Roger Gallaway

[Privilege, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege pursuant to notice given earlier today. The background to my point of privilege flows from the following events in the House.

First, on November 4 the House unanimously adopted the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Procedures and House Affairs. Second, on November 5 certain members of the House spoke to a point of order raised by the member for Surrey Central. In a ruling later that same day it was noted that recommendations Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 required substantive amendments to the standing orders and required various technical interpretations.

Subsequently the Clerk was asked to draft proposed amendments to implement recommendations Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 of that report and submit that draft to the House leaders.

It is my submission that submitting the redrafted standing orders concerning Private Members' Business to the House leaders is a breach of my privileges as a member of this House.

The matter of Private Members' Business as noted in the report as adopted at page 7 reflects on the non-partisan and non-governmental nature of Private Members' Business.

Mr. Speaker has implemented this principle of non-partisanship by ordering the implementation of recommendation No. 5 dealing with the conducting of a vote on Private Members' Business.

As an extension of this principle, I must ask for the implementation of recommendations Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 by reference to members of this House and not by submitting a draft to the House leaders.

If the spirit and intent of the non-government and non-partisan nature of Private Members' Business is to be upheld, only the members of this House may pronounce on them. No intermediaries, such as House leaders, should be consulted since by reference to House leaders of the redrafted standing orders my privilege as a member of this House, certainly during private members' hour, is being directly affected.

My privileges exist by virtue of the office of member of this House and no individual or entity, corporate or political, may intervene save and except this House itself.

Since the House unanimously adopted the 13th report concerning Private Members' Business, the House must also pronounce on the redrafted standing orders.

I suggest that to refer these redrafted standing orders to the House leaders is a breach of my privileges as a member of the House in that it removes my right to examine, study, speak and perhaps vote on these important changes to the standing orders.

Standing orders, as we know, are the rules and regulations which the House has agreed on for the governance of its own proceedings. It is noted in Beauchesne's sixth edition at paragraph 9 on page 5:

All rules are passed by the House by a simple majority and are altered, added to, or removed in the same way.

That paragraph also refers to the role of the standing committee on procedure in being a permanent source of recommendations for changes to standing orders. What is of interest to me is that there is no mention of reference to government House leaders.

Briefly, these changes to the standing orders are for private members' hour. Therefore to refer these proposed changes to the House leaders is to put into the hands of five people the possible fate of the rule change recommendations which were adopted in a report by the House.

In short, the House leaders may never agree and hence they may never return to the House.

Beauchesne's also notes on page 5, paragraph 9:

There is no procedural reason why any Member cannot introduce a motion to alter the rules—

I therefore suggest that a prima facie case of privilege exists and with Mr. Speaker's permission I would like to move a motion.

[Environmental Science And Technology Alliance Canada, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, November 9 Environmental Science and Technology Alliance Canada will hold its annual technology day at the Toronto airport Holiday Inn.

This non-profit, industry led alliance funds research at Canadian universities. This research is commercially relevant, highly innovative and consistent with federal government priorities.

Technology day will showcase current research and allow technology transfer between university professors, their students and industry personnel.

We in this place must continue to support this investment partnership between Canadian industry, Canadian universities and the federal government.

[Taxation, October 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade.

One of our largest trading partners, the state of Michigan, has now imposed a single business tax which applies to all companies doing business in that state, but allows American corporations a distinct advantage in that they have the right to recover the tax.

I would like to know from the parliamentary secretary what action will be taken under NAFTA to stop this blatant discriminatory action against Canadian companies.

[Motions For Papers, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on May 5 I raised a question in this House concerning foreign workers entering Canada under articles 1601 and 1701 of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as the NAFTA. The reason for raising this was a result of complaints I was receiving, complaints of abuse of the NAFTA provisions, complaints of blatant stretching of the rules, all of this to the detriment of Canadian workers.

The application of articles 1601 and 1701 is reasonable and straightforward. It recognizes that sometimes citizens of the U.S. and Mexico may want to enter Canada to sell products, or to service products, or to install products manufactured in one of those countries. In doing so it is quite a reasonable and simple idea.

Suppose an American company sells an automated painting machine to a Canadian company that manufactures something like wooden doors. When the equipment is delivered the American manufacturer may, pursuant to articles 1601 and 1701 of NAFTA, send a person knowledgeable in the installation and startup of that machine to supervise its installation. What is presumed and expected is that Canadian electricians and millwrights will move the machine into place and hook up the electrical service but the technical expert is simply there to direct and supervise the work.

What appears to be happening, or what is being suggested to me, is that this is being abused. It is being abused by the Americans who become more than technical supervisors, but who in fact become tradesmen. They start doing the work of people such as electricians, pipe fitters and millwrights. They pick up the tools of these trades and in doing so they put Canadians out of work. They take Canadian jobs from Canadian trades. This cannot be tolerated. The department of immigration must be vigilant.

My concern involving this arose from a series of complaints I received in my office. Quite simply, a number of tradespeople came to me and told me that there were at least 25 Americans posing as technical consultants on a job site in southwestern Ontario. The complaints were the same. These outsiders were working as tradespeople. They were doing whatever was required.

Subsequently the regional immigration office in London advised me there were 40 Americans on the site, 40 so-called technical consultants. When I asked whether immigration had investigated, I was advised no. To date it has not done so and the complaint was first laid on December 9 of last year.

This in my opinion is a sad commentary on the state of the immigration department. In fact the reason given was unbelievably weak. The department did not intervene because it did not have hard hats or safety boots for its employees to enter the worksite.

In her response to me on May 5 the minister stated “I would encourage any member who is aware of a situation to refer it to my department”. I hope that the minister today is re-evaluating the resources of her department. I hope that all of these potential abuses are being dealt with immediately.

In this case four months after the initial complaint nothing was done and to date nothing has been done. This is a tragic and sad commentary on how Immigration Canada protects Canadian jobs for Canadians.

I hope the minister will move more decisively and quickly to change this. On behalf of Canadian workers I hope that the minister will enforce the true spirit and intent of the NAFTA. Finally, I hope the minister will stand up for Canadians.

[North American Free Trade Agreement, May 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, skilled workers such as electricians tell us that Americans are entering the country as technical experts under NAFTA and are in fact doing their work. Can the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration tell us what her department is doing to try to stop such abuses and keep jobs in Canada for Canadians?

[Competition Act, 1998, April 23rd, 1998]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-393, an act to amend the Competition Act, 1998 (negative option marketing).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to give first reading this morning to this bill which would amend the Competition Act to deal with negative option marketing.

The objective and the thrust of this bill is to prohibit certain financial institutions, including broadcasting and telecommunications undertakings and companies to which the Insurance Companies Act applies, from charging money to their regular clients for the provision or sale of a new service without the expressed consent of the client.

I would point out that this dovetails with a report released by Industry Canada under the office of the consumer which identifies negative option marketing as being the area in which a number of industries have targeted growth. This is simply intended to protect consumers.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in this debate on the motion deemed to be put according to Standing Order 51, namely that this House takes note of the standing orders and procedures of the House and its committees.

In this brief period I would like to address two points, the first perhaps broad and general in terms of the work of members of committees, and the second being a specific recommendation to add a new standing order following Standing Order 98 in order to correct an obvious problem that continues to sit on the books.

Individuals come to this place with firm convictions that they can contribute and can add something to the big picture and, most importantly, they can make a difference on issues and matters that are of concern to their constituents. Members come here to serve their constituents. Members come here also as part of a political team, a party which reflects in a general way their beliefs, their values and their collective attitudes. An election result is the combination of the presentation of the individual candidate and the party that the individual represents.

A member's arrival in the House of Commons is an experience which I would suggest flattens the idealistic to the more pragmatic because this is, after all, a place of government by ministerial responsibility and it is through the ministerial system that one must work to see a result or an influence on policy and ultimately on decisions. Through the 18 standing committees an individual member of Parliament has an opportunity to directly influence decision making in the broadest sense of the word.

On October 22 of last year the Ottawa Citizen published a column by a writer known as Susan Riley in which she noted:

Everyone knows that the ordinary member of Parliament is a pitiful creature, shut out of important decision-making,—ignored by the media and ranked below lawyers in public esteem. Everyone has remedies for this sorry situation including more free votes, a higher profile and more travel for Parliamentary Committees, better decorum in the House and more opportunity for private members to introduce their own legislation. But nobody, including MPs themselves is willing to do anything other than complain.

In that column she addresses the role of committees.

In my experience the 18 standing committees of this House have little or no relationship with the minister responsible for the department. In a parliamentary ministerial government it is astounding to me that ministers only appear for perhaps two hours before a committee to explain why draft legislation is necessary. Is it not equally unbelievable that a minister will appear for a couple of hours to explain or defend the estimates of an entire department involving perhaps billions of dollars?

This is pro forma ministerial involvement in the workings of committees. It is an absurd method of paying lip service to committees, yet there is no real interchange between the minister on the one hand and the committee on the other.

Our system of ministerial democratic government is looking for change. As collectives, committees have seen less resources devoted to them in terms of support, staffing, travel allowance, access to the minister and freedom to travel. This skewers the function of this place. The executive and the legislative function of each department, which is vested in the minister, grows more powerful while the counterbalance, which is vested in the committee, continues to shrink.

The time has arrived for every member of this House to get serious about what this place is and what it might be. As my friend and colleague, the member from Rosedale was quoted as saying last year: “Valuable work is still done in committees. It is as if you're dropping a pebble into a deep well”.

Perhaps members of this House would like to give themselves something larger than pebbles to deal with. This is an issue which does not fall along partisan political lines. This is an issue which speaks to the office of member of Parliament and to the very institution itself. This is an issue on which we as members can agree to move back to committees a meaningful role for members.

We need to move the role of committees to a level of greater importance, and this can be done in a number of ways. We can allow some free elections of chairs or we can allow votes in committees as are conducted in the British parliamentary system. Most important, give back to committees the resources and support staff such as researchers and legislative counsel, in order that all committee members can receive objective, impartial and expert advice in the course of deliberations.

Standing committees are not intended to be puppets or extensions of the department with which they are aligned. They are to examine, test and recommend improvements in what ministers propose. Yes, there are political and philosophical differences in committees but at the same time one cannot assume that any department as represented by its minister is always correct or always perfect.

Yet committees have been disempowered. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs should be looking at ways to return some modicum of real control. It is easy to say that committees are masters of their own destiny. Destiny I would suggest will always be an abstract idea without the supporting rules and resources to give that cliche meaning.

The other issue to which I wish to speak specifically involves the standing orders surrounding private members' bills, namely Standing Orders 98 and 99.

In fact, these private members' bills, after a review by a standing committee of this House and third reading, are sent to the Senate.

There, these bills must be treated like public bills. As we know, the Senate committee can take several initiatives. However, if an amendment is made during the review by the Senate committee and is approved at third reading, the bill will come back to the House, which must then reconsider the bill.

In fact, the House can accept or reject the Senate amendment. It is time we recognize that this is a major problem. It is simple: there is no means, no process to conclude debate on an amendment made by senators.

This is the ultimate catch-22. This is the treadmill that never stops yet moves nowhere. The fact is the rules are silent on this point with the end result being every time the bill, as amended by the Senate, comes before this House, there is no end to the process.

A private member's bill which has received the approval of this House and is amended, however slightly in the other place, can come back here and be hijacked forever. We know there are specific rules for debate, namely three hours at second reading and two hours at third reading. Yet when a private member's bill returns from the Senate amended, the rules say nothing. The end result is that private members' legislation can be debated forever without the closure that a vote on legislation as amended by the other place will bring. We can say this will never happen but it has happened.

In conclusion, this is a simple, pragmatic, easily accomplished change to the standing orders specifically which can be made to correct this obvious shortcoming. By adding after Standing Order 98 a new standing order, a limit of two or three hours can be imposed and a vote be required after the period of debate.

I hope the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will move to add this section and to correct this obvious problem.

[Petitions, March 26th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition signed by over 2,500 residents of southwestern Ontario. They are calling for the establishment of mandatory quality assurance and quality control standards for mammography in Canada.

In so doing I would like to thank the Breast Cancer Society of Canada and its president Lawrence Greenaway for bringing this important issue to my attention.

[Toy Labelling, March 16th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to Motion No. 85 which calls on the government to enact legislation which would, among other things, mandate toy manufacturers to label toys containing a substance called phthalates in order to allow parents to make an informed decision when buying products for their children.

The really important word in all this is informed. Informed means that when you arrive at a conclusion all the facts have been before you. Based on those facts you decide what is in your best interests. What this motion is suggesting is that we are going to short circuit that process and we, in this House, are going proceed to determine what is in the best interests by requiring that toys be labelled.

What is the evidence before us. The evidence is that a group called Greenpeace has said that phthalates in toys, when children chew or suck on them, somehow enter into their bodies and this is unsafe. Greenpeace bases that on a couple of scientific studies, one of which came from a Dutch group and the other from a Danish group. The problem is these studies are now being refuted. The Danish environmental protection agency in April 1997 recommended that certain types of teething rings be withdrawn from the market. In July 1997 the Dutch health ministry suggested to toy retailers that they should withdraw some soft vinyl toys from the market. Those recommendations were made after a meeting with Greenpeace.

What has happened since that time is the results of the Dutch study cannot be duplicated. They did some kind of scientific study. When they tried to come up with the same conclusions on the same data a second time, they could not. In the case of the Danish study, any scientist who has looked at the methodology used has said that this is not a study at all but a conclusion reached on certain data given. In terms of scientific methodology is is not acceptable. No scientist could form a conclusion based on the kind of evidence that was being used.

It really is not germane to us in this House if in Denmark or in Holland governments have been pressured by groups such as Greenpeace to make a move based on evidence that is not sound, that is not scientific, that is not replicable, that is not acceptable. That is a decision made in those countries.

Let us remember that in Europe there is something called the European Union which makes rules with respect to a number of issues on a regional basis. It makes it for those member countries. As recently as February 17, almost a month ago, the European Union's scientific committee looked at the evidence that was provided by Denmark. It looked at the evidence that was supplied by Holland. It looked at the evidence supplied by Greenpeace.

It said it could not make a decision. There was not enough evidence. There is no science in any of this. This is a group of experts. This is a group of people who make objective, dispassionate, scientific decisions. They said they could not make a decision. They also pointed out in their decision that there was no urgency in any of this.

We would ask why is there no urgency if, as is being suggested by Greenpeace, this is affecting the health of children. The answer is that phthalates are the most widely researched chemical polymer going. Manufacturers in this country do not include on purpose components in toys or in their goods that are in some way going to affect or harm the lives of children. There is some suggestion that this is a direct attempt or that they are being reckless. That is not the case.

On February 6, 1998 Health Canada had a meeting with representatives of the industry to discuss this matter because the industry was concerned about the allegations being made by members opposite. The industry met with Health Canada and said it was responsible and that it wanted to deal with it. In that meeting, Health Canada agreed to take a lead in this matter.

I suggest to all members present that if Health Canada is to compile a group of scientists to examine and study this in order to reach a conclusion it would be terribly premature for us in this place, acting on a hunch from Denmark, Holland and Greenpeace, to come to the conclusion that parents are going to make an informed decision because we are going to require manufacturers to stick a label on toys which states the product contains phthalates.

There is a community of scientists within the government supported by the industry that is going to look at and analyse the data and reach a conclusion.

The industry has gone one step further and has said it is happy with the process. It is glad that some independent third party is going to come in and look at it. The industry will support the protocol as established, will support Health Canada and will, most important, support any conclusions reached by Health Canada in this respect.

We have a duty and an obligation in this place that when we start passing motions or enacting legislation with a scientific basis, where we can look for a cause and an effect, that we have the scientific data and all the evidence before us that will allow us to draw that correlation.

If we are to start reaching conclusions we need some type of scientific evidence that allows us to go from point A to point Z, being the conclusion.

What we are being asked to do by this motion is to go from point A to point Z but we do not know why. It is based on a hunch, a suspicion and it is being driven by a group that has no evidence but still wants to propel this matter because it thinks it is in some sort of environmental interest.

In the end I think this motion must, as a result, be defeated. The only thing we are going to end up doing is creating a problem in the minds of parents because there will be the suggestion that when they buy a toy there is something wrong or something in this toy that may, according to the proponents of this motion, be harmful. However, the only evidence, I suggest, is the direct opposite. There is no evidence that will lead us to this conclusion.

It is for that reason that I would ask members of this House that when this is voted on to vote against it and defeat it.

[Broadcasting Act, March 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that this is either the first or second day of the institution of this new rule. If private members are not aware, the sponsor of the bill or motion gets to speak for the last five minutes.

I want to thank my colleagues from the Reform Party, the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party for their support in this matter.

I also want to say how surprised I am by the culture critic for the Bloc. The member has laid out a number of the same old stories but has failed to recognize the new paradigm which occurred.

This bill was endorsed by the specialty services association in the province of Quebec at the Senate when it was amended there. It is now amended and is here, yet the member refuses to recognize that. This bill was endorsed by the association of francophones and Acadians outside Quebec when it left the other place and is now here in the same form. She denies that that occurred.

The hon. critic for the Bloc has said that Quebec law prohibits negative option billing. If that is the case, then perhaps the hon. critic can tell us why in the province of Quebec Videotron is doing it and has been doing it since September 1997.

I was called to do several interviews on this topic. Perhaps the Bloc can enlighten us and tell us why consumers were complaining in Quebec and why when they complained to the provincial consumer office they were told that nothing could be done because it was federal legislation. Is this the new realization? Is this the new life of the Bloc?

I would also like to point out that it was said in a speech by another member from this side of the House that the CRTC has been doing a good job for the last 30 years. I have to disagree with that person. I have to suggest that the speech came directly from the Department of Canadian Heritage and was not a speech of that member.

The fact is that Canadians are not protected, whether they be in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia or Prince Edward Island. Canadians are tired of this arbitrary treatment. Notwithstanding what Bloc members might think, they are simply standing in the way of all Canadians, including their constituents and my constituents, in this matter for very dogmatic reasons which are best known to them and quite frankly not understood by anyone else. This includes the consumers associations in that province.

That being said, as I stated earlier, the time has arrived for members in this place to do something for the people they represent. We represent the people who pay the bills. We do not represent the large corporate interests in cable production which exist across this country.

That being noted, I would like to move another motion in conclusion. I seek unanimous consent to move the following motion:

That the order for second reading be withdrawn and that the subject matter of this bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to make it clear in moving that motion that I am not referring the bill to the committee. I am not asking that the bill be declared a votable item. I am simply asking that the subject matter of this bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Mr. Speaker, I ask that you seek unanimous consent on that point.