Peter Mancini

[Criminal Code, April 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on behalf of the New Democratic Party to address Bill C-79, an act respecting victims of crime.

All the previous speakers who worked on the committee and the minister herself mentioned that this was a good day. It is a recognition of what a committee can do when parties put aside partisan differences and work in a constructive way for the benefit of Canadians. It is, and the minister referred to it, a tribute to the late Shaughnessy Cohen who chaired this committee.

I am cognizant of the remarks of the member for Surrey North. Much of the preliminary work was done for the committee prior to my election in June 1997. It was done in the last parliament. It is against that backdrop we should examine the work of the committee, the recommendations of the committee and the bill brought forward by the minister.

I came to the House and became the spokesperson for the New Democratic Party on justice as a former defence lawyer. I came to the committee dealing with the role of victims with much of the preconceived ideas that one would have, as did my colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough who came here as a former crown prosecutor. It is fair to say that all parties brought a perspective to the committee which helped to shape what became a unanimous report by the committee presented to the House of Commons.

It is a tribute to both the Conservative member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough and the member for Surrey North who brought the perspective of the victim to the committee. Also a Bloc Quebecois member brought to the committee the perspective of provincial rights and the importance of understanding the roles of the federal and provincial governments. Members of the Liberal Party brought a sense of listening to the victims.

We put aside our differences. We debated some very fundamental issues about which I will speak in a moment. As a result we were able to come to a unanimous report which is a tribute to both the chair of the committee and to the work that went into it. I do not think we can underestimate the importance of the day and a half long meeting all members of that committee from all parties had with not just victims of crime but with representatives of every aspect of the criminal justice system.

There was goodwill. Whether they were from the National Police Association, groups representing victims of crime, the Canadian Bar Association or the Defence Lawyers Association, there was a real attempt by the participants in that meeting to work constructively and represent to members of parliament the kinds of changes that had to be made in the criminal justice system to accommodate what has for a long time been neglected, that is the role of victims in the criminal justice system.

Much has been said about the rights of victims and much has been said about the rights of criminals. Working at this level on the committees I think all of us struggled with some difficult questions. On the surface it seems fairly straightforward. One is a victim of crime. One ought to be afforded certain rights. One is a criminal. Certainly criminal rights ought not to supersede those of the victim.

However, when we scratch the surface and begin to explore what that means, there are difficult questions. When does one move from being an accused to being a criminal? When does one move from being the accuser to being a recognized victim?

The member for Surrey North has mentioned that there is a definition of victim in the act which requires careful scrutiny. There is a hazy area where we still have to ensure the balance between the presumption of innocence and a recognition that a wrong has been done, a balance between the rights of the accused before a finding of guilt or innocence and the rights of the person who is accusing them, and then competing balances when there is a finding by the court of guilt. Where one becomes a criminal the accuser moves into a different area and certainly the victim has been affirmed as in fact a victim.

We struggled with those competing rights and how best the legislation could meet the balance of ensuring the protection of the rights of the accused on one hand and the role of the victim on the other.

We have to be very careful when we talk about rights to understand that rights are not a little package which each independent individual person carries around in a briefcase. Rights are collective. They are all our rights. When the rights of an accused are infringed upon my rights are infringed upon, as are the rights of every citizen in the country. When a victim's rights are not adhered to, my rights are not adhered to. Nor are the rights of anyone in the country.

It is not as though we have a section on victims rights here that goes to war against the accused rights there. They are the collective responsibility and fall into the safeguard of all of us as citizens. That is why the committee struggled so hard. That is certainly the perspective that we from the New Democratic Party brought to find that important balance where we safeguard the rights of all Canadians and ensure that justice is done and seen to be done.

The legislation responds to a number of unanimous recommendations that came forward from the justice committee and which all parties signed on to. The act does a number of things. I think it is worth examining exactly what is in the legislation.

As has been commented upon, it provides that all offenders must pay a victim surcharge of a fixed minimum amount, except where the offender establishes undue hardship, and provides for increased amounts to be imposed in appropriate circumstances. Not only is that important in bringing responsibility to bear on the part of the offender, which it does. It also provides a revenue by which many of the programs can be funded.

This was a criticism, some may recall, that we had of the initial act to replace the Young Offenders Act because of the costs. These things cost money. It is important to know where the sources of revenue will be and who will bear those costs. In many cases it will be the provinces in both this legislation and in the legislation to which I just referred. It is important to know where the source of revenue will come from.

This provides some moneys to go toward establishing what will be necessary to implement the law. This law will create a greater burden on the courts. There is no question about that. It will create a greater burden on the role of crown prosecutors or crown attorneys, as they are referred to in some provinces.

Prior to this legislation the crown answered almost exclusively to the state which it represented. There will be increased pressure on the crown to respond and to ensure the victim plays an essential role in the criminal justice process. Some of those costs to the provinces can be recouped through this victim surcharge tax.

There are also provisions to ensure victims are informed of their opportunity to prepare a victim impact statement at the time of sentencing. One of the most important aspects of the legislation to the victim is that it is essential to the victim of a crime, especially after the finding of guilt at the time of sentencing.

At that point we are no longer talking about the competing rights of the accused and of the person who accuses. At that point there is a determination of guilt. We know then there is an offender who has committed a criminal offence and a person who has been done wrong. It is important they be given an opportunity at the time of sentencing to prepare a statement and to deliver it either in written form or orally before the court.

Many cases before the courts today involve young victims. That is why there is a section extending protection to victims of sexual or violent crime up to the age of 18. It restricts personal cross examination by self-represented accused persons.

The purpose of that was to ensure where a young person of 16 or 17 years is a victim of a sexual crime and an accused wants to be self-represented that the accused did not intimidate the young person. An important caveat to that, which indicates the balance between the rights of the accused and the rights of the victim, is contained in the legislation. It is one that we on behalf of the New Democratic Party brought to the table at the justice committee.

The section actually reads that protection is provided to the young person and the accused cannot personally cross-examine him or her. It also makes a provision for the court to appoint a lawyer for the purposes of cross-examination. We cannot refuse the accused the right to question the person who accuses them. At the same time we do not want the accused to be able to intimidate the victim, so we have provided for the court to appoint a lawyer to perform that function. That is a very important aspect of the balancing act in the legislation.

I am pleased to say that the NDP supports the overall intent of the legislation to give victims and witnesses of crime a greater role in the criminal justice system and to increase safeguards for those victims. The legislation attempts to strike that balance which we will be looking at very carefully in committee to ensure it does. I have already spoken about the need to ensure it does not infringe upon the rights of the accused at the same time as it provides an opportunity for the victim.

The establishment of the policy centre for victims of crime announced earlier this year is important. That is intended to ensure that all federal policies and legislation take into account the concerns of victims. This is a major step forward. It is something we recognize and applaud. It is the type of approach that could be applied in other areas of social policy.

I have often thought we ought to have a policy centre for poverty where we might ensure that legislation is looked at through a lens in terms of what it will do to those who are currently poor in this wealthy country. It is a step and it may provide a model we can use in other areas.

It is our hope that the legislation will redress many of the concerns raised by victims and make it easier for victims and witnesses to play a meaningful role in the courts.

From my own years in the courts it is clear that the judiciary in many cases looked in the past to the crown to represent the views of the victim to some extent, especially at sentencing hearings. This will provide victims an opportunity to fulfil that role themselves. It is important legislation in that regard.

It goes some way to meeting the needs expressed by many victims at the round table. Again I applaud them for coming forward. I think that much of this would not have happened but for their work. It is a testament to the way laws can be drafted in a democratic society when a group of people who feel they have a contribution to make, and this group certainly did, can come forward through their elected representatives and the government can respond to an all-party committee and accept the recommendations.

As has been indicated, there are some areas that have not been accepted yet. We will be watching very carefully to see what kind of changes take place under the solicitor general's department with regard to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. We will be watching that to ensure they match up with the recommendations of the all-party committee. However, it is an example of the government responding and I think it is to be congratulated for that.

I believe also that members of the committee in the other parties are to be congratulated for coming forward in the positive way they did. Let us hope we can continue to reform the criminal justice system with that kind of spirit.

We will be looking at the legislation carefully. We in the NDP will continue to advocate for a sensible, compassionate response to the victims of crime, but one that takes into account the essential balancing that is so necessary for justice to be done in the criminal justice system.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I should indicate at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East.

At this early hour in the morning when the people in my constituency will just be getting up I first want to thank the many Canadians who have written, e-mailed and phoned my office in the last few weeks to express their concerns about this country's engagement in Yugoslavia.

I also want to thank in particular my constituents in the riding of Sydney—Victoria who over the Easter break contacted me or whom I contacted to discuss their views on this most important issue. Their deliberations and opinions are crucial to the debate we are having here in the wee hours of the morning.

I can say that the vast majority of constituents who spoke with me supported at the end of March the position of NATO and agreed with the New Democratic Party policy to support the government on this alternative before the House adjourned.

However, like us in the New Democratic Party, they did so cautiously and they did so warily. They still may do so on humanitarian grounds, but they do so quietly and soberly without jingoism and without blind patriotism.

We know that the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia has a long history of struggle. Like many nations in the Baltic region its history is both rich and complex. To understand the events of the last few months we must understand the complex struggles in this region of the world.

The majority of the population in Kosovo is Albanian. In 1985 I think Kosovo held one-third of the entire Albanian population in the world. While rich agriculturally the area has long been among the poorest regions of Yugoslavia.

The Albanians have a claim to this property and it is important to understand the backdrop here. They claim that they settled Kosovo in the middle of the second millennium BC.

However the Serbs view Kosovo as the cradle of the Serbian empire. It was in that territory, and we have heard this in many debates in the House, that the Serbs were defeated by the Turks on the Plain of Blackbirds in 1389. This is sacred territory to the Serbs.

In 1913 Kosovo became part of Yugoslavia. It is important to remember that during the second world war Kosovo was occupied by Italy. During the second world war it is the claim of Albania that the nationalists clearly expressed the view that Kosovo be allowed to exercise the right of self-determination when the war ended.

In 1945 following the second world war there was a nationalist uprising in Kosovo against reimposition of Serbian rule. This was crushed and there were many casualties.

There is no question that since Tito has died the residents of Kosovo, and particularly the ethnic Albanians, have been harshly treated. In 1981 unemployment in Kosovo stood at 27.5% and the standard of living in Kosovo was one quarter that of the Yugoslav national average and was falling. It was no wonder that rioting occurred in 1981 and there were many deaths. There was violence again in Pristina in 1989 when ethnic Albanians demonstrated.

As in all conflicts there are faults on both sides. Some writers have pointed to evidence of hypocrisies committed by ethnic Albanians against the Serbian minority in that province. There are arguments that anti-Serb text and literature flow to Kosovo through Albania.

There is evidence that while in the autonomous province within the second Yugoslavia the Serb minority felt its human rights were violated. This built anger upon anger, hatred upon hatred. In fact it was the feeling of mistreatment by the Serbian minority in Kosovo that allowed President Milosevic to pole vault to political power when he promised to assuage and avenge those perceived wrongs.

Since Serbian control there are some issues that we have to look at. In 1991 Serbia ordered the schools in Kosovo to be segregated between Albanians and Serbs. Some 6,000 ethnic Albanian teachers lost their jobs. By 1992 at least 100,000 Albanians had lost their public sector jobs, including 800 of Pristina's 900 academics.

In March 1999, 40,000 Serb troops began a campaign of what is called ethnic cleansing. We know that villages were burned and that 2,000 people had been killed before NATO began to move in.

The fragile situation in Kosovo is as complex as that in the Middle East or Northern Ireland. It is against that backdrop that we must set the events of the last few months.

The international community had tried to mediate the dispute between these two people in the wake of what had been dramatic changes in eastern Europe in the last decade. It is our responsibility as signators to the United Nations Convention on Human Rights as a privileged nation and as fellow world citizens to assist in the solving of human rights crises and to avert potential human rights atrocities.

Diplomatic efforts had been exhausted. The Serbian president refused to sign the Rambouillet agreement. It is alleged that he refused to cease gross violations of human rights that may well border on genocide. He refused to allow the international war crimes prosecutor, Canadian judge Louise Arbour, to investigate those allegations.

We could simply no longer wait to assist those who were being persecuted. We could no longer wait to see what happened as the tide of events engulfed Albanians and the rest of the world. It was time for action and Canada responded, but we responded with regret. We responded with concern while we responded with action.

We will continue to respond with determination and conviction and we will honour our international obligations. Canadians will keep their word. That is why this party some time ago supported NATO's position regarding selective bombings.

Events in war do not follow nice, normal time lines. Circumstances today are not as they were two weeks ago.

We are not even close to a resolution of this terrible tragedy. Even as we speak tonight there are reports of a train being bombed in Serbia. There are reports that the French president has softened that country's position and has moved more in line with the position of our leader of the New Democratic Party, who this morning called for the United Nations to play a more integral role in settling this situation.

Circumstances in war change quickly. To find peace in any conflict requires an opportunity for the enemies to negotiate and the proper forum for these talks must be the United Nations. That is why we have advocated that Canada call for a special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly.

Since this issue was last debated in the House the secretary general has set terms and conditions for Yugoslavia to meet to form the basis of a ceasefire. We think that Canada and NATO should call on President Milosevic to stop the war on the ground, to leave the killing fields and to agree to negotiate. If he does that, we in this party argue for the air raids to be suspended for a period of time and for Kofi Annan's terms to form the stage on which a settlement could be negotiated. This is a necessary requirement for the Serbian president's redemption.

We want peace to be restored and we want it to be restored with justice and with respect for human rights. This party has never and does not support unilateral intervention into another nation's concerns. However, if we have learned anything in this century, surely it is that the human condition is so fragile that we all have a role to play in the protection of the essential human rights of humanity.

Elie Wissel said: “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference”. In 1999 we can no longer afford to be indifferent to the fate of those with whom we share the world. It is not in their interest and it is not in ours.

Hence we call for a new international order. We can only seek peace if we are prepared to be as aggressive in our diplomatic efforts as we are in our military action.

I have not spoken of ground troops in this debate. I will wait until there is a debate and a vote in the House on that issue. Democracy demands as much.

Canadians responded with generosity and compassion toward the refugee crisis and we will need more of that in what I see as a lengthy ordeal in the Balkans.

Finally, I want to assure those Canadians who serve our country in both military service and humanitarian efforts that they are in our thoughts. My constituents and I pray for their safety and for their families. We pray too for the Albanians and the Serbs and we pray for peace.

[Division No. 363, March 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments and questions. It is important for those watching today to understand exactly what has taken place.

We are debating today a private members' bill that has been before the House numerous times, as indicated by the actual mover of the debate who was the last speaker. She indicated a witness list. We should also indicate that of the witnesses that appeared before the committee many were opposed to it, including the National Association Active in Criminal Justice, the Canadian Criminal Justice Association and the Church Council on Justice and Corrections.

I hear members of the Reform Party throwing jibes at these witnesses: the Church Council on Justice and Corrections, the Criminal Lawyers Association, the Canadian Bar Association made up of prosecutors that prosecute those people who are charged, the John Howard Society, and the Elizabeth Fry Society. The John Howard Society said that the bill and the intimidation tactics used to support it were regrettable.

It is important for people to understand what debate was interrupted today by members of the Reform Party. It was a debate dealing with fish stocks. It is important for people and fishermen in British Columbia to understand that the important issues affecting them and affecting the fishermen in Atlantic Canada were interrupted by a tactical manoeuvre by the Reform Party, which says it is a populist party, to play games and get this issue before the House.

I make that comment so that fishermen on both sides of the country will understand that if we do not get to the fish stocks debate, which is crucial to the livelihood of fishermen, it is because members of the Reform Party wanted to play this game and make certain political points with a bill that has already been debated in the House numerous times.

I direct my comments in that vein. They are important for members to understand.

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

Madam Speaker, I was here when the previous member made the call for quorum. I was present while she stayed in the Chamber. She did not leave immediately after she called for a quorum count.

I think I have been the only one who has been here throughout the whole thing.

[Division No. 354, March 23rd, 1999]

A member opposite says not in the NDP. In some ways we have held true to our principles, unlike the government party which we have seen slide to the right as pressure from the Reform Party mounts.

The hon. member is right. There are some things we in the NDP have not given in on, unlike members of the Liberal Party. They have have given in on things like labour legislation. They have given in on things like the right to strike. They have given in on the fundamental democratic right to debate issues in this House. That is why there is closure today.

The hon. member wants to heckle and call out where the NDP stands on certain issues. I welcome those suggestions.

Going back to when this legislation was introduced, it was in 1922, three years after the Winnipeg general strike and about six years before the great strikes in Cape Breton which led to the death of William Davis, one of the great labour leaders in my province. I had the pleasure and the honour of being in Winnipeg recently. I got to see where that great strike happened, where the workers of this country stood together to fight for fair labour standards. I come from a part of the country where people have shed blood for the right to strike for fair labour standards. Yet today, many years later, we stand in this House with back to work legislation being imposed with closure by the government so we cannot even have a full debate.

It was introduced in 1922, before the second world war, and the government still justifies regional rates of pay. Think about it. In Vancouver, British Columbia and all across the country there have been all kinds of developments. Back then people were still taking trains to get from one end of the country to the other but since then, the Liberal and Conservative governments have seen to dismantling the train lines. Now people fly, those who can afford to. It is a measure of how out of touch the government is when it still defends a policy that was in place before Mackenzie King. It is archaic.

What does it mean to the workers in my part of the country? I have some statistics. It means that in Nova Scotia a private sector carpenter will earn on average $20.49 per hour. Someone who works for the people of Canada through the government will receive $13.92 an hour. What it means in Nova Scotia is that a private sector electrician will earn $22.53 while a PSAC worker will earn $15.38. A private sector labourer will earn $17.79 while a PSAC worker will earn $12 on average. A private sector plumber will earn $23.50 while a PSAC plumber will earn $16.89.

Not only are there regional rates of pay which discriminate against workers in different parts of the country, but when we compare what the PSAC blue collar workers are receiving in comparison to the private sector, we see the need for amendments and changes.

We understand and I ask Canadians who are watching the debate to understand the frustration of workers in one part of the country who are being told they cannot be paid the same as their brothers and sisters in other parts of the country and who are facing that huge wage gap between the public and the private sector. Why are they so frustrated? Why have they taken to strike? It is not because they wanted to but because of those very issues.

These are the people who have borne the price of the deficit fight on their backs. There is no question that the gap between the rich and the poor in this country has increased steadily. We know that over the last eight or nine years—and I think it has been seven years since these people have had a raise—wages have been frozen and clawed back for the public sector employees.

The Minister of Finance and the members of the Liberal government stand and applaud themselves for fighting the deficit. The reality is that it has been fought on the backs of the very people who today are standing outside and asking why they are being denied a marginal increase in pay.

The government will answer that in many ways. Yesterday in answer to questions one of the members of the government said that it would be inequitable to have the same rates of pay across the country, that somehow that is unfair.

The interesting thing about that is the people who are receiving the regional rates of pay represent 3% of the entire public service. If I were one of the other 97%, I might be a little concerned that the government's notion of fairness was going to find its way into the rest of the public service. If the government thinks it is unfair to give people who do the same work across the country the same pay, then those who are receiving the same amount of pay whether they are in Halifax, Sydney, Vancouver, Regina, or Toronto had better watch very carefully.

I dare say if the government were to suggest that members of parliament were to receive a change in their take home pay based on where they lived and what part of the country they represented, we might very well see a different debate in this House.

The government has some concerns about the movement of grain. It is important. No one should diminish the importance of the movement of grain to the farmers. Farmers themselves understand the difficulties faced by these labour unions.

Let us not forget that the mightiest combination that has moved us toward significant progress has been the alliance between labour and farmers. That was the foundation of the beginning of progressive movements in this country.

In my own province the labour movement and the farmers of Nova Scotia joined together and formed a political party and nearly captured the government. This was a very brief period in Nova Scotia history. Only by doing that did Nova Scotia begin to move progressive legislation forward in the areas of minimum wage, the right to organize and the right to strike.

I think the farmers who are being hurt by this legislation understand how important it is to join forces. That being said, the blame as to why farmers are suffering lies squarely at the feet of the government.

As I said in my opening remarks, this new labour situation did not fall like rain from heaven, unknown and not forecast by the weatherman. This dispute has been simmering for a long time. Regional rates of pay, cuts and clawbacks to the civil service are not brand new, or they should not be brand new to the government. Anyone who works and operates in any city or county of this country knows the terrible price the public service has paid to balance the books for this government.

This should have come as no surprise. Realistically, anyone with any foresight could have seen that without some settlement there was going to be strike action. And if there was strike action, it was going to end up hurting the shipment of grain across the country. It was going to end up shutting down public service buildings. It was going to end up hurting people who receive unemployment insurance cheques. It was going to end up hurting people waiting for income tax returns. It was going to hurt most Canadians. Surely be to God, the government, which represents and is supposed to act in the best interests of Canadians, should have seen that coming and should have done something about it.

The farmers are frustrated because the grain cannot move. Elderly people are waiting for cheques from the government. Many thousands of people who are without work are waiting for unemployment cheques, those who are entitled to unemployment under this government's legislation, those few who still qualify. People are waiting for other cheques from this government or for government services and are not receiving them because of this strike. Those people need not look far to determine where to point the finger. Point the finger at the government and its failure to act and its failure to take into account what was going to happen.

There is plenty of evidence. The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance report “Retention and Compensation Issues in the Public Service” implied that it would be in the public's interest to settle the labour dispute in a fair manner. That is a report that comes from the Liberals and the Conservatives in the Senate. Nevertheless, it is something I am sure that was brought to the attention of the government in its own caucus meetings.

Let us look at the cost to the government to settle this dispute. My understanding is that to settle this dispute would have cost the government perhaps $8 million. It is worth noting that the wheat board costed the loss of one contract at $9 million, slightly more than the cost to the government of reaching an agreement.

We are here today facing closure in the people's House on a fundamental piece of legislation that forces people back to work, that does not respect the right to negotiate, that will not look at arbitration in terms of a settlement. We are here debating that when it was foreseeable, when it was coming at us like the Titanic . There is nowhere for this blame to rest except at the feet of the government.

That being said, members of my party will continue to fight against the kind of tactics which have been used. Yesterday morning the opposition parties were given a piece of legislation that I think is 150 pages in length. We were given a piece of legislation in which the actual imposition of the back to work legislation was not highlighted. We were given a piece of legislation in which the figures were not costed. We had to rely on doing that ourselves, in a short period of time. We do not mind doing it ourselves, but when we are given that kind of document less than 24 hours before this government tries to impose a settlement, it is absolutely unfair. It is absolutely undemocratic. It takes away from what Canadians want in the House, which is reasoned debate on real issues that matter to Canadians.

We play political games with the lives of thousands of workers who are on strike and the thousands of farmers who are depending on grain shipments. That is the approach that the government uses.

It is no wonder that people get cynical about politics. They say “Why is the debate ongoing and taking so long?” It is ongoing because there has not been a proper process followed by the government. That has not been followed simply because the government did not want to admit that it did not see this coming.

We end up taking up a huge amount of time in this Chamber dealing with what could be dealt with in a more rational way. While we are doing that other important legislation has been moved aside. One has to wonder about the subtle implications of that.

It was only yesterday that we began debating the Minister of Justice's new young offender legislation. That has all been moved now, that important legislation, because this government has not followed the proper process. Other areas of important debate get deferred while we continue to try to deal with this back to work legislation.

It is regrettable that we are here today in this situation. It is unnecessary that members of the House of Commons find themselves in this situation. It is unfair to those whose livelihoods are being affected and who are waiting for the outcome of this legislation.

It is poorly drafted legislation. It was pointed out by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre yesterday that the clauses are written in French and English, and one clause has been modernized while the other has not. It has been mentioned that the government forgot our newest territory when determining what the regional rates of pay would be. The government forgot to include Nunavut.

Perhaps the government should have taken its time to craft in a better way the legislation that comes before the House and given the opposition members appropriate time to review that legislation, instead of playing politics with the lives of people in this country, with the lives of the workers in this country, with the lives of the farmers in this country and with the lives of the taxpayers in this country, those who can least afford to have politics play with their lives.

It is with regret that I stand here seeing democracy eroded, seeing workers' rights eroded, seeing the things that Canadians have fought so hard and so long for eroded, to keep in place regional rates of pay from 1922 and to keep in place unfair worker discrimination from an era long gone.

This may have worked at a time when there was not the kind of information and communication that there is today. Today a worker in Sydney, Nova Scotia knows what his brother, a carpenter, is making in Vancouver, British Columbia. Today someone who is a plumber in Toronto knows what someone in Winnipeg is making. The government can not hide that from them. It does not have a rationale. We all keep waiting for a rationale from the other side to tell us how regional rates of pay can be justified. There is no logic. The answer is deafening in its silence. That silence is what the people who are in the public service alliance will remember in the next election.

[Division No. 354, March 23rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, we are debating an important issue today, one which my party has concerns about. Back to work legislation, particularly in regard to the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the current strike, is an issue we take most seriously, especially considering that mechanisms are in place whereby the government could have resolved the matter.

My understanding is that the difficulties have been under negotiation for some two years. The fact that no resolution has come forward is almost an indictment of the government and its lack of effort to bring this matter to some kind of closure.

I am particularly concerned about my part of the country because one of the fundamental issues in this strike is the regional rates of pay. The government has refused to acknowledge and negotiate that. Regional rates of pay means that people who are doing exactly the same work are paid less in one part of the country than people in another part of the country. Not surprisingly a bulk of those people who are paid less reside in Atlantic Canada, one part of the country that can least afford low wages.

I will address that particular issue because it affects my region. It affects other regions. It is interesting to note, and the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre raised this yesterday, that in the back to work legislation there is some reference to those particular regional rates of pay. The government is suggesting that it will reduce the number of regions from 10 to 7. It is talking about combining Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia, and I suppose we will have Nova-Saskatchewan. It is another way of saying that people in western Canada and eastern Canada will receive less pay than people in other parts of the country. And the government wonders why there is western and eastern alienation.

How long has this been going on? I believe regional rates of pay were imposed in 1922. There have been some changes since 1922.

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I have a supplementary for the president. I know it is late and he might have forgotten my first question.

What are the living conditions based on? How are they measured? What is used as the yardstick say between Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Toronto and Ontario?

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, I have a question relating to the PSAC workers, particularly in the Atlantic region.

The President of the Treasury Board said that the regional rates are based on adaptation to living conditions. I have two questions.

First, how are those local living conditions assessed, on what basis are they assessed? Second, are they open to change or review if the living conditions change during the life of the agreement?

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comment of the hon. member. What I am suggesting is this. We need to hear that kind of evidence in this body. It is important for us to hear what happens in a balanced way. When we talk about victims of crime we need to recognize that all of society is victimized when crime occurs.

What we tend to hear about is the person who is hurt. That is legitimate. What we do not hear about is that many times young offenders are victims; victims of sexual abuse, a history of violent abuse, a history of mental abuse, a history of being ignored by the system, of growing up in aboriginal communities where, many times, there are no support services. When those stories are told I would expect a balanced approach. That is what I am saying.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. A great deal of what Quebec has been doing was elaborated on by the justice critic for Quebec. Interestingly enough, in his criticism of the government he says that the Young Offenders Act works if the resources are available to make it work.

I go back to my concern about this legislation. While there are some good things in the legislation dealing with extrajudicial remedies and some good things that provide for redirecting young people in a way that would move them away from a life of crime, without adequate resources that cannot be fulfilled.

I think we have a great deal to learn from Quebec in the way it has dealt with its young offenders. The hon. member who preceded me gave a history of the tremendous contribution of Quebec to the youth crime issue. It is to me a startling example of working together at the federal and provincial level and achieving the results we want.

I perhaps would disagree with the hon. member. The federal initiative was important in working with Quebec. The country benefits best when we see those two governments working hand in hand for the enhancement and betterment of the whole country and is a shining example of what all the provinces can do if we work well with the federal government.