Reg Alcock

[High Commission In New Delhi, April 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, like many members with large and active Indo-Canadian communities in their ridings, I have heard over the years a great number of concerns regarding the immigration section of the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, India.

During the Easter break I had the opportunity to visit New Delhi and made a point of meeting with the Canadian immigration officers there to investigate these concerns.

What I found was a group of very talented, very professional officers who, under the leadership of Mr. Jean Roberge, are working hard to ensure that people receive the highest quality of service.

Along with counselor Roberge, I met with officers Robert Romano, Brian Beaupré, Larry Carroll and Brian Le Conte. These officers are aware of the concerns and are working hard under very difficult conditions to address and improve them. Their attitude and actions on these issues are examples of the very best of the Canadian public service.

Therefore, I am here today to applaud the employees of the immigration section of the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi and would encourage other members to do the same.

[Youth Violence, April 29th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we were all shocked and saddened to hear about the senseless tragedy that occurred yesterday afternoon in Taber, Alberta.

Our condolences go out to the family and friends of Jason Lang who was killed yesterday during the shootings. Our prayers are with the family and friends of Shane Christmas who remains in serious condition in hospital.

As a parent I can only imagine the terror that is felt at hearing there has been a shooting at your child's school. I can understand the pain the people of Taber are feeling today.

As a parent I insist that our schools be what we intend them to be: places of learning, places where we can send our children knowing they will be safe.

As a member of this House I am reminded that we must all work together to ensure conditions that produce such horrific violence are eliminated from our communities. As Jason Lang's father said today, “Lots of things need to be changed and lots of things need to be healed”. Over the coming days and months I know that all members will work to ensure that what can be done will be done.

[Criminal Code, April 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member's comments and his involvement in the development of this bill. I have a specific question to help me think through a solution to a problem which arose this week.

Many years ago a young woman in my constituency was abused repeatedly over a period of time. The abuser was arrested, charged, convicted and served time. Subsequently he finished serving his time and was released back into the community in another province. Many years later he applied for a pardon and was pardoned.

Fifteen years later he has re-emerged in the community and has contacted the victim. In attempting to get a restraining order or a peace bond to keep him away, she has found it extremely difficult because of the pardoning process.

Has that situation arisen before? Was there some discussion of that in the preparation of this bill? Will the passage of this legislation give her some avenues to protect herself?

[Rashpal Dhillon, April 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce Mr. Rashpal Dhillon to the House.

Mr. Dhillon is a resident of Richmond, British Columbia. He was born in 1938 in the Punjab, India and came to Canada in the 1950s. He has a wife, Surinder, three children and three grandchildren.

Mr. Dhillon has a long and distinguished history in law enforcement, initially as the first Indo-Canadian peace officer in Canada. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police stationed in the B.C. interior. He went on to become a prison guard at Oakalla Penitentiary and then a deputy sheriff in Vancouver.

Mr. Dhillon is now the owner of several agri-food companies and a golf centre on the lower mainland. He also serves the community on many boards of directors, including the Farm Credit Corporation and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. It is for his work as a pioneer and a philanthropist that we honour him today.

On behalf of all members, on the day the Government of Canada officially commemorates the first 100 years of Sikhs in Canada and 300 years of the Khalsa, I would like to recognize Mr. Paul Dhillon as an outstanding member of the Indo-Canadian community.

[Questions On The Order Paper, April 16th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I ask that all other questions stand.

[Questions On The Order Paper, April 16th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, we will be answering Questions Nos. 197 and 206 today. .[Text]

Question No. 197—

[Government Response To Petitions, April 16th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table in both official languages the government's responses to 14 petitions.

[China, April 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, whenever a Chinese leader visits Canada there is always the public discussion of human rights in China.

This is an important issue and needs to be discussed. However, the debate often obscures another reality in China.

This was brought home to me last week when I visited a small rural village in the mountains of Guangdong province in southern China. There I met a young woman who told me a story about Premier Zhu Rongi, when he first became premier, who, when he saw the poverty that so many Chinese live in, said, with tears in his eyes, “What kind of premier am I that our people live in such poverty”.

As a result, Premier Zhu is working hard to bring decent health care to rural China. He insists that all children get an education and he strives every day to create the conditions that will give those children a better future.

This is a perspective that is not often heard in North America and one that we should consider when we rush to condemn.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member pointed out that we worked together. He, the hon. member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière and I served on the committee that looked at reforms in employment insurance.

Travelling with them, meeting and knowing these members, gave me some very important and valuable insights into Quebec. I have talked about some of the strengths and energy that I see in Quebec. These things encourage me and excite me. They make me feel positive about what is happening in Quebec. It is through knowing members who contributed forcefully and effectively to that committee that I feel that way.

Two things went on at that time. I remind the member that took place in 1994-95 when we were at the height of battling the deficit. We were in the midst of trying to get government spending under control. There were some very definite changes in the benefit levels. Also a philosophical change took place which talked about active rather than passive measures and doing things to help people gain employment rather than simply sit in unemployment. I think we have seen some of that.

Contrary to advice that was offered by members of other parties about what the unemployment rate would be doing by the turn of the century, we have seen the unemployment rate come down rather substantially over the last few years.

It is not nearly enough. I share the concern of the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques. My friend from New Brunswick has been on his feet many times raising the concern about seasonal workers and the unemployed in rural areas of eastern Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

These issues should be brought to the floor of the House. Frankly I would sooner be standing here debating that issue today than spending time digging around in the entrails of this supposed alienation.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

The member says he would not brag about it but I do. I brag about it quite often and without any hesitation whatsoever.

There is a desire in the kind of heated atmosphere which is created in this chamber to solve every problem immediately. I used to enjoy debating some of my colleagues in the Reform Party by quoting a poster a friend of mine has in his office. It reads “For every complex problem there is a simple answer and it's wrong”. That is my feeling when the Reform Party raises the kind of debate it does in this House, quick, glib, easy criticisms to complex problems.

I admire our Prime Minister. If you think about it, politics is one of the few businesses where we tend to devalue experience. What we are reminded of every day is that we have a leader who understands the country better than any other person in this House and who has served the country longer than almost everybody else in this House.

When confronted with an issue he knows when to act and when to watch. He knows how to listen very carefully, not in a flashy way, not with a lot of bells and whistles, but very carefully step by step, issue by issue. He has gone about the work with the full support of this caucus in continuing to build upon the foundation that makes this the best country in the world.

When I was first elected in 1993 I recall that we had a very serious economic problem. We now have a surplus. That did not come about easily. It did not come about quickly. It did not come about magically. A lot of hard decisions were taken one by one, sticking to our guns and carefully keeping our eye on the target budget after budget. Even when we got into a surplus, we continued to exercise restraint and continued to be careful.

Look at the question of lack of co-operation with the provinces. Again, there was no national referendum. There was no big task force running around. We sat down and went issue by issue. When we needed to look at a national child benefit we sat down and negotiated a way that we could do that in co-operation with the provinces and the provinces signed on. We needed to look at the issue of training. We sat down an negotiated a series of agreements. Co-operation improves services to everybody.

I believe this was the crowning achievement. I worked in social services for a great many years. The social union framework represents to me the first time in as long as I have been working that we put aside all of the bickering and wrangling about jurisdiction and created an environment within which we could sit down, discuss, negotiate and come to an agreement on how we together can provide better services for the people in this country.

That basically is what Canada is. Canada is a partnership. It is a partnership of regions. It is a partnership of people. Partnership works extremely well.

Our government is able to do that because of the kind of work that is done by the member from Charleswood. Members in Quebec are doing this as well. The member from Mississauga is doing the one on youth entrepreneurship. We have had them on small business and on gas pricing. Members are constantly talking to Canadians, listening to what they have to say and trying to incorporate those ideas in all of the other opinions which they receive from all over the country. They bring that to caucus every week.

The Prime Minister sits in caucus every week to listen to us. He insists that people be there. He insists that it be an important forum for us to debate and discuss. Every single week we hear in that forum members saying what they are hearing in their regions over and over again.

I am a little saddened. I have to make some comments to my friends to the Bloc as well as my friends in the Reform. When I meet with my friends in the Bloc and with people in Quebec, I meet with people who are very interested in providing services and enhancing the quality of life for people living in their province. They are energetic, smart, interested and not afraid of the challenges in this world.

In western Canada we see the same thing. The picture brought into this House by the Reform Party is not the western Canada I know. Two of the wealthiest governments in the country exist in western Canada. The front page of the Globe and Mail showed my province of Manitoba as having the lowest unemployment rate in the country.

We are doing very well. We are doing very well in western Canada right now. We are doing it because people have found a way to put aside the bickering and the battling. They are focusing on making this an even better country.