Svend Robinson

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I value the opportunity to participate in this very important and significant debate. I deeply regret the decision of the government to equivocate with respect to the role of parliament and the role of each elected member of this House in making a decision with respect to the issue of the possible use of ground troops. I do not understand why it is that our government and our Prime Minister have taken the position which ultimately amounts to contempt for the role of elected representatives.

I listened with interest to the Conservative questioners. My colleague from Winnipeg Transcona and I were here in 1990 and 1991 and we certainly recall our efforts to get a vote from the then Conservative government. It stonewalled and refused to act until long after the military action had taken place in Iraq, which began on January 15. I think history has to be remembered in that instance.

I rose in this House 19 days ago on behalf of my colleagues to speak in another debate. It was a take note debate with respect to the pending decision to support the use of NATO aerial attacks in Kosovo. We were then faced with compelling and moving evidence of an impending humanitarian disaster, one which in many respects had already started to take place: the burning of villages, the destruction of people's homes, mass expulsions, murder, torture and rape.

I remember vividly the assurances given by ministers, privately, in committee and elsewhere, that this firm course of action with air strikes would bring an early return to the negotiating table and hopefully an end to the ethnic cleansing which all of us in this House deplore.

At that time, in the absence of what we felt was any other viable alternative to stop the humanitarian tragedy, we supported the decision to proceed.

Today, 19 days later, where are we? We know that our troops, based at Aviano and elsewhere, have performed an outstanding job under very difficult circumstances. We know the fear of their families and indeed their own fear at a time like this and we extend our support to them, as well as to the aid workers on the ground.

We are deeply impressed by the incredible generosity of Canadians who have opened their homes and their hearts to refugees. It has not happened yet, but certainly I know my hon. colleague from Winnipeg North Centre and others have been playing a leading role in encouraging our government to continue this generosity.

Here we are 19 days later with NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. What have they come up with in terms of new approaches and a new strategy? They have decided to continue the air attacks. Continue, keep going, make them even stronger.

Quite clearly this situation is a human and a military catastrophe, both for the Kosovars and Albanians who have been driven out of their homes, villages and communities; not just outside Kosovo, but up into the mountains. They are hiding within Kosovo itself. Their villages continue to be burned and they continue to be raped. As well, too many innocent civilians have been killed by the bombing. I have to ask: Why bomb a Yugoslavian car plant which also involved the killing of innocent civilians?

Our defence critic raised questions about the use of depleted uranium in U.S. antitank weapons. These are serious questions for which we are awaiting answers from the Minister of National Defence.

My colleagues and I have all had harrowing personal stories told to us by those who are affected by this tragedy. It was brought home to me when a Serbian constituent phoned. He said “How do I explain to my daughter that her government, the Government of Canada, is bombing her grandmother's home?”

Within a couple of hours I had an anguished call from a Kosovar Albanian living in Canada who said that he was unable to contact his parents. Silence. He has no idea. There is fear and uncertainty in not knowing what is happening to them.

We have to ask the question: What do we do now? How do we answer these anguished questions of our constituents and, indeed, of Canadians?

Today our leader, the hon. member for Halifax, called once again on our government to put diplomacy and negotiations and not bombing at the heart of our strategy. She reiterated the call which my hon. colleague from Halifax West and I made at the meeting of the national defence and veterans affairs committee on March 31. It was a call for Canada to show leadership within NATO and within the United Nations for an immediate return to the negotiating table; not with a whole list of conditions, but with two basic conditions: first, an end to the atrocities on the ground, the brutality, the ethnic cleansing and the crimes against humanity; and second, an end to the bombing. With those two conditions accomplished there would be a return to the table.

When we get to the table there are a couple of key points that must be considered. First, we have to recognize that Rambouillet is, for all intents and purposes, dead. In fact, given the inclusion in the Rambouillet accord of the provision for NATO peacekeeping troops, I think many of us in retrospect would say that this was an impossible condition for Milosevic to take back to the Serbian government.

There were alternatives. Indeed, there are alternatives. One alternative, of course, is not to have a NATO peacekeeping force but a force under United Nations jurisdiction, under OSCE jurisdiction. Instead we heard again today from our Minister of National Defence the statement that he made as recently as last Friday, that this has to be a NATO-led force. That is fatal to any significant negotiated agreement in this area.

We appeal to the minister to recognize that and to recognize the absolutely critical role that Russia must play as well in these negotiations. It has been effectively sidelined, silenced and shut out. It proposed a G-8 meeting. We understand that may happen and we welcome that. However, both in negotiations and in peacekeeping on the ground Russia must be involved.

What form will Kosovo take after negotiations? It is very difficult to say. There again, Rambouillet is likely a dead letter. To talk about autonomy within the context of what has taken place recently is very difficult to imagine. It may be that there will be some sort of international protectorate, but we will have to examine that with care.

The fundamental point that we as New Democrats are underlining is that the United Nations and the OSCE must play the leading role in negotiations. We called for a special emergency meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, we are appealing for that.

I am splitting my time, Mr. Speaker. I have a couple of minutes left, so I will try to be brief.

We are calling for a special meeting of the UN general assembly. At the same time we want to acknowledge the very important contribution made by groups such as Project Ploughshares, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, the Regina Peace Council, the Canadian Peace Alliance, Voices of Women, End the Arms Race and many others in urging an alternative approach, an approach that involves peaceful negotiations.

NATO is clearly not the answer. There is a double standard in NATO's approach. It is silent, for example, on the appalling situation of the Kurds in Turkey. Then there is the approach taken by the United States within NATO. It has contempt for its obligations to the United Nations. It has not paid its dues. It ignores the call for an international criminal court. It ignores the international court of justice. I could go on and on. It supports ruthless dictators. This is not the body to enforce a new humanitarian law.

We call, along with Project Ploughshares and others, for a new mechanism to legitimize within the framework of the United Nations peaceful humanitarian intervention.

I want to again note our thanks to those groups—

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the member's support for the suggestion of our leader and our party with respect to the possibility of an OSCE or a UN peacekeeping force as opposed to a NATO force.

I wonder if the member would also like to comment on the application of article 52 of the Vienna convention on the law of treaties which explicitly forbids coercion and force to compel any state to sign a treaty or agreement. In light of that and in light of the element in the Rambouillet accord which put NATO at the heart of peacekeeping, does the hon. member not feel that there is a conflict?

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Leader of the Opposition a question with respect to the issue of the future and how the global community responds to a crisis of this nature.

Obviously the current situation is critical. Many people are expressing deep concern about the possibility that somehow NATO is taking on to itself a new and very dangerous role of somehow being the enforcer of international humanitarian law. In fact this is a role that the United Nations, clearly needing some form of change in terms of its ability to respond, should be taking on and not NATO when we look at the tragedy in Turkey and the situation of the Kurds in Turkey, when we look at East Timor, Colombia, Sudan and elsewhere.

I want to ask the Leader of the Official Opposition whether he agrees with the need for a new credible international mechanism strengthening the United Nations, getting around some of the paralysis that can result from the veto under the present structure. Does he agree with that need and with the need to look into what many see as the hypocrisy and the double standard that currently exists—

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same minister.

The Minister of National Defence just referred to an international military presence to ensure the safety of refugees returning to Kosovo. Last Friday this same minister said that presence had to be a NATO peacekeeping force.

Does the minister not recognize that aspect of Rambouillet calling for a NATO on the ground force was unacceptable then and it is unacceptable now? Will Canada clearly call for a UN or OSCE peacekeeping force and not a NATO force to ensure this agreement can be kept?

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, tragically the only message coming out of NATO in Brussels today was more air strikes and more bombing.

I want to ask the Prime Minister, will Canada finally show real leadership on this issue? Will Canada call for an immediate suspension of NATO bombing and Milosevic's ethnic cleansing, a return to negotiations under UN auspices with a key role for Russia and very importantly, an emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly to seek a diplomatic solution to the devastating tragedy in Kosovo?

[Kosovo, March 24th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last October members of the House debated the serious humanitarian crisis that was unfolding in Kosovo. At that time my colleague, the member for Halifax West, the New Democrat defence critic, and I rose in the House to say that there are times when the global community must respond to serious human rights violations, not just with words but with action. I profoundly regret to say that we have now reached that point of humanitarian tragedy.

It is clear that diplomatic attempts at a negotiated settlement to the Kosova crisis have failed. The Serbian government has refused to sign a peace agreement that would provide Kosovo with autonomy within the Yugoslav federation, a plebiscite in three years on the future status of Kosovars and the presence of a NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo. The Albanian Kosovars have signed and accepted this settlement.

The present situation in Kosovo is indeed unacceptable. We see villages in flames and refugees fleeing in terror. Serbian offences against the Albanian Kosovars continue as we speak. More than 40,000 Serb security forces are poised in and around Kosovo, with additional units on the way. In January the bodies of almost 40 ethnic Albanians were found at the scene of fighting at Raca in southern Kosovo in what appears to have been a mass execution.

The last time this type of ethnic violence erupted in the region was in Bosnia in the early 1990s. It took three years and 200,000 deaths and too many warnings before the west finally took action in August 1995. It was not unfortunately the United Nations at that time, it was NATO.

I visited Vukovar in Croatia and saw firsthand the terrible effects of Serb aggression against Croatia and its people there. I have often wondered since then if the international community had acted sooner in these conflicts a great number of civilian casualties could indeed have been prevented.

Since the horrors of World War II, the international community has spent many years trying to develop covenants and treaties that focus on respect for international human rights. Yet too often, while we have these human rights norms, the international community has failed miserably in enforcing them. It has only been recently that we have begun the difficult process of developing mechanisms to enforce international human rights. I note that the creation of the international criminal court, a creation in which Canada played an important role, is a step in the right direction to ensuring that dictators and tyrants will face prosecution for the crimes they commit while in office. Yet the Yugoslav government, the Milosevic government, has shamefully refused to allow Judge Louise Arbour to enter Kosovo to investigate crimes against humanity there.

On the subject of crimes against humanity, I note today how pleased my colleagues in the New Democratic Party and I are at the decision of the House of Lords to allow for the extradition of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain to stand trial for crimes against humanity. We urge the Government of Canada to seek his extradition as well. I know there is a case of a Canadian nun who is seeking that extradition and others, and we appeal to our government to take that action.

The possible NATO air strikes against the Serbian government are unprecedented. It will be the first time since the alliance was founded 50 years ago next month that NATO has prepared to go into action collectively against a sovereign state. Certainly we in the New Democratic Party have not reached the decision to support this military action without much anguish and much soul searching. Our party has a long and honourable tradition of opposing NATO's military structure and doctrine, of calling for Canadian withdrawal from NATO and of strengthening the United Nations and regional security mechanisms. This is particularly the case when NATO continues to cling to a neanderthal cold war doctrine of first use of nuclear weapons.

The type of political will that has led to the decision for military action in Serbia has certainly been lacking in other parts of the world. We need only look at the humanitarian crisis in Africa, stretching from the Horn to Angola, to see these kinds of inconsistencies.

The minister in his statement to the House said: “We cannot stand by while an entire population is displaced, people are killed, villages are burned and looted, and a population is denied its basic rights because it does not belong to the `right' ethnic group and we remain very concerned about potential atrocities”.

Precisely those conditions apply in the NATO ally of Turkey with respect to the Kurdish minority and yet the Government of Canada and the world stand by. Similar conditions apply in East Timor and elsewhere. To those who say there is a double standard, I say they are right and certainly we opposed Washington's unilateral bombing of Khartoum, of Afghanistan and of Iraq. To point out these inconsistencies and to suggest that NATO is not the most desirable international institution to enforce human security is at the end not enough. We are left with the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and the question of what Canada's response and what the global community's response should be.

Slobodan Milosevic has systematically refused to engage in dialogue and compromise. He has continued his reign of terror in Kosovo against ethnic Albanians.

The New Democratic Party supports military action against selected Serbian military targets to address the humanitarian crisis facing Albanian Kosovars. Certainly there are significant risks in taking this military action, risks to the lives of Canadian service people and to the lives of civilians in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo itself.

I certainly want at this time to indicate on behalf of my New Democrat colleagues that our thoughts are with Canadian forces personnel stationed in Italy and their families in Canada, particularly those who are in the air at this time in the four CF-18s. They deserve the support of all members of the House. As well we want to take this opportunity to salute the 63 brave Canadians who took part in the OSCE Kosovo verification mission and did their part to ensure compliance with UN resolutions for peace in the region.

Certainly any military action has to be taken with the greatest possible care for the lives of civilians and of those in the armed forces. We must do everything in our power to bring about, even at this late stage, a peaceful settlement with Milosevic.

I recognize there are those who approach international security challenges from a pacifist position of opposing the use of force in all circumstances. A former leader of my party, J. S. Woodsworth, took that position. These are strong, deeply held views and they must be respected.

As well, I understand and frankly I share many of the concerns of groups like the Canadian Peace Alliance, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms and End the Arms Race which oppose the use of force in this situation.

They have raised legitimate questions, legitimate concerns that such strikes would be a violation of state sovereignty and that the UN security council should be the only body to authorize such use of force. We in the New Democratic Party have recognized that without reform of the veto powers, of the permanent members of the security council, the UN is too often paralysed in an action.

Concerns have been raised as well that the state of humanitarian objectives cannot be reached by military means. There are valid concerns of escalating the conflict in a region that is already historically a powder keg, that this may draw in Albania and Montenegro. What next? Will Milosevic simply use this as a means of consolidating his support for standing up to the international community?

We in the New Democratic Party accept that the use of military force as a last resort is sometimes necessary in grave humanitarian crises when all efforts at diplomatic settlement have failed, and we believe this meets that test.

As Canada is prepared to back up our concern for human security with military action, we must be equally prepared to provide the necessary financial and personnel resources for humanitarian relief as a result of the conflict. This action will certainly create a large refugee crisis, and Canada should play a very generous and constructive role in addressing the needs of the refugees.

The minister underlined in his comments earlier the truth that Canada wants a world in which human rights are respected. May this be a turning point for the international community to accept that our present international institutions are incapable, sadly, of ensuring those human rights for all. We must all come together and reform these institutions to put peace and respect for human rights at the forefront of relationships between people and relationships between nations.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 23rd, 1999]

The loud mouth member from Coquitlam was not here then. I remember when other Liberals were here in 1991 and the position they took when the Conservatives were in government. The Liberals at that time stood up for the public service. They were prepared to defend the public service.

They were there with the public service, but now what are they doing? Absolutely nothing. They are imposing upon these same workers totally unacceptable working conditions.

Let me once again appeal to the government to recognize that these 14,545 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada at the table 2 negotiations and the some 600 correctional service workers at the table 4 negotiating team deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Instead, this government is using the jackhammer of closure to ram this legislation through the House.

We in the New Democratic Party will do everything we can to oppose this legislation and support these workers everywhere in Canada. This legislation, this motion is an affront to democracy.

This is an assault on our international obligations. This is an assault on freedom of association. I say shame on the Liberal government for betraying the workers of the public service of Canada.

[Government Services Act, 1999, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a sense of deep sadness and anger that I rise in this House this evening to oppose this motion and this unjust and unfair legislation.

The government knows full well that the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois would never let such an anti-democratic bill be passed without putting up quite a fight. Therefore the Liberals used their majority in the House to limit debate. Make no mistake: this is an affront to democracy.

Usually back to work legislation contains a clause providing for binding arbitration as a way to settle disputes. But in this case, instead of arbitration, the legislation imposes on workers a collective agreement of the government's making. It also applies to federal prison guards, who are not even on strike. This is incredible and truly unfair.

This bill undermines the democratic rights of Canadian workers. We in the NDP oppose this unjust legislation.

I turned on the television news last night and witnessed with absolute astonishment in a rare moment of joy the Reform member who has just spoken in the House, the member for Cyprus Hills—Grasslands, saying that the Reform Party would stand up for workers and would oppose this Liberal legislation. He was huffing and puffing and saying that the Reform Party is here to speak on behalf of public servants.

I did my best. I could not believe it. This is the same Reform Party that has been so blatantly anti-worker from the time it first came to Parliament Hill. This is the Reform Party that spoke out in favour of right to work legislation, that slammed the labour movement and so on. Suddenly that articulate, loud mouthed little member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands is defending workers. It was incredible. It was too good to be true. Guess what happened today. We found that the Reform Party was in bed with the Liberal Party once again.

I say shame on the Reform Party. Shame on the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands. When Reformers had a chance to stand up for workers they caved in. Who will they vote with tonight? They will vote with the Liberals. They will vote against workers. They will vote against farmers. They are voting against some of the poorest paid public servants in the country.

Let us look at Canada's obligations under international law. Canada has signed a number of major international conventions with the International Labour Organization, the ILO, that oblige us to bargain collectively.

We have signed conventions that oblige us to respect the rights of Canadian and Quebec workers.

Last year Canada commemorated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights. This legislation and this motion make an absolute mockery of Canada's international obligations under the ILO and under United Nations conventions.

Let us be clear. This is not the first time the Liberal government has shown contempt for our international obligations. Just a few months ago the United Nations committee on economic social and cultural rights pointed out in very harsh language, strong language, powerful language, that the government was not respecting the rights of poor people, homeless people and jobless people in Canada, and that the international covenant we signed on economic, social and cultural rights was being ignored by the government.

The government is ignoring our international obligations as it has done on more than one occasion under the International Labour Organization. It is not just doing that. We in Canada have a charter of rights that Canadians collectively adopted. I had the privilege of being a member of the committee which drafted that charter of rights and passed it with great fanfare. One of its basic rights is freedom of association. Those freedoms, those basic rights, those fundamental freedoms that all Canadians take for granted have once again been totally overridden in legislation.

We look at war veterans who fought hard for these rights and these freedoms. We look at merchant seamen who fought long and hard for these freedoms, who worked long and hard for these freedoms under very difficult circumstances. The legislation makes a mockery both of our international obligations under the ILO and of our own Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

A number of my colleagues have spoken very eloquently in opposition not only to this draconian closure motion but to the legislation itself. Again I pay tribute to my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who has led the fight on the legislation from the beginning. He is out of the labour movement himself. He knows firsthand the importance of respect for not only collective bargaining but for the basic freedom of association.

My colleague from Winnipeg Centre; my other colleague, the member for Churchill, who will be speaking to the legislation; and others have pointed out many of its very serious flaws. One of its most outrageous flaws is the fact that we have back to work legislation applying to correctional officers who have not even walked off the job, who are not even on strike yet. They are being sent back to work without any terms in writing. It is absolutely unbelievable and unprecedented.

Let me be very clear. For almost 10 years I had the privilege of sitting on the justice committee of the House of Commons. I travelled to many prisons in the country and met personally with correctional officers and prison guards. The working conditions of these prison guards are disgraceful. In many cases they are overworked and underpaid. The value of their work is not recognized through decent pensions. In many cases they face very dangerous and intolerable working conditions.

The government is treating these dedicated and hard working employees with absolute contempt. We in the New Democratic Party say shame on the Liberal government for its treatment of correctional officers.

Let us look at the working conditions of those who have been on strike. We are talking about some 14,500 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. In my own province of British Columbia how many are we talking about? The largest group of these employees is at Esquimalt in Victoria. In Vancouver the largest group is at the grain commission. A significant number of these workers in British Columbia are those who work at Rogers Pass, at Glacier and at Mount Revelstoke National Park mainly doing highway maintenance. They also have folks who work in stores at Revenue Canada and other departments.

These are not fat cats. These are not people who are being paid excessive wages. These are hard working blue collar workers whose wages have been frozen for seven long years and who have not had a negotiated collective agreement for some fifteen years. All they are asking for is fairness, justice and collective bargaining, and the government says no to all of that.

The member who just spoke talked about grain commission workers. Grain commission workers were behaving very responsibly for most of the last eight weeks. They were going to work. They were not putting up any picket lines. However, when the elevators started applying for exemptions so that the grain would not have to be weighed they started picketing. By the way, they only picketed those elevators that had applied for exemptions. The ones that did not were not picketed.

I have personally spoken with the president of the Grain Workers Union, Ron Burton, who is one of my constituents. It took a responsible approach and is again treated with absolute contempt by the government.

These workers are particularly upset to hear the President of the Treasury Board saying that their wage demands are excessive. in his words. These workers point out that senior managers got increases of something like 17% to 25%. Members of parliament even got increases greater than what they were demanding.

I say on behalf of these workers that it is absolutely nonsensical to suggest that these increases were in any way excessive. Let us just take a moment to look at what was actually on the table when the talks broke down. When the talks broke down on March 12, about 10 or 11 days ago, the union's position on the table was 2%, 2.75% and 2% with a 30 cent sweetener in the last two years. That is not even catch up money. That does not even catch them up to seven long years with no increase whatsoever.

The government and the union were not that far apart. I think it was a little over 3% or 3.1% that they were apart or around $8 million between the two. Let us take a look at that figure for a minute. Eight million dollars would have ensured that farmers were able to get their grain through. Eight million dollars would have ensured that some of the lowest paid federal public servants would have been treated with dignity and respect.

The government has brought forward the hammer of closure and is imposing a collective agreement all for $8 million. I say shame when in fact one contract alone that was lost for a week was worth over $9 million. It makes no sense whatsoever.

These are hard working employees. I have spoken with a number of them in my constituency office. They have talked about some of the difficulties they face like any Canadian in a situation such as this. They have mortgages to pay, families to look after and kids they are putting through post-secondary education so they will get a decent education in the future. This Liberal government treats them with nothing but disrespect and contempt for the collective bargaining process.

I think it is important to point out as well, as my colleague from Winnipeg Centre noted in his remarks, that with massive cuts that have been taking place in the federal public service with this Liberal agenda, deregulation, privatization, fighting back against any progressive labour education, we have the same number of workers who are being called on to do more and more work. A heavier and heavier burden is being borne by these workers. There is a much greater stress and strain in the current workplace. Yet they are told forget it, and seven years without any decent increase whatsoever.

That is not the only way in which federal public servants are being hammered by the Liberal government. The fact is in a number of different areas the government has shown how little respect it has for its public servants. Women in the federal public service are still waiting for pay equity. The government continues to fight against equal pay for work of equal value.

It is totally unfair that women working in the public service still have to fight today for fundamental rights to justice and pay equity.

We know as well the government is anticipating a major public service pension grab, something like $30 billion in federal public service pensions and the government wants to get its hands on that. Instead of treating its employees with respect, what does it do? It tries to grab public service pension money.

This legislation has been thrown together in such a short time that in many respects there are some very serious drafting flaws in it. The new territory of Nunavut has been left out entirely from the legislation, completely ignored. In defining workers under the terms of the proposed collective agreement I note that the definition of common law spouse in English actually does reflect the collective bargaining position that was achieved through other public service negotiations and recognizes that common law spouse includes gay and lesbian partners.

However, in the French version of the text, “conjoint de fait”, or common law spouse, is defined as follows:

Il existe des liens de conjoint de fait lorsque, pendant une période continue d'au moins une année, un employé a cohabité avec une personne du sexe opposé et l'a présentée publiquement comme son conjoint et continue à vivre avec cette personne comme si elle était son conjoint.

We have a French version that denies the fundamental rights of same sex spouses, while the English version reads as follows:

Common law spouse includes those relationships. Mr. Speaker, I know that you have certainly taken an interest in this issue, recognition of same sex relationships and common law spouses, and I know you will be as concerned as I am with respect to this disparity in the recognition of the two statutes.

Certainly we will be seeking clarification of this issue during the debate in committee of whole. I have spoken already with the President of the Treasury Board and with the government House leader. They have both indicated that it is the intention of the government to recognize same sex relationships for purposes of these collective agreements, but I hope that will be clarified during the course of debate in committee of the whole.

While I am on this subject, it is also important that the relationships of gay and lesbian people be recognized under the public service pension legislation as well. We are still waiting for the government to move forward to amend that legislation which will hopefully come forward in the very near future.

I want to note as well the issue of correctional service members, those I talked about earlier who are covered by this legislation. These are the public service alliance members represented by the table 4 negotiating team. They went into a third party conciliation process.

There was a conciliation board report released on March 19. These workers accepted the recommendation of the conciliation board. They were prepared to accept that and live with that even though it represented a significant compromise on their behalf. They said they were prepared to accept that. Treasury Board walked away from the table and refused to sign that agreement. So much for that. So much for fairness to correctional service workers. It was a very different Liberal Party back in 1991.

[Nuclear Waste, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is not just this hon. member, it was every Liberal member of the foreign affairs committee that said no to MOX. The House would appreciate a response before the Prime Minister responds to the president of the United States. That might be a little more appropriate.

Why should Canada allow over-flights of plutonium when the United States itself bans those over-flights? Why should Canadian ports like Churchill, Montreal and Halifax take safety and environmental risks? Why should cities like Windsor and Sarnia be exposed to risk? Why will the government not listen to the foreign affairs committee and say no to MOX, period?

[Nuclear Waste, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Three months ago the House foreign affairs committee strongly and unanimously rejected the idea of burning plutonium based MOX fuel in Canadian reactors, saying that it is totally infeasible.

Why is the Prime Minister writing this month to U.S. President Bill Clinton, offering to consider using U.S. and Russian plutonium in Canada? Does this Prime Minister not understand that Canadians do not want our country to become a dumping ground for the world's cold war plutonium?