented. They showed me the figures. They said this is proof and went on with a lot of other proof.

One official said the schools could not absorb them and every one of them ended up in more exploitive, more dangerous and less remunerative work. Some of these poor children were even forced into the sex trade because of the loss of their garment factory jobs.

This is not what Motion No. 189 seeks to achieve but it could be an unintentional byproduct. As a result I cannot support the motion as it is but I would suggest something further that might come up with a solution. I repeat, we all abhor the exploitation of children but we must have a back-up. We must have something else to offer.

Going back to the UNICEF study on this issue, those people surveyed over 2,000 garment factories that employ around 12,000 children. They found that almost 90 per cent of the children were from single parent households and homes where there had been a death or a disability. More than 50 per cent of the children were the sole supporters for those particular families.

In addition, often the children were girls who accompanied their mothers to the garment factory, and it was found that it was safer for them to be working alongside their mothers than if they were left home alone.

I also draw on some of my personal experience. I think back to a visit to Nepal where I had the opportunity to visit with a number of Tibetan children who were making rugs. I thought I would be there for 10 minutes but I ended up there for a couple of hours. The amazing part was that those kids they knew five languages. These were 12, 13 or 14-year old kids. They had gained that experience from talking to tourists, from selling their rugs. I asked them about what they were doing. The dedication they felt in producing those rugs, in selling those rugs, in raising that money for their families and for the refugees who were coming from Tibet was quite amazing.

I thought they would have been unhappy, angry about the situation, but it was quite different. I have been lucky to talk to kids in factories in Egypt, India and Rwanda, and it is the same sort of thing. I am not saying we should condone that. I am saying that before we put them out of a job, we need an alternative.

What might that be? Clearly the problem of child labour is complex. There is not an easy fix for it. A longer term solution which takes into account the needs of the children and their families is what we really need to do.

If the government would like to pursue such a solution through Canada's development aid program, perhaps to start off we could take a look at it in the foreign affairs committee, of which I am a member.

I do not think there would be anything more rewarding for that committee than to take on a project like this. We would be able to say instead of doing some of the meaningless work we do, let us talk about this child labour situation. Let us examine the facts. Let us come up with a solution. Maybe there is a better way.

Through the co-operation of the NGOs, and I know they would love us to get involved in a project like that, maybe we could collectively come up with an answer where our aid program, instead of going off to a government somewhere, could actually go to change lives.

If nothing else, we would give those kids the money it would take to go school, maybe at night at first. Maybe they would work during the day with their parents and then go to school at night. Maybe that is a possibility. However, we would help to better those kids.

I do not have all the answers. All I know is there is a problem here. We all agree there is a problem. I have heard all the speakers here agree. Maybe this is something that would be really meaningful that we as parliamentarians could put our stamp on and say we collectively, as Canadians, did this for those impoverished kids.

While I support the whole concept, I cannot support this motion. I know the member for Winnipeg Transcona has moved it with the best of intentions. That is why I would like to see the government take a long term, comprehensive approach to the problem of child labour.

I also suggest the foreign affairs committee would be an appropriate forum for holding these meetings on this topic, interview witnesses, make recommendations to government and hopefully come with a solution to this serious problem.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 7th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, there are two issues I would like to touch on. Obviously we could take a lot of time to talk about the details of the bill itself and the history behind it, or some of the drivel we have been hearing from the other side. Rather than doing that, I will talk about two things: one, democracy denied; and two, the equality issue and what Bill C-33 will really do in that regard.

Concerning democracy, I made a promise to my constituents that never again will they have to hear that Ottawa knows best. Instead of telling them what is good for them, we will discuss the issues and vote the way our constituents tell us. I will talk later about some of the results of consultations with my constituents in the last four days.

The key issue is that time is short. Last Monday the bill was introduced, Tuesday it was debated, Wednesday closure was invoked. The bill was sent to committee and today it is back. Closure will be used again. At the latest on Thursday we will be voting at third reading. Somebody tell me how members are to consult with their constituents with that sort of time line.

My constituents want town hall meetings. They want to review both sides of the issue. I had an excellent meeting with a group from the gay community in my riding. I told them I would have liked to have had the opportunity to talk about the issue of gay rights and all the other issues in public and to intelligently and scientifically discuss Bill C-33 in its entirety. Instead it is being rammed down our throats with the use of closure, closure, closure, just like the Progressive Conservatives did. There is no opportunity to really get involved. I certainly have had no opportunity to communicate with my constituents, as I promised. We have tried our best.

One argument we have heard from across the floor is that the voters are really not that bright to understand these things. That is what the PCs thought and what the people orchestrating the Charlottetown accord thought. They did not think anyone would be informed enough to understand and vote on it. In 1993 the people took control and threw out the PCs for that same reason.

I am saying that democracy has been denied in this place. Because of closure and the ramming through of this piece of legislation the people of Canada have not had the opportunity to communicate with their members of Parliament as they should. This sort of legislation has been around for 30 years. Why all the rush now? We only have one week in which to ram it through. I apologize to the people of Canada for being part of this. It is disgusting that we have to do business this way. Everybody should hang their heads.

With regard to Bill C-33 and the whole concept of special status and referring to Charlottetown, any group that has ever tried to put forward this special status concept has found that it just does not work. If anything, it further divides Canadians. It divides families and neighbours who have known each other for years.

When we say everyone is equal or that we are opposed to any kind of discrimination, everybody understands that. It is clear: I oppose discrimination because of sexual orientation, colour, religion or anything else. That is clear. Everyone is equal and everyone should protect that equality, not set out special status and categories within the law. That is another disgrace which has been brought on us by the government.

Let us talk about what sorts of things we should be considering. We are saying let us talk to the people and get their views. In my riding I asked the question: How do you want your MP to vote on Bill C-33 which if approved will amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination? I tried to take that right from the bill, to make it as fair as I could. I said that there are two sides to all issues and they must look at both sides.

To members across the way, the results to this point have been: opposed to the bill, in phone calls, petition signatures and letters, 1,152 as of last night; in favour, we have received 18 names. A couple of weeks ago in response to the Senate bill, I mentioned I had met with the homosexual community in my area. They have collected 402 names in favour of a much broader petition which I will be presenting in the House as soon as it is approved. Even if we add those names to the list, if it was on the same bill, it would still be 1,152 to 420.

The calls are coming in. Yesterday there were 80 calls to my office. Those 80 calls all said that I should vote against this

legislation. Many of the people in my riding, about 68 per cent, are in urban areas. Because we have a large petrochemical industry, because many of them are university graduates, I suppose they are better off than a lot of Canadians, but they are thinking intellectually about these issues. The fact that in less than a week we have received 1,500 responses concerning a piece of legislation tells me that those people are on top of the issue. It tells me that not like my colleagues across the way who think the voters are stupid, the voters are right on top of it. They know what is happening and they are watching very carefully.

I remind all members that Canadians are watching. They are watching the taking away of democracy. They are watching the jamming of this material down their throats without an opportunity to get involved. They are saying enough is enough.

Discussing the issue of homosexuality is not what this bill is about. This bill is about giving special status to a group. Every single Canadian should be treated equally, equally, equally. What does the government not understand about the word equality?

[Employment Insurance Act, May 6th, 1996]

There is pride in Alberta in balancing the budget.

[Somalia Inquiry, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the defence minister took swift action in the past when it was in his own interests. He disbanded the airborne without an inquiry but what is he doing now? Now he wants to wash his hands of the authority and responsibility for what is happening. If the minister is so confident that his hands are clean, then will he volunteer to appear before the inquiry to be questioned on his role in the defence department scandals?

[Somalia Inquiry, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the irony in this House is unbelievable. On the one hand we have the Prime Minister who gives the boot to a member who has integrity, keeps his word and who does the right thing. On the other hand we have a defence

minister who is responsible for the collapse of morale in the armed forces, whose department hid documents from the Somalia inquiry and the information commissioner and there he sits on the front bench.

How much longer will the Prime Minister allow the defence minister to put his own career over the good functioning and morale of our troops? When will the Prime Minister ask for the minister's resignation?

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I had planned to close with the questions that I believe we as part of the international community must ask, particularly as they relate to Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. I am sure many years ago they could have applied to Germany or Armenia.

How much intervention would it take to stop what happened? That question has to be asked. In the case of Rwanda, very little. In the former Yugoslavia, probably a lot more. We are probably seeing that now with IFOR.

Second, who should have been responsible? Who is responsible? Are we all responsible? I put forward that we are all responsible for this, that this issue goes far beyond partisan politics, and we are responsible as the world community.

Third, will this happen again? Unfortunately I think the answer is yes. We must deal with this problem. I have suggested the UN is certainly an avenue.

How much external pressure causes this sort of thing to happen? What if there had not been so much external pressure on these countries? I am most familiar with Rwanda. If there had not been the colonial influence of the Belgians and the French, then what? Maybe this is going back to something we cannot have any control over, but we must ask these questions and we must find answers to them for the future. We must look at our history, our past, to understand the future. That is so critical in this whole thing.

I thank the member for the opportunity to complete my remarks.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, that does clarify what I will be doing at the end of my presentation.

I will use a couple of examples. I will use recent ones familiar to the House. Those still speak to the motion of the Armenian question.

When we look at the former Yugoslavia, I know members do not need a history lesson on some of the problems. However, there are a few facts we need to outline as to exactly what happened.

It is fair to say, hopefully in an unbiased evaluation of the situation, that there is no side right or wrong. There are lots of wrongs but it is a matter of not being able to pick the good guy from the bad guy. That is a big problem in today's post-cold war situation in which we find ourselves.

It is often easier for people of the world community to sit idle while these wrongs are occurring. I have mentioned that the media plays a major role in promoting and sometimes in formulating ideas within our community which are incorrect.

We must also recognize in the former Yugoslavia that this is a civil war. It is not like the gulf war. Civil wars are different from where we have an aggressor attacking another country. In looking at the facts we must always recognize that. We must look at the external forces which come into play when such acts of genocide occur. We must also always understand history and look back however far we have to to understand the nature of the problem.

If we look at the former Yugoslavian problem we need to go back at least 1300 years and even back to Greek and Roman times.

We can go through the 6th century and the Slavic tribes as they worked through that area. We can look at the effect of Rome and Constantinople, the Catholic and Orthodox church in the 10th century. We can go through the Islamic expansion of the 14th century. Very clearly we start to see the effects of not only the people but of external forces coming into play.

We have to also recognize the way governments rule. The Muslim rule of the 15th century was pretty grim stuff. The Turkish empire and the way it handled things was a pretty rugged way of running a government by our standards.

As we move to more modern times we see the influence of the Treaty of Berlin of 1878. We look at the alliances that occurred up to the end of the first world war. Then we look at what happened during the mid-war period and then on to the second world war and the alliances there. In Hitler's alliances with Croatia, 400,000 Serbians living in Croatia were massacred because of outside forces. They were massacred for all kinds of reasons.

Then we come to Tito's time. Tito ruled Yugoslavia with an iron hand from 1945 until 1980 when he died. There are six republics and we must understand the history of those republics and why they lived in so-called peace.

From there in 1991 when the Croats and Slovenians declared independence, I guess not unlike Quebec's declaring independence from Canada, we can see the terrific pull that would have on the people of that country.

The point is that no matter what history tells us and no matter what politics tells us, genocide is not acceptable under any conditions. Countries and the peoples of the world must find a way to deal with their problems, but not to those kinds of extremes. That has to come loud and clear from countries like ours. It has to come loud and clear from the UN. The UN desperately needs to be modernized and become efficient so it can respond to these issues.

If there is one thing we can blame ourselves and the world community for it is the inability, the lack of desire, or whatever the reason, to modernize a 50-year old organization that can today not deal with its problems because it is top heavy, bureaucratic, under funded, inefficient, and so on. We must deal with that problem. That is our problem. It will lead to future genocide in other countries if we do not have a UN that can respond effectively, efficiently and quickly. We are all concerned and desire that. We have to have a plan. We have to do something about it. We as parliamentarians must demand that we take that leadership role as Canadians.

I move on to Rwanda. I know members across have heard my speech on Rwanda before. I do not intend to repeat all of that but I do think it demonstrates something that was very graphic to everyone. The genocide that occurred in Rwanda was unbelievable. It is certainly in all of our minds. We saw it because of CNN.

In 1985 I was on an Air France 747 with 20 people. We landed in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. My wife and I got off the plane. The rest said "good luck". I did not really know what they were talking about, but it seemed like we had landed in the jungle, and the plane left. Then we had armed guards around us and we went through the immigration procedure and had all of our medical certificates and documents in order.

As we moved away from the airport we moved into gorgeous countryside that is very similar to what we might see in Belgium.

As I only have two minutes left I would like to move a subamendment. I move:

That the amendment be amended by inserting after the word "tragedy" the following: "of genocide."

It would then read the "tragedy of genocide."

As we went through that countryside we saw the markets. We spent close to a month in that country. We were out in the villages, we were travelling with a local Rwandan gentleman who

introduced us to his parents and his relatives. In the markets we saw the salt and the utensils. We saw the barter system. Some people walked 20 and 30 miles to get to the market.

We went to the tea plantations developed by China. We saw the hotels and some of the infrastructure that the Belgians and the French had built. As we got more and more involved in that country we saw some warnings. The NGOs told us there was unrest. The church said there was unrest. The French troops said there was unrest. The United Nations said there was unrest.

I cannot help now thinking, was that what it was like in the period from 1930 when the people knew that something was wrong in Germany?

Obviously genocide is something about which we must all speak. It must be done through the UN, through this Parliament. It is a motherhood topic for all of us.

[Supply, April 23rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, what we have heard is part of the problem we have in the House where there is a play on words and we do not say what we mean. On a number of occasions I have had cause to lament that sort of thing and be upset by it. Obviously, we are all opposed to genocide and the planned killing of people by their own governments or by other governments. We must make a clear statement to all humanity.

It is with pleasure that I speak to the motion which condemns genocide as an instrument of national policy. While there are few problems with the wording of the proposed amendment, I am going to suggest at least one subamendment at the end of my presentation.

As the foreign affairs critic for the Reform Party, I am pleased to say that I will be supporting the motion with the amendments. It is important that we clearly let the world know what we think of these acts.

When we received the motion yesterday, it was difficult to decide how to approach it. In many respects it is a motherhood issue. We are all opposed to genocide. This morning I intend to try and develop my and my party's approach to the subject and try to put a little more humanity and understanding into it.

Genocide strikes at the very root of humanity. It is the sort of thing that causes us to shudder no matter where in the world it takes place. When a government or a group attempts to obliterate a people through violent means to achieve their own selfish political goals, all humanity is diminished and suffers because of it.

Those who have committed genocide often attempt to blame the victims or deny reality, but the truth must be remembered. To honour the memory of the victims we must remind our children of

what happened. We must not let these memories die. Hopefully they will prevent future atrocities.

It is a cliche, but a true one when we say those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. This truth has haunted us in the House of Commons over the past couple of years as we have watched in horror as hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions, have been slaughtered in places like Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The saddest thing about these recent genocides is that historians 100 years from now will probably see them as only two of a long series of genocides stretching throughout the century. The ultimate horror is that there have been so many mass slaughters this century it is tough to keep track of them. The future does not bode well for stopping them, even though we say this must be the last.

There is the Armenian genocide that this motion speaks to. We have the Jewish Holocaust. We have Stalin's purges. We have the Chinese situation in Nanking. We have mass murder in East Timor, the disappearance in Central and South America of many people, tribal slaughter in Burundi, government sponsored famine in Ethiopia, and the list goes on and on. As I said at the beginning, it touches all of us as human beings living on this planet.

Each one of these represents a human disaster of epic proportions, but all have been reduced to historical footnotes because there are so many. That is why I believe the House should vote in favour of the motion, which serves to remind us and helps us to keep a vigilance; a vigilance that we cannot forget history.

The motion does not cost anything, but it is a powerful show that the House is not indifferent to genocide. It shows that members in this place prefer to speak out rather than perpetually sit in an uncomfortable silence waiting for the next disaster.

A few members today have presentations which will deal specifically with the genocide of the Armenians during the early years of this century. I would like to support those members but I must tell them I do not know a lot about Armenian history and I will leave it to my colleagues to talk about it in their presentations. I will deal with several other issues that relate to genocide with which I am more familiar.

Obviously we could go back to World War II and the Jewish Holocaust. It is amazing that some people deny this happened. Obviously it did happen. It should have been a valuable lesson in history, but unfortunately it was not. The Jews in Europe had suffered for centuries from prejudices and intolerance, but the rise of Hitler brought the hatred of Jews to a whole new level.

Under the Nazis the Jews became the scapegoat for all the ills of society. Hatred became a unifying force and the Jews were systematically dehumanised by Nazi propaganda to such a degree that their mass murder went from being an outrageous idea to the final solution to Germany's problems.

The use of propaganda and the media to dehumanise and discredit people who were subsequently massacred is unfortunately a tradition that has stood the test of time. Therefore this is the first lesson we must learn. We might call it the CNN factor. The use of television, the use of communication today is an important part of ploys used by many terrorist groups. Last week we had an example of that. We must be conscious of it. We must remember the media can be used to promote hate and that it must be monitored in Canada and throughout the world.

We must have set standards in the international community so that we see both sides of the story, not simply the side the CNN reporter wants us to see. We must not let the media be manipulated by various powers. I am sure some terrorist groups have a training program which involves the use of the media. We must be conscious of that and vigilant that we get both sides.

Another lesson we learned from the Jewish Holocaust is the indifference of the international community. As Europe's Jews desperately tried to escape they found many countries would not accept them. Not only that, the international community appeased Germany and continually caved in to its increasingly outrageous policies. This gave the perception of silent approval of Germany's actions, a perception that proved fatal to over six million Jews.

Clearly the international community can never again sit by in stunned silence while such outrages occur. We must be vigilant, speak out and take firm action when the need arises.

I will now talk about a couple of recent examples of genocide. I will start with the former Yugoslavia and then I will talk a bit about Rwanda and conclude with an overall approach to genocide itself.

[Petitions, April 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present to Parliament a petition signed by 210 of my constituents in Red Deer.

The petitioners express their concerns that Canada must embrace the philosophy of zero tolerance toward individuals who drive while impaired by alcohol or drugs, and that the impact statements of the victims of the crime of impaired driving must be given the highest priority prior to the sentencing of anyone convicted of impaired driving.

Therefore, the petitioners, with whom I agree, pray and request that Parliament proceed immediately with amendments to the Criminal Code to ensure that the sentence given to anyone convicted of driving while impaired or causing injury or death while impaired reflects both the severity of the crime and zero tolerance by Canada toward this crime.