Randy White

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad tonight that the Liberals have resolved all the problems of Canadians so now they can create some more with Bill C-41.

I was talking to a fellow today about Bill C-41. He said that the solicitor general will probably have a little bit of a new job as a result of this. He will have to get new signs outside of the prisons now. We will not call them prisons. We will call them institutes for the morally challenged. That is where this kind of legislation is heading.

One of the Liberal members talked about incidental terms, minor terms. Why are we talking about section 718.2? There are so many other good things in this bill. Why are we concentrating on it?

It is truly sad that the Liberal government does not get it. We need a sentencing bill. What we have is a sentencing bill mixed into an omnibus bill that has every other agenda that Canadians do not want. How do we deal with a debate when we want improvements to sentencing but all these other side issues of the Liberal government are involved in it? We vote against it even though there are some provisions that might be good. We have to vote against it because it has some things that are ridiculous.

I note in the bill on page 3 there is an attempt to define things. For instance, there are definitions of accused, alternatives, what a court means. There are all kinds of definitions in the bill. It escapes me as to why the definition of sexual orientation is not in the bill.

If it is undefined, who gets to define it? All of the lawyers in the country who are going to spend an inordinate amount of our money at the cost of victims, once again will define sexual orientation. They are also going to be defining other issues in the bill, issues based on bias, prejudice and hate.

This will come about at the cost of the victim once again running through court case after court case trying to get definitions. I might try to help the Liberal government because I am going to define it tonight. I am going to define sexual orientation.

I get my definition from a number of authors produced in a book by Victims of Violence with which I have had some association in the past. They say that the term sexual preference and sexual orientation are essentially the same thing. In fact, in the index of the recent Sex in America study under sexual orientation'' the reader is directed to seeAttitudes About Sex'', which includes sexual preference. Both refer to the type

of individual a person is sexually attracted to. If pedophiles are ever to hope to be protected by the law, they must first show that pedophilia is a sexual orientation.

I would like to read a couple of quotes in an attempt to define it, because they do not have the courage to do it.

Dr. David Greenberg, a psychiatrist at the sexual behaviour clinic at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, said: "Heterosexuality, homosexuality, pedophilia-they are all just different orientations and an individual may have a number of them".

The first lawyer who comes up on the first case of pedophilia will attempt to define it. Perhaps the lawyer for Alan Winter, a pedophile from my area, will attempt to define it, because the government has not the courage to define it.

Kim Tate, author of Child Pornography , 1990, defined a pedophile as ``an individual above the age of consent who prefers to have sex with children and who fantasizes about them''. That is found at page 104.

Dr. Fred Berlin of the John Hopkins Medical School, in the Focus on the Family newsletter, number 11, November 1992, said that pedophilia is a value judgment and it may be a different kind of sexual orientation.

Do they understand where these folks are coming from? If this government does not define sexual orientation then other people will in the courts. If the government has not the courage of its convictions, why is it leaving it to the courts?

The comment I hear from a Liberal member is that statutes are normally interpreted by the courts. That tells us everything about the reason the Liberal government will not define sexual orientation. It will leave it to the lawyers to do it at the cost of young kids in this country.

Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute in Washington said: "Sexual orientation is as ambiguous as political orientation".

Why will the government not define it?

Let us go to a quote from the Right Hon. Prime Minister when he was the justice minister. He was asked in the House of Commons on January 21, 1981, what sexual orientation meant. He stated:

It is because of the problem of the definition of those words that we do not think they should be in the Constitution. Do not ask me today to tell you what it is, because those concepts are difficult to interpret, to define and that is why we do not want them in the Constitution. I am not going to venture to tell you what is sexual orientation. I am not interested; and I will not fall into that trap, because we do not want them for the very reason that it is socially and in terms of law it is a very difficult area.

In 1981, before he was Prime Minister, he did not want it. And here we are in 1995 and he does not have the courage to define it. He is going to leave it to the courts.

One only has to have some experience with a pedophile to understand what is going on. In my community, Alan Winter had a foster home. He had over 80 children sent to him by one of the governments in the country. Thirty-one of those people, of whom I have met a number, were all molested by Alan Winter. He got sentenced to 16 years in prison as a dangerous offender but of course the parole board let him out in a little over five years. That is a different story, which will hit the House one day soon.

An hon. member said that has nothing to do with this bill but it has everything to do with this bill. This government does not have the courage to define sexual orientation in section 718.2 of Bill C-41. It is going to get defined, and the very people who are committing unlawful acts of pedophilia are going to use sexual orientation as an excuse. That is what is wrong with it.

Some say this is fear mongering; some say this is homophobic. This is reality. This is what the lawyers out there are sitting on. In fact I have a video of a lawyer in this country saying exactly that: that will be his defence.

Since we have over 80,000 signatures from petitioners from every province and territory in this country saying do not proceed with this area of the act, why is it that the government chooses to ignore those people? Why is it that this government chooses to ignore people by restricting debate and calling closure on this particular bill, on MPs' pensions, on Bill C-68? Why is it?

There is one word this government should remember. It is "retroactive". When we get on that side of the fence, the tables will be turned.

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

I hear over here that it is not going to happen. If not, why does the government not allow us to debate this issue instead of calling closure on it? The government is saying it can read the Canadian people so well, but it is absolutely wrong. It is wrong on Bill C-68, on Bill C-41, and on those preposterous MP pensions on Bill C-85, which it is insisting on bringing in.

The Ontario Handgun Association I believe wrote all MPs letters. I will give members information it provided to us.

Recent survey data indicate that a minimum of one-third of Canadian gun owners will refuse to comply with the proposal by the Minister of Justice to register all firearms. In the 1995 gun control survey organized by Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University, Canadian firearm owners were asked the following question: "If the government's proposal to register all firearms becomes law, do you plan on registering all, some or none of your firearms?" The response to this question is in the final analysis nearly one-third of all Canadian firearm owners candidly admitted to a stranger over the telephone that they would not register their firearms.

What is wrong with a government that puts through closure on such an important issue when Canadians will tell it to stick it in its ear?

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, before the vote I talked about the closure issue. Closure was forced upon the democratic principles of the House by the Liberal government before debate really took place on the Bill C-68 gun issue. Although the justice committee talked about the gun control legislation, there is more to it than that. The public has a right to hear from all members, all of its representatives from across the country on this issue. I do not think what the Liberals have done is in the least bit democratic. Back in my riding people are asking why such an imposition has occurred on this particular bill.

In fact, the Reform Party introduced 138 amendments to Bill C-68. I would like to ask the government, with closure limiting debate to six hours at report stage and another six hours at third reading, how on earth is it possible to debate 138 amendments? It surely does not allow the members of the Reform Party to accurately describe what is wrong with Bill C-68. This is forcing an anti-democratic bill through the House and it is wrong.

That is in part what is wrong with a majority government. This government has not taken the hint from the last government that was in majority in this House of Commons. It got arrogant. It got overconfident. In the early stages, those are the signs we are seeing from this Liberal government. That is unfortunate, but fortunate for the rest of the land because we only have about two years to put up with this nonsense.

There are two other bills of particular note going through here on the basis of closure, and they are Bill C-41 and Bill C-85, the criminal justice system and MPs' pensions. Again, this government invoked closure on perhaps the most important legislation they could dream up since Parliament opened. They forced closure on it. It is absolutely unbelievable.

I can tell members that there are many people across this land who do not understand why, including myself. They make jokes about it here as I talk. We will see where the jokes go two years from now when we hit the election.

Before the votes started I was about to talk a little about the Ridgedale Rod and Gun Club, one of many rod and gun clubs in

this country. I had the privilege of participating in a shoot in that club about three weeks ago. I won one of the competitions. It was on a politically correct gun competition with pistols and politically incorrect guns. I had never really shot these pistols before, although I am a gun owner myself; I have three rifles. What surprised me in particular about this competition was the level of pride and satisfaction these members had. There was an extreme level of competence these people had.

One of the members who spoke here previously from the Liberal Party said that these people do not mind Bill C-68. Every person at the Ridgedale Rod and Gun Club was extremely upset at it.

I do not understand how a government that invokes closure on this bill, says it is not costly, and whose members say that people agree with what they are doing could be so wrong. I guess what we are going to see is a lot of this Liberal arrogance for the next two years. It is going to catch them and it is going to catch them hard.

These people at the Ridgedale Rod and Gun Club, I have admiration for people who have collections of any sort. There were several people there. One fellow had one of the better collections of Enfield rifles in Canada. He was asking: "Why are they doing this? What is this for? Come and look at my collection. I will show you what safety is all about". I did not get to see the collection, but as far as safety goes with these folks, they are probably number one in the country. They know what gun safety is all about.

I do not understand what the direction is here. I thought we were after crime and criminals. These people are not criminals. These are not crime makers unless a government chooses to head them in that direction by way of calling them criminals by virtue of non-compliance with Bill C-68.

[Firearms Act, June 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, in the words of my colleague, I should like to straighten out the previous speaker from the Liberal Party on a couple of issues.

He suggested that we were tying up the time of the House on the bill. He more or less said that it was terrible for us to do so and that it was not all that important. In my community and in communities across the country it is important to people. If the hon. member wants to look back at the number of petitions presented in Hansard , he would see that the numbers of names on them are extensive. If he says it is not important he is missing the boat.

He also said that we have been debating the issue for over a year. It is my understanding that the bill was introduced on February 14. It must be another short year for the Liberals.

There were amendments to the gun laws in 1977 and 1991. Many people ignored those changes. I have evidence from several studies which indicate that is exactly what will happen next. As much as these folks are insisting on putting these things in, a lot of people are saying it is hogwash and will not work.

There is something about the costs they say are small but I wonder about the costs of all the policing, of this whole exercise, of making sure all the law-abiding citizens remain law-abiding citizens or perhaps trying to find them as being criminals.

The cost of their time spent enforcing gun laws as opposed to time looking at the more severe problems of drugs and so on is extra ordinary cost. For a member of the other party to put that swing on it is absurd.

I recently competed in a politically correct competition with the Ridgedale Rod and Gun Club in my riding. If I could not use a prop-

[Highways, June 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, at least we have somebody answering for that fellow over there.

What we have across the room today is a government that has a lack of ethics, a lack of honesty and a lack of accountability, but there is no shortage of arrogance across there at all.

I have an anniversary present for the minister of public works. I will share a significant quote from our current illustrious minister of public works from Hansard exactly six years ago today, which proves just how adaptable these Liberals are. The quote reads:

I am opposed to pork barreling schemes which only benefit friends of Tories. That is what I am against.

He said that when he was in opposition.

I ask the Deputy Prime Minister if the minister of public works opposes pork barreling in principle, or just for Tories.

[Highways, June 8th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, this highway 104 scandal reminds me of the old chicken jokes like: "Why did the chicken cross highway 104?" The answer is: "To avoid the toll booth".

Now I find the Liberal member for Cumberland-Colchester is publicly proposing that a toll booth be put on the New Brunswick border of highway 104, a move that will surely start a toll booth war on the Trans-Canada highway between two provinces. This is very strange behaviour from a government, in fact a Prime Minister, who said this week it was a provincial jurisdictional matter.

Will the Deputy Prime Minister make an attempt to restore faith in the ethics of the Liberal cabinet by asking the Minister of Public Works and Government Services to at least step down until we hear from the auditor general about the minister's inappropriate activities regarding highway 104?

[Code Of Ethics, June 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I think we are looking for good government in Ottawa. We have yet to find it.

Listen to the concerns here in the House, which have been going on since last year. Ethics, integrity, honesty, and openness are all gone out the door with this government. These are all broken promises of the Liberal red book. It is Liberal, Tory, same old story, right across the row here.

My supplementary question is for the Prime Minister. Since we are now seeing the arrogance of Brian Mulroney over here with a new red book face, just how bad does it have to get before the Prime Minister sees fit to assign his ethics counsellor to this situation?

[Code Of Ethics, June 6th, 1995]

My question is for the Prime Minister. Since at least one person has called the highway 104 scandal a misappropriation of taxpayers' funds for which someone will be held accountable, why has the Prime Minister silenced not only that member but the minister responsible for this unethical diversion of funds?

[Code Of Ethics, June 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says he wants specifics. How much more specific can we get, with an inappropriate diversion of funds from a federal-provincial agreement as defined by the auditor general of Nova Scotia?

This diversion of funds has been called illegal, immoral, and misappropriation. Yet the Prime Minister refuses to have his ethics chairperson look after this thing and investigate it.

[Petitions, June 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the final petition requests that Parliament not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the charter of rights and freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or of homosexuality, including amending the human rights code to include in the prohibited grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase sexual orientation.