Lorne Nystrom

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Bloc Quebecois member.

In its proposal to the House today, the Canadian Alliance made no mention of agriculture. Agriculture is important to this country. Our farmers have experienced many problems, including strong competition from the United States and European countries, given the massive subsidies that are provided in the United States and Europe.

There is currently an agriculture bill before the U.S. congress, which would provide massive subsidies to American farmers, to the tune of $173 billion.

Does the Bloc Quebecois agree that agriculture must be recognized as an important priority in next week's budget? I believe that we need to stimulate the economy in the agricultural sector across Canada, not only in the west, but in Quebec, Ontario and throughout the country.

Does he agree with this proposal?

[Supply, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the member. What we need in the budget is some stimulus in the economy to create jobs. One area is in agriculture.

Since the government across the way took office in 1993, there have been cutbacks of almost 50% in federal farm support programs, cutbacks that amount to almost $2 billion. The United States house of representatives has passed a new farm bill for $173 billion in farm aid in the next 10 years, on top of the previous farm aid of $70 billion in the last four years. I notice that this is missing in the Alliance motion before the House.

It seems to me that is a very important part of our economy. The farmers need help. It would stimulate the economy. It would be a great investment in the future of the country. Why is that not in the motion before the House today presented by the Leader of the Opposition?

[Income Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2001, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on this bill. We are now at the third reading stage.

It is an important bill in terms of tax treaties that are being signed and agreed to, and protocols between our country and a number of other countries around the world. It is important in terms of people travelling between these countries, residents of other countries, Canadians who travel abroad and reciprocal arrangements with other countries.

I want to make two other points. I object to the bill originating in the Senate. That may surprise a couple of people in the House, but the Senate is not elected and is not accountable. It costs Canadian taxpayers $60 million a year. Members are elected by the people of the country and in principle bills should originate in the House of Commons. It is indicative of the fact that we need serious parliamentary reform in the House of Commons. The Senate should be abolished. The House of Commons should be changed and the checks and balances that are supposed to be done by the Senate should be brought to the House of Commons through stronger parliamentary committees, fewer confidence votes, less power to the Prime Minister's Office and the executive and more power to committees and backbench members of parliament.

I have been in the House under several prime ministers, including prime ministers Trudeau, Turner, Mulroney and the present member for Calgary Centre. As the years progress, more and more power is concentrated in the executive and the Prime Minister's Office. Members of parliament have less and less power. We see it across the way with Liberal members who often disagree with a government bill but cannot speak out because they want to be a cabinet minister, a parliamentary secretary, the chair of a committee, go on a trip or get some other parliamentary perk.

The time has come to have serious parliamentary reform and to make this place meaningful by abolishing the unelected Senate. It is accountable to no one in the country. Senators are appointed and are there until the age of 75. There is no place for that kind of legislative institution in modern day Canada. We will not regain the confidence of the Canadian people until we do some of those things.

In the last election campaign I was astounded when only 61% of the people voted. In 1997, 67% of the people voted. I recall the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s when 75% to 80% of the people participated in every campaign. There is a real democratic deficit in the country and when a tax bill originates in the Senate it is just another symbol of that democratic deficit. I lodge that as a complaint and I wish that more members across the way would do the same thing.

We have had prime minister after prime minister talk about the abolition of the unelected house. Some did not want to have a unicameral system. Some wanted to have a bicameral system, an elected Senate with reduced powers. Some even wanted to abolish the Senate altogether as was the case with Brian Mulroney when he came to this place. That is in the biography of John Crosbie. People can read about the conversation he had with Brian Mulroney regarding the abolition of the Senate.

Something has to be done. Some polls show that only 5% and in other polls 11% of Canadians support the Senate with its existing powers, yet we sit here week after week and year after year as politicians and do nothing about it. I think the time has come to do something about it.

I will say a couple of words about taxes. Once again the country has started to talk about a fair taxation system based on the ability to pay. In the 1960s the Carter commission recommended that a buck was a buck and regardless of where individuals earned the money they would only be taxed on that dollar. Today we have too many loopholes and benefits for the wealthy and large corporations.

The ordinary person who works for a living at minimum wage or at $10, $20 or $30 an hour ends up paying far too much of the taxation burden. In the last budget Canadians had a $100 billion tax cut over five years. Of course some of the ordinary people benefit from that but the people who benefit the most are the wealthy and large corporations.

When we talk about a tax bill, we should talk about tax fairness and tax justice. I do not object to the tax treaties and protocols that are being debated in the House of Commons, but I do object to the fact that we do not have a fair tax system in Canada.

I object very strenuously to our examining a bill here that was introduced in the Senate of Canada. From the point of view of the democratic process, it is very important for all bills to be introduced here in the House of Commons, the members of which were elected by the people of Canada.

[Agriculture, December 3rd, 2001]

Despite that, Mr. Speaker, there has been a cutback of almost $2 billion since the Liberals took office in 1993.

We have now seen the Americans approve another farm bill of $173 billion U.S. for the next 10 years. This is on top of some $70 billion over the last four years.

Under the Canadian farm income program, only about half of Saskatchewan farmers will actually use the money because most farmers do not qualify as the standards are too strict. There is a need for investment in agriculture and farmers are waiting. I ask again, when can we expect some assistance and what kind of money can we expect in the budget? The farmers are waiting for an answer.

[Agriculture, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the acting prime minister.

The Canadian economy shrunk in the third quarter of this year. For the first time since 1992 we have seen a shrinkage in the economy. What we need is a stimulus budget to get the economy back on its feet. One area that needs investment is agriculture. Since the Liberals took office in 1993 they have cut spending on agriculture by almost $2 billion, a cutback that is approaching some 50%, and further cutbacks are being planned.

Will the government make a commitment now to invest in agriculture, or do we have to endure another round of empty promises and hard times for the farmers? Can we have a commitment now?

[The Economy, November 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the acting prime minister.

Interest rates and credit cards are sitting at 18%. The prime rate is sitting at only 4%. That is probably the widest gap between the two in the history of the country. Meanwhile, consumer debt loan in terms of credit cards is sitting at $40 billion. That is bad for the economy, bad for consumers and bad for business.

Will the government approach its friends in the big banks and ask them to roll back these outrageously high interest rates in terms of being fair to the consumers?

[Public Transportation, November 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

Public transit in this country is facing a serious funding crisis. We are the only country in the G-8 where the national government does not help fund urban transit. Vancouver transit is now increasing its fares and Toronto transit will face a $22 million shortfall in the next year.

Investment in public transport will reduce smog, improve health and create jobs in this country. Will the Minister of Finance respond to this growing crisis and provide sufficient funding for public transport in his budget in order to meeting our commitments to the Kyoto agreement?

[Anti-terrorism Act, November 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to say a few words on the proposed amendments, which have been introduced by a number of members, to Bill C-36, the terrorism bill.

At the outset, the events on September 11 in New York City were absolutely terrible and of course we have to respond to terrorism around the world and the potential on our own country. However, this could have been done through the existing provisions of the criminal code.

The criminal code allows a great deal of flexibility for the RCMP, for CSIS and for police authorities to do what they have to do in terms of terrorism, along with some additional money to the RCMP and for security that I expect to come down in the budget on December 10 from the Minister of Finance. That would have been the route to go.

One thing that always concerns me, when we get into these kinds of situations, is that we have to watch out for what is an overreaction by government. Democracy itself is pretty fragile and we have to watch for an overreaction to events. We have seen this before. If we went back through history, we would see what happened to the Japanese Canadians in the second world war when there was an overreaction to the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese participation in World War II.

More recently in 1970, we had the invocation of the War Measures Act. I was one of the members of parliament in the House of Commons in 1970. Sixteen of us who voted against the invocation of the act. I remember those days very well. There was a great deal of fear, anger and concern for what might happen.

All of a sudden in the middle of the night the War Measures Act was invoked by the government of the day. There was a real trampling on civil liberties and civil rights by the police, particularly in the province of Quebec. I can remember the extra police precautions around this place. I remember our soldiers were on Parliament Hill. We were all caught up in this frenzy that there was an apprehended insurrection about to occur, which was the warning of the War Measures Act. After a bit of discussion in cabinet, it was invoked. No discussion took place in the House of Commons before it was invoked.

I remember very well the pressure that occurred when we had a vote and only 16 of us voted against the invocation of that Act.

In terms of the overreaction, I remember the then leader of the opposition, Robert Stanfield, a very honourable, decent and progressive man, said after he retired from this place that the biggest political regret that he had as a member of parliament perhaps in his whole political career was that he did not vote against the invocation of the War Measures Act at that time.

There was a real panic and a real mood of the moment. I remember the fear that people had in my riding and around the country because of the frenzy in the media at that time.

A few years after that, most people concluded that it was a tremendous overreaction by the government of the day to invoke the War Measures Act and that it did not have to be done. What had to be done could have been done under the criminal code and the provisions in the criminal code.

Once again we have a very similar situation with the terrible thing that happened in New York City on September 11. We have a minister bring in the anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-36, which in my opinion is an overreaction. It gives more than necessary powers to police authorities. It suspends for a longer period of time than is needed, civil liberties. There are sunset clauses on certain provisions of the bill but not on all of it. These things do not need to occur nor should they occur.

When I look at the list of witnesses who appeared before the justice committee hearings in the Centre Block, many of the changes they recommended are not part of the package that was tabled by the Minister of Justice.

Many of the amendments that are not part of those are in the package we are debating today. I encourage the government across the way to live up to the tradition of the Liberal party, historically at least, a party which was concerned about civil liberties, human rights and adequate protection of the individual living within the criminal code and having the balance in a free and democratic society. These are the things in which the Liberal party has historically believed.

It is ironic that we had the invocation of the War Measures Act by a Liberal prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. Now we have another Liberal Prime Minister, who was a justice minister in those days, bringing in the anti-terrorism bill. Both of these things have been done by Liberal Parties, not the Conservative Parties and not the Alliance Party.

It is with a great deal of concern that I encourage members across the way to accept some of these amendments. I know many members across the way are not happy with the bill of the Minister of Justice. There are at least two cabinet ministers who have spoken privately and expressed a great deal of concern about the bill. In our parliamentary system of cabinet solidarity that is a big no-no. I suspect many other ministers are concerned about this as well.

If we had a free vote in the House, I think we would have a radically different bill. I guess this is another reason why we need some parliamentary reform in this, so that members are more free to vote with their consciences or in accordance with what they think their constituents want or desire.

I hope before this debate is over that we will have a change of heart and that there will be some new amendments tabled by the government. Perhaps some members across the way will get up and speak against certain provisions of the bill and will ask some of the questions that I think need to be asked.

My prediction is that when we go down the road another five or ten years, many people on the Liberal side, who voted for the bill, will say, if not publicly at least privately, that they made a mistake, that the bill went too far, that the bill was not necessary and that we had adequate provisions in the criminal code. I believe we will have the same reaction to this as we had to the War Measures Act when the incidents of October 1970 became history.

I will close by saying we should withdraw the bill. It is not necessary. Democracy is a very fragile thing here or anywhere in the world. These kinds of bills are a threat to the democratic process. They are a threat to due process, and it is an overreaction. It is using a sledgehammer to crack open a peanut. I think the government will live to regret the day that it passed this bill into the history of our country and that it put whips on their backbenches to make sure that they all voted in unison for a bill that was totally, in my opinion, unnecessary because of the powers in the criminal code.

I hope that some government members who feel that way will get up and express their points of view. We will not change the rules of this place until that starts happening in a more systematic way.

A member who ran for speaker was concerned about some of the rigidities in our parliamentary system and how we were really handcuffed in our parliamentary in terms of a real freedom of speech and votes. We are perhaps the most handcuffed parliamentary system in the world when it comes to our freedom to vote.

Even in Britain, which is the mother of parliaments, the Tony Blair government is very popular, and the Margaret Thatcher government before that was very popular in its first term. In both those governments, bills that were introduced by those prime ministers were defeated when the backbenchers of their parties joined in unison with the opposition parties to bring the bills down. In those cases the government did not fall. The government continued on. There were no measures of confidence.

This should not be a measure of confidence. It is not a money bill and it is not a throne speech which is giving a vision of where the government wants to take the country. It is simply another bill in the path of the parliamentary journals. I hope some members will speak their minds and then vote according to their consciences or the wishes of their constituents.

[Points of Order, November 26th, 2001]

I rise on a question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, arising out of the comments that have just been made.

I am sure you are aware, Mr. Speaker, that the final bill was only available on Saturday and there was a deadline of 6 p.m. Saturday to file amendments.

Part of the problem in terms of my privileges is that the NDP caucus was not here. We had a national convention in Winnipeg and the House recognized that by taking Friday off. Therefore none of the NDP members were around to see the final copy of the bill nor to meet the deadline to file amendments by 6 p.m. on Saturday. We did not have that available to us and I feel that affects my privileges as a member of parliament.

The House recognized the importance of a national convention by adjourning on Friday, which it does for all national parties when they have a national convention.

It affects my privileges and it affects the privileges of the other 12 members of my caucus. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that is a genuine question of privilege.

[The Senate, November 20th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, before the member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam leaves the House, I would like to commend him for introducing the motion on greater democracy in our parliamentary system. It is extremely important that we democratize our parliamentary institutions and our voting system.

I want to say to him before he leaves that during the decade of the 1980s, I was the NDP critic for constitutional affairs for all five constitutional rounds. The most difficult issue I had to deal with pre-Charlottetown and the Beaudoin-Dobbie report and the Beaudoin-Edwards report, was the whole issue of what was to be done with the Senate.

The meetings went on for weeks and weeks here before Charlottetown. We kept leaving the Senate issue to last. It was more difficult than the division of powers. It was more difficult than the charter of rights. It was more difficult than language rights and all kinds of other very complicated issues.

It was interesting that at the very end we had a three party agreement on the Senate. This may surprise the member. Maybe he has already studied it. We recommended at that time that we elect the Senate and do it totally by proportional representation. The interesting thing was that we had all party agreement on it which took considerable compromise for our party, for example, and its historic position, and for other parties as well. That proposal of the House of Commons went to the first ministers. The first ministers decided to jettison that particular proposal.

It is a very complicated issue that we are dealing with today. It is historically very difficult. I commend the member for raising it. I think he means well when he says we should elect senators or appoint the senators who have been elected by certain provinces that have legislation to elect them. I see one major problem with that, and I say this in a very sincere way. I believe we would have all kinds of very unintended consequences if we were to appoint the senators whom different provinces elect.

Alberta has legislation to elect a senator. If we started doing that for Alberta, we would find that the other provinces would probably start doing the same thing. Before we knew it, in a very unintended way, we would have a completely elected Senate.

The powers of the Senate are the ones that were decreed upon it going back to 1867. The representation of the Senate is based on the population, the demographics and the intent of the Fathers of Confederation back in 1867. Once we legitimize the Senate, those senators who are then elected will not agree to any serious reform that would diminish their powers.

We would have 24 elected senators in Ontario, 24 in the province of Quebec, only six in the province of British Columbia and 10 in new Brunswick. British Columbia would only have six senators out of 104, which is 5% of the Senate, and the population of B.C. is already well over 5% of Canada and is growing very rapidly. In an unintended way we would lock in a very unfair system with tremendous distortions in representation. Prince Edward Island has four senators for some 130,000 people. British Columbia has a population of some three million or thereabouts. If in effect we were to put the cart before the horse by agreeing to allow the Prime Minister to appoint senators elected by the provinces based on the current representation, my fear is we would never change the representation in the Senate.

The current Senate actually has considerable powers. It does not use those considerable powers because senators are not elected. However, if they were elected, why would they not use those powers? They would have as much legitimacy as the House of Commons. Why would they not use those powers? We would invite deadlock between the two houses. That was not something that was foreseen by the people who drafted the Canadian constitution. They saw it as an appointed house with the House of Commons superseding the Senate in terms of powers. That would be one of the unintended consequences.

I can tell the member that when we dealt with the Charlottetown agreement a number of years ago, when different proposals were made, we always had difficulty in terms of representation and powers. If we had a vision of an elected Senate with a lot of powers, then there was no way under the sun we could get equality of the provinces. Ontario and Quebec would not stand for it, and why would they with so many people? Ontario and Quebec have two-thirds or 70% of the people of this country. Why would they agree to equality with Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and so on?

If we reduce radically the powers of the Senate to the point where it is not very relevant, why have a Senate at all? It is like a dog chasing its tail. The proposal, which is really well intended in terms of democracy and democratic reform, is putting the cart before the horse.

The question is what do we do? Historically I believe we should abolish the place. Prior to Charlottetown we came to the point of view that we would elect the Senate but we would do it totally by proportional representation. I am back to just abolishing the place because I do not think we are ever going to reform it.

I remember when Brian Mulroney came to the House of Commons as prime minister he wanted to abolish the Senate. Many prime ministers have wanted to reform the Senate: Prime Minister Trudeau; Prime Minister Pearson; Prime Minister Diefenbaker. Many prime ministers wanted to reform the Senate but it is never going to happen. It is easier just to abolish it, get rid of it.

In polls today about 5% of Canadians support the existing Senate with the existing powers, existing representation and so on. The other 95% are split roughly 50:50 between Senate reform and the abolition of the Senate. In the polls over the past five or six years, the abolition movement in Canada has been growing each and every year. People are frustrated spending $60 million a year on an unelected, unaccountable, undemocratic institution.

The member from British Columbia raised a very good question. He directed it to the NDP in general about what happens to the smaller provinces and regions if we have only one house, a unicameral system. The Senate is supposed to fulfill two responsibilities. One is a check and balance on the powers of the House of Commons. The other one is regional representation in the central institution of parliament.

In my opinion we cannot have the abolition of the Senate in isolation. We have to look at a democratic and growing reform mechanism. If we abolish the Senate, the checks and balances the Senate is supposed to have should be brought into reforming the House of Commons itself. MPs need more power, the committee chairs, the finance committee, all the committees need more power, more independence.

We are the most handcuffed parliamentary system in the world in terms of having confidence votes on almost every issue and having very few free votes. The Prime Minister should not have the power to make all the appointments that he does. There should be a ratification process by the relevant parliamentary committee. We should have fixed election dates, fixed budget dates to democratize our system. If we did that, we would move some of the checks and balances that were intended to be held in the hands of the senators by the drafters of the constitution in the first place into the House of Commons. We would have checks and balances on the executive or the government.

That is one important function of the Senate we can bring into the House of Commons and make the role of the ordinary member of parliament a great deal more meaningful than it is today. I have been here since 1968, except for four years. I have seen the erosion of the power and the relevancy of this place, the erosion of parliamentary democracy.

More power is being concentrated in the hands of the executive. It got worse during the latter part of the Trudeau days and worse yet during the Mulroney days. It is worse now during the days of the current Prime Minister. If anyone has to verify that, ask Liberal backbenchers about the power of the Prime Minister's Office and the lack of power of individual members of parliament. We cannot ask them publicly because our parliamentary system now has so much power in the hands of the Prime Minister and the executive that a government backbencher cannot speak out. It has to be changed.

With regard to regionalism, if we are going to get rid of the Senate we should bring in a system of proportional representation where the will of the people is reflected accurately here in the central institution, the House of Commons. We would have a parliamentary system, a voting system where if a party got 10% of the votes it would get 10% of the seats in the House. The regions would be represented here in the centre. Any kind of government or parliament in the world that has some measure of proportional representation tends to have a better national vision in how it governs. It forces all parties to have a national vision.

When the Liberal Party cannot win seats in the rural prairies or the NDP does not win seats in Quebec or the Alliance does not win seats in Newfoundland, we all as political parties tend to narrow our focus in terms of what we concentrate on. We need a system of proportional representation or a measure of proportional representation in order to reflect the will of people here in the House of Commons.

If we abolished the Senate, reformed the electoral system, reformed parliament and made parliament more democratic, I think we would have an institution that would make all Canadians a lot more proud than they are today.

The intentions of the member are honourable but I think if we elected a Senate based on existing powers and on existing representation we would be making the big mistake of locking into our parliamentary system a mechanism that was designed over 100 years ago.