Lorne Nystrom

[Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, June 10th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-474, an act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985.

Mr. Speaker, it is an act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act to give more protection to members of pension plans. It does that in three or four ways but the highlight of the bill would ensure that there is adequate representation on the boards of trustees and pension committees and on the different counsel to pensions on behalf of the pension holders themselves.

It would also put a limit of some 10% of the amount of money that may be held in securities by the employer of that particular pension plan. This comes out of the problems that were found in Enron a little while ago in the United States. The bill would provide more protection for Canadians in terms of their pension plans.

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

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

My colleague from Winnipeg asked me what about the 50:50 formula? The federal government puts 50% of extra money into improved services for Canadians and 50% of the money into paying down the national debt and lowering taxes. There was a lopsided proportion where the government put $100 billion into tax cuts over five years. Now it is putting the entire surplus into paying down the national debt and the services that ordinary Canadians need are falling by the wayside.

The last point I would like to make before my 10 minutes runs out and my friend from Winnipeg speaks is that public investment into social programs, such as health and education, into the environment, into infrastructure in Canada and into the farm crisis is good for all Canadians, not just for particular sectors. It strengthens the economy, creates jobs and creates a wealthier economy which gives us more money for social programs in the long run.

An example is the farm crisis where farmers are now suffering because of low commodity prices. The Americans have brought in a farm bill which increases subsidies by tens of billions of dollars; $180 billion over 10 years. What the western grain farmers are now asking for is trade injury legislation to the amount of about $1.3 billion from the federal government. The federal government can afford it. If it put that money into the farm economy, it would create jobs and wealth and would help every Canadian.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I want to stand today to say a few words about the motion before the House which was moved by the Alliance.

When we start talking about equalization and the overpayment to the provinces, the first thing that comes to my mind is that this is a government across the way that cannot count the overpayment to the provinces it is now trying to collect in terms of equalization.

We have had the consistent budgets of the former minister of finance where he has been consistently underestimating the surplus, not just by a small margin, but radically underestimating the surplus. Last year was a very good case in point, where he had a budget in December estimating the surplus to be about $1.5 billion.

Before I get into the rest of my remarks, I want to say that I am splitting my time with my colleague from Winnipeg Centre who will talk more specifically about some of the impacts of the motion vis-à-vis Manitoba and the overpayment in the province of Manitoba.

In general we have had across the way a minister who has really underestimated the surplus, year in and year out. He said the surplus would be $1.5 billion for fiscal 2001-02. As it turns out, the surplus will be more like $7 billion or $8 billion or even $10 billion for fiscal 2001-02. He cannot count and the government has not been able to count, as I said a minute or two ago. It does this year after year.

It is okay to be frugal. It is okay to be prudent. In the past we had a Conservative government led by Brian Mulroney that could not count the other way. It kept saying that we would have a small deficit and the deficit got larger and larger. I see my good friend from Nova Scotia hanging his head in shame as he recalls those days in the Conservative Party when the deficit started to bloom each and every single year, hitting at one time a $40 billion deficit in one particular fiscal year. It really went out of control. The thing about the NDP in Ontario is that it is very good at estimating whatever the surplus or deficit might be.

What I am talking about here is the ability to count. Because if we cannot count and we do not know what the numbers are, it is very hard for people to do any planning if they are not sure what the balance sheet will be at the end of the year. It is hard for the provinces to do planning as well. We are see that now in spades in some provinces, particularly in Manitoba as it worries about this huge overpayment and whether part or all of it might be collected by the federal government.

As we know, the federal government has a taxation agreement with all the provinces except Quebec. It collects these taxes and then makes payments to the provinces in terms of the share of the money that the provinces get.

I also want to spend a few minutes this morning talking about the importance of having an equalization system in the country. This has been part of Canadian fiscal federalism now for quite some time. I can remember many years ago when this was a very important issue in the House in terms of how we create the equality of conditions between the wealthier provinces and the poorer provinces in the country. I remember this during the Trudeau years. I also remember during the constitutional debate when we decided as a country, as a parliament and as provinces to enshrine the principle of equalization in the Constitution of Canada as one of the defining elements of what the country is all about, the creation of the equality of condition between the provinces.

Regardless of whether people come from a poorer province or a wealthier province, the citizens of that province have equal rights to a decent public education, to decent health care, to a decent standard of living and to decent services. If people come from oil rich Alberta where there is a lot of money because oil was discovered there or whether people come from New Brunswick, which has not over the years had the same fiscal ability, people still have the right as citizens of those provinces to have equality of condition. That is what equalization has been all about.

Recently we have had, in particular from the Alliance Party, a movement that is calling into question whether these equalization payments should be there at all or whether these equalization payments should be as high.

Coming from a province like Saskatchewan, which usually gets equalization but a very small part of it, very small payments from equalization, or sometimes does not receive any equalization at all, let me say that it is very important that we defend the principle of equalization and modernize the formula for equalization so that we have greater equality among the provinces.

People should be aware that the Reform Party now the Alliance Party wants to curtail equalization payments. We made a very clear statement about this a week or so ago when the member talked about Atlantic Canadians and how they had developed a psychology of dependency on payments from the federal government. At a press conference he said that other areas and not just Atlantic Canada had this same psychology of dependency.

I wonder to what areas he was referring. He is obviously referring to the other recipients of equalization, which historically have been the provinces of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec. That kind of narrow minded philosophy is very dangerous. It is not the position of somebody who should be a national leader with a national vision of equality across the country. This is the position of someone with a narrow regional vision who does not see a role for the public sector or for public services as a way to enhance the common good in the country.

It is important to reinforce the idea of proper equalization, that it be updated and that the formula be modernized to ensure that every Canadian, regardless of where they came from and regardless of the province's historic wealth or lack thereof, has an equal opportunity to participate in the public good.

When we look at the motion before us, it is very important to reinforce those ideas. The government across the way has to provide more accurate forecasts as to what the revenues are. We can plan to put more money into public services.

Last year, if the federal government had taken its $10 billion surplus and reinvested two-thirds of that in the economy in terms of our infrastructure, think of the jobs that could have been created. If the federal government had invested some of that money in public health care, we could have had a stronger public health care system in Canada. Unfortunately the provinces' shares have gone up over the last couple of decades and the federal government's share has gone down.

With federal investment we could have a national pharmacare program or a home care program with national standards. However the federal government cannot properly count money coming into the federal treasury. At the end of the year, because of current legislation, any surplus goes automatically toward the national debt and that cheats the country of proper debate on where these surpluses should go. That is why it is important that we have more accurate accounting from across the way.

If the Liberals cannot count figures more accurately, then the very least we should have is a fiscal stabilization fund. At the end of the year any surplus would go into this fund and then parliament, on behalf of Canadians, would decide how much money would go into improved services, how much to the national debt and how much into tax cuts. We could then have a democratic debate in the House of Commons to indicate where taxpayer money would be spent. That is the way we should go, but unfortunately we do not have it today.

Last year there was a surplus of $17 billion. The federal government said that the surplus would be much smaller. What happened to that $17 billion? Every penny of that $17 billion went to pay down the national debt. If Canadians were consulted, I think they would have said that it was important to pay a significant portion on the national debt, but not everything. I believe they would have said to put some of that money into health care, public education, the farm crisis and infrastructure.

[Drug Supply Act, June 6th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-473, an act to ensure the necessary supply of patented drugs in cases of domestic emergency or to deal with crises in countries that receive assistance from Canada.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to introduce this bill today. It is a bill that would give Canadians access to important medicines in the event of a biochemical attack and, at the same time, provide access to medication or medicine. It would also provide fair compensation to the pharmaceutical companies.

The bill would also provide that the government covers the cost of producing the drug while providing the manufacturer with a reasonable profit.

The bill would also allow for multiple producers to manufacture the drug and to ensure that the beneficial drugs be widely available to the Canadian public at a time of crisis.

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

[Government Contracts, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, those comments were made before the threat of the Prime Minister yesterday outside the House of Commons. The legislation we now have in this country does not have any teeth.

The government has also been hiding behind the RCMP and the auditor general in terms of public inquiry. Yesterday the auditor general said before a committee of the House that she would have no problem whatsoever with a parliamentary committee having a hearing on this particular issue in terms of it not interfering with her investigation of government advertising.

In light of that comment, would the Deputy Prime Minister now agree to a public inquiry, since the auditor general would not have any problem with this in terms of her investigation?

[Government Contracts, May 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said yesterday:

Give me the names of the guys who are leaking to you and you will have a great story.

The Prime Minister appears desperate. He is now threatening those who have the courage to tell the truth about the unethical behaviour of the Liberal government instead of threatening those who may have been committing some wrongdoing in this country.

I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister a substantive question. Will he now bring in whistleblowing legislation to protect public servants who have the courage to bring the issues of wrongdoing to the public's attention and be protected in doing so?

[Royal Assent Act, May 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I will speak for only a few minutes so that my colleague from Brandon--Souris has a chance to speak before 11 o'clock as well.

I want to say first that we support the bill before the House today, which will change the procedure of how bills achieve royal assent. Our party supports the bill and I gather that all parties in the House support the bill as well. It is a very minor and very timid step toward parliamentary reform of this great institution of parliament.

I do object, in terms of parliamentary reform, to the fact that the bill to reform parliament originates in the Senate, a place that is not elected, not democratic and not accountable. It is rather ironic that a bill to reform this institution comes from a House that needs reform or, in my opinion, abolition, because those people do not have any legitimate authority when they are not elected like members of parliament. They have no accountability. They are senators until the age of 75 and are accountable to absolutely no one. Even their estimates are not very accountable to the House of Commons because the chair of the committee of the Senate that is responsible for Senate spending has refused to appear, or at least has refused to in the last two years, before the appropriate House of Commons committee.

This is my first point : We have to abolish the other place and have a parliamentary system that is totally democratic and accountable to the Canadian people.

In terms of the bill before us today, it is kind of ironic that this bill was in the works for the last 20 years. It has gone through all readings in the other place and now is before the House of Commons. It amends a procedure that has been part of the parliamentary system for about 500 years. For many years here we had a person called the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod who would always knock on the door here whenever royal assent was required. A tiny change was made recently when a woman began doing the procedure. She is called the Usher of the Black Rod. We are about the only parliament in the world that does this for royal assent after every single bill. The British, the Australians and the New Zealanders have made changes to speed up the process by having written royal assent. We have not done that yet in Canada, so we are finally catching up with the times in terms of this procedure.

I also want to say at this time that I think we need pretty radical parliamentary reform to make this place more relevant to all the citizens of this country. We need electoral reform in Canada as well, but this morning I want to talk about parliamentary reform.

In our country, the executive, the Prime Minister, has far too much power, not just at the federal level but at the provincial level as well. Our Prime Minister appoints all the ministers, the parliamentary secretaries, the head of the army, the head of the national police, the head of every important agency, all the senators, the people on all of the important commissions and agencies, and the justices of the supreme court, the federal court and so on. That is awesome power that is given to the Prime Minister under our constitution.

What we need is a parliamentary reform package that would in many cases allow the Prime Minister or the government to nominate someone and have the relevant parliamentary committee ratify or reject the nominee from the federal government. This is the kind of process that we need to take away some power from the executive, from the government.

We also need to take away the power of the government to set election dates whenever it wants. Many democracies in the world have a fixed election date. That should be the case in our country as well so that the Prime Minister does not play with the election date for partisan purposes.

We should have a fixed budget date. With a fixed budget date we could have more planning in terms of the provinces knowing when the federal budget will be delivered. As well, the school boards, the hospital boards and the municipalities then would know when provincial budgets would be delivered. That would be a planning process which would work well on behalf of the people of the country.

We should have a fixed date for throne speeches, fewer confidence votes in the House of Commons, more power for parliamentary committees, more independence for parliamentary committees and more power for individual MPs. That is the kind of democratic reform package we need here in the House of Commons. This bill is just one little timid step in the direction of reforming this institution.

We should also reform the voting system in Canada to bring in a system of proportional representation so that each and every single vote would be equal. Equal citizens would have equal influence. If a party gets 15% of the votes it would have 15% of the seats. As it is now, we are one of only three countries in the world that have more than 8 million people and still use a pure first past the post system, the others being India and the United States.

About a year and a half ago in the United States, George W. Bush got 550,000 fewer votes than Al Gore, but who is the president of the United States? George W. Bush. Historically we have had the same distortions here in this House of Commons.

Even Britain now has started to reform the process, bringing some PR into the Scottish and Welsh parliaments in electing all their MPs to the European parliament through a system of proportional representation.

These are the things we should be doing: reforming parliament, reforming the electoral system and reforming how we finance election campaigns to bring in more public financing. Today's bill is just a small step toward making our system more accountable and more democratic for the ordinary citizens of this country.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on the bill as well as on the amendment and the subamendment moved by the Bloc Quebecois.

As I said earlier today, the bill is really a power grab by the federal Liberal government. It is an infringement upon the civil liberties of the Canadian people. We have to be very careful as to what powers we give ministers of the crown and what powers they can exercise without coming to parliament for a democratic vote of the Parliament of Canada.

The response to September 11 was an area where the government overreacted with Bill C-55. I have seen in the past how governments have overreacted in terms of using their power. The best example of that was the War Measures Act in 1970 which was brought in by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. That was certainly an overreaction. It was like using a sledgehammer to shell a peanut. It was a great overreaction by the prime minister of the day. We once again run the risk of a government overreacting because of a threat of terrorism.

I remind members that we have powers under the criminal code. We have a lot of police powers in the country. The government has all kinds of powers it can exercise in terms of the military. I do not believe we should be giving it even more powers in terms of the bill before the House today.

I am very surprised that this comes from a Liberal government that historically prides itself on being a party of civil liberties, freedom of speech and democracy. I can remember all those great Liberal speeches over the years from Pierre Trudeau and many other great, small l liberals. Now they are introducing a very draconian piece of legislation that will cut off civil liberties and cut off a lot of the freedoms that we in this country have grown to accept over the years.

These powers can be abused. It could be said that it is pretty calm right now so why would the government use these powers. I remember very well that before 1970 and the attack of the FLQ, the murder of James Cross and kidnappings in the country by the FLQ, people were not talking about using extreme measures and all of a sudden the Prime Minister invoked the War Measures Act in the middle of the night. Hundreds of people were arrested during that period of time. I can remember the panic and the emotions that swept the country.

I was one of the 16 members of parliament who got up in the House of Commons and voted no to the invocation of the War Measures Act. I can remember the pressure. There were some 23 members of the NDP caucus. I am not going to name people but I recall two members of the caucus who changed their minds between the caucus room and standing here in the House of Commons. Instead of voting no to the invocation of the War Measures Act, they voted yes because of the tremendous pressure and the emotion of the moment.

The government has awesome powers under the present constitution. There is no need to give it even more powers. There is no need for a minister, the Minister of Transport in particular whoever the Minister of Transport shall be at a future time when we have a so-called terrorist threat to have these kinds of awesome powers and to exercise them without coming to parliament itself to get the permission from the democratically elected representatives of the people to exercise those powers.

I ask members across the way to think long and hard before they agree to pass the bill and make it law. I know that in the government itself a lot of people are concerned. The original bill has been withdrawn and a new bill is before the House of Commons. The new bill is not quite as draconian but it still goes too far. It is still not necessary in terms of protecting the Canadian people against any kind of a threat of terrorism.

I ask Liberals across the way to reflect upon their tradition and their history going back to the days of Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson and the great Liberals of years gone by. I ask them to reflect on all the speeches about civil liberties and rights and participatory democracy. They should ask themselves if they really need this kind of a bill, this kind of a project which is before the House of Commons today.

One of the members from Montreal is a great civil rights lawyer who was first elected in a byelection in the riding of Mount Royal, the former riding of Pierre Trudeau. The member has made speeches on this subject many times. He has expressed great concern about the power and the sweeping nature of the bill. We should look at his comments about why the bill is not necessary.

Those are the main reasons we are concerned about the bill. This is why I support the motion as proposed by the House leader of the Conservative Party, that this House declines to give second reading to Bill C-55 because it constitutes an autocratic power grab by the Liberal government at the expense of the parliamentary oversight and the civil liberties of Canadians, and also the subamendment of the Bloc Quebecois.

Let us pause and not give the bill second reading. At the very least, let us make sure we do not give the bill second reading before we adjourn for the summer on June 21. We will then have a chance to think about it over the summer and have some sober second thought on whether or not it is really necessary.

A real measure of a society is how much freedom parliaments will grant to their citizens. When we look around the world today, we are very lucky to live in a free and democratic society. Many people in many parts of the world do not have that. There are many emerging democracies where people are fighting for the enshrinement of a bill of rights or a charter of rights and for the freedom of speech and the freedom of mobility. Many countries in the world are fighting for that.

People in this country fought in two world wars. I had an uncle who was killed in the second world war during the invasion of Normandy. He fought for democratic rights and for a free, just and democratic society in this country. Let us not take a retrograde step. Let us not step backward and remove some of the rights we already have.

We have had great debates in the House over the years. I remember the patriation debate back in 1980, 1981, 1982 about whether or not we wanted to have a charter of rights enshrined in our constitution. We had a bill of rights for many years. The bill of rights was brought in by former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker of the Conservative Party, a great Saskatchewan parliamentarian. The bill of rights was modelled in part after this country's first bill of rights, which was brought in by Tommy Douglas, the premier of Saskatchewan back in the 1940s and 1950s. We have a long history of having a bill of rights.

For most of those years we saw the development of a bill of rights in every province, including the province of Quebec. For all those years, up until 1982, the bill of rights was not enshrined in the constitution. In 1982 we had a great debate in the House on whether to constitutionalize the bill of rights or leave it outside the constitution. The debate was to decide whether the final authority would ride with the Parliament of Canada or with the courts. That was a great debate but it really divided Canadians.

We came up with the classic Canadian compromise, section 33 of the constitution, the notwithstanding clause. Section 33 allows parliaments to override a decision of the court for a certain period of time. After a certain period of time that override dies, unless the override is renewed. I think the override goes on for three years, if I remember correctly. It says to the courts that they do have the final authority to protect our rights in this country but that they had better be cautious because there is a parliamentary override. There is a balance between the parliamentarians in the legislatures, including the national assembly in Quebec, and the Parliament of Canada being able to override the courts, but on the other hand the reason for overriding the courts has to be pretty sound and just. It is a good compromise.

We developed this kind of unique Canadian system. I have spoken in different areas. I remember speaking in Russia when I was out of politics back in 1994. I spoke about how we developed our constitution and our charter of rights. I talked about the meaning of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the enshrinement in our constitution of minority language rights. We went through long debates and we developed a pretty nice and sophisticated balance in a very unique federal state.

I know many of my friends across the way are very concerned about freedom of speech, civil liberties and civil rights of the Canadian people. I therefore appeal to them once again to not pass the bill before the summer to better reflect over the summer about whether we really need this. Do we want to entrust these awesome powers to some future minister of transport or even the existing Minister of Transport? We can probably think of some pretty interesting ministers of transport who might be there some time in the future with these kinds of powers.

I suggest that if we were to think about the bill very coolly and very soberly we would see that we do not want it. We have the powers today under our existing laws, both federal and provincial. We have the powers now under the Criminal Code of Canada.

I again appeal to the House to pass the amendment moved by the Conservative Party and make sure we take the summer to reflect on this very serious mistake and very serious road we are going down. I hope the Minister of Justice, who is now coming into the House, will share that point of view with me.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 30th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I wish to say a few words on the bill before the House today. I am glad the solicitor general is in the House. Maybe he will take a serious note of some of the changes that people want made in the legislation.

I want to begin by saying that the bill is known as the public safety act, 2002. It replaces Bill C-42 which was introduced of course in the wake of the great tragedy in the United States on September 11. Today marks the official end of the cleanup of ground zero in New York. The appropriate ceremonies will take place there sometime today.

I suppose we can say that the bill represents an improved package for public safety initiatives over what we had in the previous package, which was the government's response in the wake of September 11.

September 11 was a great tragedy for the people in the United States. It was also a great international tragedy. Many people died, including many Canadians. I think some of the reaction of September 11 was to overreact in terms of our response to a very legitimate fight against terrorism.

I think the very first bill the government brought in was a bill of great overreaction. I guess that is probably a fact now. The government then withdrew the bill because of widespread public criticism throughout the country. There were all kinds of objections from civil liberty groups, parliamentarians from all political parties in the House of Commons, many commentators, people in provincial governments and the like. Bill C-42 was withdrawn and Bill C-55 has been brought in to replace it.

We in our party oppose Bill C-55 because it is still in our opinion an attack on human rights. It gives unprecedented powers to certain federal cabinet ministers, particularly the Minister of Transport. I think that is a dangerous way to go.

I was in the House of Commons in the 1980s when we had great pride in enshrining a charter of rights in our constitution. We went through a great debate about individual rights, the freedom of speech, the freedom of mobility, what should be in the charter and what should or should not be enshrined in the constitution.

After a long and sometimes acrimonious debate we decided to enshrine a charter of rights in the Constitution of Canada to protect the individual rights and liberties of every Canadian regardless of background or where we came from.

I suggest to members that the bill before the House today is an attack on those human rights. It gives far too much power to the Minister of Transport and certain other ministers of the crown.

We live in a parliamentary democracy. I think we need a great deal of parliamentary reform in terms of democratizing this institution and democratizing our electoral system in Canada. To give more power to a cabinet minister who can exercise those powers through an edict basically, through an order in council, through permission from fellow cabinet ministers around a cabinet table in this very building, I think goes too far.

I also believe that the present criminal code and the police powers we have are adequate. The present laws are adequate to deal with any terrorist threat, real or perceived.

Once we give this kind of power to a cabinet minister, regardless of who that individual may be, there is always the possibility of abuse of that power. I remember the War Measures Act in 1970. I remember the Trudeau government of that day. Pierre Trudeau was a person who was committed to civil liberties and civil rights. Despite the fact that he talked a lot about a new democracy and participatory democracy he invoked the War Measures Act to deal with the Front de Libération du Québec in 1970.

It was an overreaction. The Government of Canada under Pierre Trudeau took a sledgehammer to open a peanut. There were troops outside the House of Commons. It was my second year in the House. All kinds of innocent people were arrested under the War Measures Act. If I remember correctly there was a member of parliament across the way who was arrested under the act. He was the leader of the teachers' union in Quebec at the time. Other members of the House of Commons might have been in similar situations. I knew all kinds of people who were arrested under the War Measures Act in an overreaction by the federal government.

The leader of the opposition at the time, Robert Stanfield, supported the invocation of the act. When he left public life he said the biggest mistake he had made in his political career was to get up and support the invocation of the War Measures Act by then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the Liberal Party. It was an overreaction.

I was one of the 16 members of parliament who stood in the House in opposition to the act. There were 23 of us in the NDP caucus and 16 of us stood in opposition to the invocation of the act. A feeling of hostility greeted us from some members of the House and many members of the public because of the fear being whipped up throughout the country at the time.

The government already has awesome powers. It and the military have tremendous powers under existing law. The criminal code gives police powers that are broad in scope. We have seen those powers exercised in the past. Additional powers do not need to be given to the Minister of Transport and other cabinet ministers to deal with the threat of terrorism.

There is nothing as fundamental as individual freedoms and civil liberties. That is why so many people are concerned about Bill C-55. That is why it should not be passed in the House of Commons before we recess on June 21. Sober thought should be given to the bill by all members of parliament over the summer months. I hope when we come back in the fall the Government of Canada will withdraw the bill and find it is not necessary in terms of security, peace, justice and freedom in our country.

Many of the freedoms we have were hard fought for and difficult to achieve. Taking them away by giving a cabinet minister this kind of power would be the wrong way to go. The powers the government wants to give itself are unnecessary. They would be an infringement on the rights of the Canadian people. We are a proud country in terms of trying to defend minority rights. I mentioned the War Measures Act as a sad reflection on our history where the Government of Canada overreacted.

As I watched the hon. member from Vancouver East walk into the House of Commons I thought of another time a Canadian government overreacted. Japanese Canadians were rounded up during the second world war and shipped to internment camps in the interior of British Columbia because they happened to be of Japanese ancestry. Canadians of Japanese ancestry were arrested and put into internment camps. That is part of the history of our country.

I am not suggesting this would happen again but it has happened in the past. Giving this additional power to a cabinet minister and the Prime Minister would invite overreaction in the future. That is why our party does not want to see Bill C-55 through the House of Commons. Bill C-42 which was in the House before and after Christmas was widely criticized as being draconian and dangerous for the freedom and liberty of Canadian citizens. I am sure that is why the government did not proceed with it. There was a public perception that the bill was an overreaction. Unfortunately, Bill C-55 offers little improvement.

In fact, this is the same bill. It may be slightly different, but this is essentially the same bill. This is why we must hold an extensive debate in the House and defeat this bill. This is crucial.

I hope my hon. colleagues in the Liberal Party will at least listen to one of their own members, a prominent civil rights lawyer from Montreal who expressed deep concern in the House that the bill would give undue power to cabinet ministers and diminish the civil liberties of Canadians.

Where is the liberalism in the Liberal Party? Why do its members not get up and defend the freedoms of ordinary Canadians? Is it not ironic that a Liberal Party is bringing in this kind of draconian legislation? I appeal to members of the Liberal Party to get up on their small-l liberal legs to speak out against this draconian piece of legislation.

[Taxation, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. It is a question on tax policy. Deaf and hard of hearing people, including students, now are issued tax bills for funds they receive to hire a sign language interpreter or a captioner. This taxation imposes an unfair financial burden and hardship, in particular on students, forcing many to discontinue their studies.

Will the minister do the right thing now and stop issuing tax bills for services that help to provide a level playing field for students and all Canadians who have hearing difficulties?