Mike Scott

[Supply, May 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I know he has spent considerable time working with victims groups across Canada, particularly in British Columbia.

I wonder if he would share with the House and with people who are watching at home the sense of frustration and bitterness and anger people feel once they realize the justice system is weighted much more toward the criminals and those accused of violent crimes than the victims of those crimes. Maybe he could share with us some thoughts and some flavour of the sentiments of people who have been deeply touched by violent crime.

[Dna Identification Act, May 11th, 1998]

I hear members across the way objecting to that, and I do not understand why.

Many people voluntarily provide their fingerprints for a variety of reasons to a fingerprint databank. I have absolutely no problem with making the job of law enforcement easier. I have absolutely no problem with the notion that people charged with a serious crime be compelled to provide a DNA profile or a DNA sample.

What I have a problem with is a justice system which mollycoddles those who commit serious crimes and those accused of committing serious crimes and which does not extract proper compensation or proper retribution for the transgressions.

As a parliamentarian, as a person who is going to be required to vote on the motion, I have absolutely no problem. I believe very strongly that the motion as it is written is a vast improvement to the bill.

We as parliamentarians have an obligation to Canadians to provide a justice system that works and that provides the safeguards Canadians expect, especially when it comes to their individual rights. Therefore I believe the motion as written addresses both those concerns, particularly if the justice system and the courts in the future will interpret the motion and will apply the motion as it is written. It will be a big step forward in terms of how our justice system in Canada is applied and does work.

I reiterate my support for the motion. It is time that we have a justice system in the country that works. It is time that we have means of identifying criminals and those who are accused of serious crimes. It is time that Canadians feel their justice system is working for them and not for the criminal element in society. It is time that we as a nation recognize our obligations primarily to our fellow citizens to provide for their safety and for their well-being.

For all of those reason I will be supporting the motion and will be encouraging all my colleagues in the House to do so as well.

[Dna Identification Act, May 11th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to the motion before us today.

It is important when Canadians look at their justice system that they feel the system actually has the ability to achieve what it sets out to achieve. It is vitally important that the justice system have teeth in it for those who would break the law.

One of the biggest criticisms—and it is coffee shop talk everywhere we go in the country—is that there is not sufficient teeth in the system right now. Many Canadians feel that serious and violent offenders are getting off with a mere slap on the wrist in many cases.

It is also important to have built-in safeguards to protect the safety and the privacy of citizens and to respect their individual rights. I have spoken many times in the House on my very deep commitment to individual rights in Canada, something that I do not think we stress nearly enough.

Therefore I am very supportive of the motion which would provide a much stronger guarantee to individuals that information obtained from a DNA profile would not be used improperly. In fact anybody who would do so would be faced with very severe penalties.

It is important that those penalties be articulated in the act and that they are tough. I do not want to see this databank abused.

As I said, Canadians are very much tired of a justice system that does not deliver. They are very much tired of a justice system that has no teeth in it. They are very much tired of a justice system where they see plea bargains that end up with serious and violent offenders getting a mere slap on the wrist for committing heinous acts and crimes.

It is no different when we are talking about the protection of individual rights. I believe that we have to consider the rights of individuals to their privacy. We have to accept the fact that the government has a very strong obligation to ensure that information obtained under a DNA profile is not abused.

I am very much in favour of the notion of DNA databanks. As a person who has absolutely no intention of ever committing a crime, I have no problem signing up for the program and making my DNA available to a databank right now.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

The member did not ask me to name the companies that were like that. I do not know why he would be so interested in having the unions named.

Continuing my thought, noble or villainous attributes cannot be ascribed to humans based on their station in life. People are not good or bad because they are in a union. They are not good or bad because they are in management in a company. Everybody is different. Everybody is a human being. There are good people and bad people.

There are those in the union movement—and I have seen this firsthand—who would put the individual rights of people at a much lower level than the collective rights of a union. That is the problem. When the union becomes so powerful that it has a right to tell individual workers what they can and cannot do, I have a great deal of difficulty.

I also have a great deal of sympathy for people who find themselves in a position of not having the right to exercise their individual right to decide whether or not they want to be in a union or out, whether or not they want to have a union representing them. I also have a great deal of sympathy for people who are forced to accept a course of action when it is not what they want.

We are talking here about a fundamental collision between collective rights and individual rights. Obviously in society we have both. We have individual rights which are very important and we have collective rights which the union movement represents. There are other collectivities as we know.

My colleagues in the Reform Party and I are much more interested in individual rights than any other rights. We want to promote the idea that the individual is the most important unit in society, not collective rights but individual rights, to the greatest extent possible. This is the very essence of democracy. It is individual rights. It is the right of the individual to choose. It is the right of the individual to vote. It is the right of individuals to have control over their own destiny and their own life.

It is not difficult for me to see that the Liberals do not understand this basic concept of democracy based on their actions of the last few days. It is easy to see that the Prime Minister does not understand that the House of Commons is supposed to be about democracy. It is supposed to be about the right of individual MPs to come here and represent their constituents and to vote according to their conscience.

The Prime Minister said to his backbenchers that if they do not do his will they will pay the consequences. That is why people on the other side do not understand the fundamental flaw in the bill before us. They do not fully appreciate the fundamental concept of democracy.

I was in the finance committee this morning. I was helping my friend from Medicine Hat who is a permanent member of that committee. We were going through the budget implementation bill clause by clause. During the course of debate it became apparent that the opposition MPs on that committee were totally frustrated and had found that the committee was basically nothing more than a side show. From the time the Reform Party has had a presence on that committee, which is going back five years, not one opposition amendment to a budget implementation bill has ever been accepted by that committee.

We hear members on the government benches talk about the wonderful work of committees, how it is a non-partisan way of people getting together and working in a spirit of co-operation. That is just a load of hooey. I have never heard anything more ridiculous in my whole life.

Members on the government side do not want opposition members on committee to have any real influence or to have any real impact. No way. The committees in parliament are nothing more than an opportunity to occupy backbenchers and opposition MPs, to keep them out of the government's hair. This is the government's view of democracy.

It is also the government's view of democracy that the people in the other place should not be elected but should be appointed by the Prime Minister and that we should not even be able to raise this matter in the House of Commons. Is it democracy if I cannot as a member of parliament come to the House and talk about the other place because I might be offending somebody?

It is not difficult to understand that our friends on the other side have not grasped the meaning of democracy. They have not grasped the meaning of individual rights and how those two are intertwined and cannot be taken one from the other.

The legislation does not provide individuals their proper and full individual rights when it comes to whether or not a union should represent them and whether or not they should be required or forced to join a union.

I recognize there are companies that are badly managed and do not properly consider or care for the rights of their workers. They deserve to have and actually need to have unions to protect the interests of the employees.

Union leaders are not always the noble people they are made out to be. It is very important that individuals in every circumstance have the opportunity, the right, to decide whether or not to be in a union or to have union representation. That should be based on a secret ballot. It should be based on the majority in a secret ballot making that determination.

The bill clearly does not provide for that and the Reform amendment clearly would give workers that right. That is what this set of amendments is all about. I appreciate the indulgence of the House and I will let my colleagues carry on from here.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am at a loss for words. I am glad to make this intervention, particularly with you in the chair, because I know you are always interested to hear what I have to say. You always listen very carefully unlike our friends on the other side. That is why we have to keep repeating ourselves. We are not breaking through yet, but we will; give it another three or four years and we will break through. We certainly will be making breakthroughs at the polls in the next election as hon. members on the other side know. That is why they are so afraid right now.

All the synapses over there are not firing. I am pretty sure that is the case because on the one hand the member says he believes in democracy and in the right of the majority to make a decision. On the other hand he does not, because the legislation does not provide for it.

While growing up I belonged to several unions. I belonged to the pulp and paper workers union when I worked in a pulp mill in Kitimat, British Columbia, in the mid-seventies. I belonged to the operating engineers as a heavy equipment operator during the 1970s and then I went on to become a part owner of a unionized construction company. We had signed agreements with the tunnel and rock workers, the teamsters, operating engineers and carpenters.

It is not like I am coming out of a vacuum on this matter. In my life experience I have had membership in a couple of different unions and have been part owner of a construction company which had collective agreements with unions.

There are companies that deserve unions. There are companies so badly run, badly managed and that care so little for their human resources there is only one course of action for the employees: to have a union to protect themselves. There are not many companies like that but they are there. I have seen them firsthand.

In the same vein there are also unions that are badly run and badly managed.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to suggest that is one of the best political speeches I have heard in the House of Commons in all my time here.

In response to the charges from the Liberal Party that we are somehow in a cynical way using this issue to take political advantage of the Liberals, I think it has been very clear from the beginning that all the opposition parties gave the health minister and the Prime Minister an opportunity to back down, to back out, to change their position, to change their mind. However, they chose to ignore that. They chose to draw a hard line in the sand and say “No, this is the way it is going to be”.

I would ask the hon. member, is it not playing crass politics to start pointing fingers at the opposition now, saying that we are somehow playing politics with this horrendous situation where people trusted our blood supply and were poisoned as result? Is this not crass politics on the part of the Liberal Party to be pointing fingers at the opposition when in fact it has had every opportunity to back down gracefully and it would not do so? Would the hon. member respond to that?

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with incredulity to the hon. member comparing Canada to other countries. Naturally she did not want to be compared to Ireland but she did want Canada to be compared to Russia.

Since we are talking about being compared to other countries, does the hon. member agree the actions the Prime Minister took in forcing his backbenchers to vote with the government, making this a confidence motion, which was a sham to begin with, and forcing the backbench to vote with the government undermined what little faith Canadians had in the House?

It has been laid bare for all to see. There is no real democracy in this place. There is no real opportunity. These debates do not mean very much when at the end of the day the Prime Minister will crack the whip and tell his backbench how to vote. They will jump and dance to his tune. I would like the hon. member to respond to that.

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Wentworth—Burlington will know that I have a fair bit of respect for him and for his work as a member of parliament.

When Canadians go to a hospital and receive medical treatment they put a lot of faith and trust in the system, and the system failed them. It is clear the system failed as early as 1981. The blood system failed Canadians. I have not had the misfortune of having to be operated on and in need of a blood transfusion. I would be horrified to think that might have happened to me or to somebody in my family.

Does the hon. member not agree that the blood system really let Canadians down and they ought to be compensated going back to when that happened in 1981?

[Supply, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my hon. friend. It seems to me the Prime Minister has made two remarkable decisions in the last few weeks. One was a remarkably callous decision based on legal doublespeak, and false legal doublespeak at that, not to compensate all hepatitis C victims but only the ones after 1986. The second was a remarkably stubborn decision. He was unable to admit that he was wrong in the decision on compensation, forcing his Liberal caucus to vote against their will in many cases against the Reform motion last week, to the extent that Gordon Gibson, who once worked in Mr. Trudeau's office and who is a long time Liberal, in his editorial this week spoke about the Prime Minister and his entourage and encapsulated them in one sentence: “Little men, mean horizons. But by God, they're in charge”.

Does my hon. friend not agree that what has happened is that the Liberals are now forced to wear this stinking carcass of this terrible decision? They want to avoid the smell. They are trying to get away from it. Does he not agree that what is going on now is an exercise in damage control?

[Standing Orders And Procedure, April 21st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I take the opportunity to speak to this motion very seriously. I begin by recognizing some of the things my colleagues said earlier this afternoon, things which I think are very appropriate, particularly those by the member for Calgary Southeast.

I liken this House and this parliament to a situation I encountered not long ago in my riding. I was visiting a fellow in Smithers, British Columbia looking at his pasture and his horses. There was a beautiful horse running through the field. I told the fellow it was a beautiful horse. It was running free and the wind was blowing through its mane. It was obvious that it had a lot of spirit. He said there was a problem with that horse. He said he had to have it gelded so that it does not produce any offspring.

I look at this parliament. It has all the appearances of a fine institution but in fact it is like that horse. It is neutered. This parliament is neutered. MPs have no opportunity to really influence or affect what goes on in this House of Commons. We are, except for the executive branch, an impotent institution.

It has been said before and it is an often quoted parable by Lord Aitken that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is easy to say that. Most of us probably agree that that is the case at least to a certain point. Let me give a graphic example of this truism in action.

What did members of the government on the other side, Liberal members, say in opposition in the 33rd and the 34th parliaments when the subject of private members' business came up? They fought and they argued and they said that private members' business ought to be votable, that when private members, backbenchers, take the time, the trouble and the initiative to come up with legislation they want to bring into the House that at the very least it should be votable. What did the members opposite say when they were in opposition in the 33rd and 34th parliaments when it came to the authority of committees?

What a joke it is being on a committee in this parliament. It is an absolute embarrassment to me as an MP. I sit on a committee as an opposition member. I go there with my ideas. I try to represent not only my party but my ideas and put the best that I can forward in that committee. Other members do that as well, including members of the Liberal Party. The committee attempts to decide for itself what it ought to do and ought not to do, what recommendations it should make to the minister and what recommendations ought to go forward, for example what changes ought to be made to legislation when we are dealing with legislation.

The parliamentary secretary to the minister sits on the committee and guess what. At the end of the day in that committee which is dominated by Liberals, and in the previous parliaments when the Tories were in power it would have been dominated by Tories, the Liberals do what the parliamentary secretary instructs them to do. It is an absolute sham. It is an absolute waste of taxpayers' money. It is an absolute waste of my time as a member of parliament. When I go to the committee I am wasting my time.

Why is it so difficult for the House leaders to get their respective members to show up for committee meetings? I will tell you why. It is because the people who show up are not doing anything useful and they know it. Most of the people in this room, whether they are on the government benches or in other opposition parties, I happen to believe have something to contribute, even if I do not agree with their particular philosophy. But we are not able to contribute. We are closed off.

Our parliament is neutered in a hundred different ways. It is designed that way and is kept that way to make sure that people like me, opposition members or Liberal backbenchers, cannot affect or influence the outcome of the government's decisions.

The only way I have any opportunity to influence what goes on here is to hope that in question period I will catch a minister off guard or catch a minister on a bad day and end up getting a newsclip that night on CTV or CBC or maybe in the Globe and Mail . That is going to be my one opportunity as a member in this House to achieve something. Other than that I have no opportunity. I have no avenues.

The prime minister and the cabinet do not want to hear from me. I am the last person they want to hear from. The committee system is just a way to keep us busy. It is a way to keep us tied up so that we are not actually doing something which might interfere with the operations of government, so that we are not actually doing something which might get in the way of the plans and the intentions of the various cabinet ministers. It is an absolute sham.

Canadians may not know every rule. They may not know everything that this House of Commons does. They may not know everything about the committee structure. They may not know everything about private members' business. Many of us had to learn a lot of that after we were elected. I submit to this House that Canadians by and large know that their parliament is a neutered and ineffective organization. It is incapable of operating properly under the present rules. That is why the issue of procedure is so important. It is one way of getting at the root cause and one way of making change.

I further submit that there must be a real intention to open up the doors and allow power to be shared in this House. If the intent on the part of the executive is to maintain control over power, then we are not going to achieve any forward progress on this matter. We can talk about rules, we can talk about procedures and we can talk about all the wonderful niceties but it is not going anywhere. Again it is just a waste of our time.

If the House will bear with me for a minute, I would like to quote some of the things that members who are now cabinet ministers had to say while in opposition. This is what the Liberals said on time allocation when in opposition.

The member for Winnipeg South, who is now a cabinet minister, said while in opposition that using closure “displays the utter disdain with which this government treats the Canadian people”.

The member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell said “I am shocked. This is just terrible. This time we are talking about a major piece of legislation. Shame on those Tories across the way”.

The member for Kingston and the Islands said “What we have here is an absolute scandal in terms of the government's unwillingness to listen to the representatives of the people in this House. Never before have we had a government so reluctant to engage in public discussion on the bills brought before this House”.

I have another quote by the member for Kingston and the Islands. While in opposition and talking about the use of closure and time allocation he said “I suggest that the government's approach to legislating is frankly a disgrace. It cuts back the time the House is available to sit and then it applies closure to cut off debate”. That is a quote from the member for Kingston and the Islands. He is still a member of the House but now he is on the government side and guess what? His opinion has changed. It is now fine to use time allocation.

That is what Lord Aitken meant when he said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Once the Liberal Party became government and got its hands on the lever of power its principles changed. I do not believe it is the people. I believe it is the whole philosophy behind the government in this country going right back to 1867. It has to change. The people of this country are demanding that it change.

We can talk about changing the rules and procedures which is fine and well, but until we develop a real will to change the system we will not have MPs satisfied with the jobs they are doing in this House. We will not have a real sharing of power. We will not have legitimate debates that mean anything in this House that will actually change the course of legislation.

In the end what we will have is democratic dictatorships where we elect a new dictator once every four or five years. Frankly, I do not think going into the 21st century that Canadians are going to find that very acceptable.