Randy White

[Petitions, June 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the second petition asks that Parliament act immediately to extend protection to the unborn child by amending the Criminal Code to extend the same protection enjoyed by born human beings to unborn human beings.

[Petitions, June 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present petitions today from constituents in Langley, Aldergrove and Abbotsford, British Columbia.

The first petition asks that Parliament not pass Bill C-41 with section 718(2) as presently written and in any event not to include the undefined phrase sexual orientation, as the behaviour people engage in does not warrant special considerations in Canadian law.

[Highways, June 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I guess we are not going to get that fellow up here to talk about this. Let me quote the public works minister once again. This is a recent quote: "Drivers had better get used to the idea of toll booths on the Trans-Canada if they expect major highway projects to proceed".

My question is for the Prime Minister if he would like to get up. In addition to the recent tax increases on gas, are we to expect these tolls on the Trans-Canada because his ministers are using the highway improvement money to buy votes in their own ridings?

[Highways, June 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament a Tory minister diverted money from a federal-provincial program to a road in his riding. I would like to quote from Hansard : ``The $20 million gift of federal taxpayers' money spent on a project not even related to the purposes of the

fund in the riding of the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency is appalling".

Since these words were spoken by the current public works minister six years ago, I would like to ask the minister to stand and explain what has changed. Why is Liberal pork barrelling acceptable to him on highway 104 but appalling when the Tories did it?

[Prisons, June 5th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the results are in from the inquest into the death of Patricia Williams, the young lady who was murdered at Kent Institution by a killer who had her there on a conjugal visit.

Among the 14 recommendations were that private family visits should not be a right but an earned privilege, and offenders in maximum security institutions who have committed acts of murder due to sexually related crimes shall not be eligible for private family visits.

Perhaps the Liberals could tell us dumbfounded Canadians why in the same prison Terry Burlingham, a killer of two young women who were found murdered, raped and shot twice in the head, is privileged to have a pen pal girlfriend from another country on conjugal visits.

This is the poorest excuse for a government I have seen in decades. When will we start considering the safety of law-abiding citizens ahead of the rights of convicted criminals?

[Supply, May 30th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the member totally misunderstood what I was talking about. The fact is I mentioned the bilingualism issue not as an issue that fits in with employment equity but as an example of how the government challenges the strength of the Canadian fabric by issuing law to its people when it gets a majority government. They have totally misunderstood what I was talking about.

[Supply, May 30th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, this was not a loaded question at all.

I think most people who come here from all regions of the country understand that there is a certain amount of being out of touch with Canadian reality in Ottawa. I think it prevails where there is a majority government, which is less and less in touch with the people. The reason for that is that for five years those in power do not have to work as hard as the party in opposition to get things accomplished. They come into the House and say "this is what Canadians want, because they elected us, and this is what we are darned well going to give them". There is a certain amount of hypocrisy and arrogance in what we see in the legislation passing through this House.

I do not think for a moment that what these folks are trying to push off onto the rest of Canada, and which we are going to have to live with for the rest of our lives or until they are removed from office, is representative of what many people in this country are seeing. What we have here again is an attempt to legislate what people will be given not necessarily what people want.

[Supply, May 30th, 1995]

As my colleague says, that is what they do in some states, and it does not work practically.

What has to be done when bringing people into organizations like the one I managed is to bring them in as they were on the basis of the career they chose a long time ago, based on their ability to pass courses, on their personal desire to teach young people and so on and so forth. To legislate employment equity in an organization like that would be near impossible. It just does not work.

People from all over the world reside in my community. Many businesses and companies I have visited even recently have almost exclusively been owned and operated by people from Laos, Cambodia and other countries. We could look at that and say if we want to enforce or legislate numerical goals or quotas, it could actually work in the reverse. There are some people missing out of here from the community so let us go back and change all of the ratios. That is not practical.

I do note from the community I live in that I do not see the bias we are talking about here from the Liberal ranks. I do not see the necessity of having that quota, that numerical goal. I am sure people in my community would be quite opposed to the thought that might happen.

A number of times we have heard Liberal members talk about numerical goals. They say that numerical goals in employment equity are not quotas, that they are something else. We just pick a number and say this many people have to be hired.

If we look at something like the supply management system in this country, we should say that there are no quotas in supply management, just numerical goals. I do not think the folks across the way really know what the heck they are talking about when they talk about numerical goals and quotas. They are legislating something here that the rest of Canada is going to have to live with for a long time. They are making a very grave mistake.

We only have to look as far as the official bilingualism program to see what they are trying to legislate. They tried to legislate a country into an attitude that everything shall be equal. In fact, they would hire a number of investigators to ensure that the official bilingualism policy would be fulfilled and put into place. If not, there would be penalties.

That is exactly what the Liberals are talking about here. They are talking about a large number of people within a department to make darn good and sure that employment equity is put in place. If it is not put in place, maybe they should be given a fine.

My experience is that we cannot legislate attitudes. One cannot legislate that which people will not do. What we have to do in this country is make fair and reasonable application to all people. We must have a country where all people are equal, regardless of race, colour, creed or religion. That is what has to be done and we have to have it up here. We do not legislate or mandate it.

I am reminded of two young fellows who came into my office not long ago holding a piece of paper. It was an application for a scholarship from a very large company in British Columbia. It had to do with scholarships for pre-apprentice electricians. What these young fellows were concerned about was that it was only available to aboriginal people, visible minorities, the special needy and women. I had to explain to them that my feeling was the company was trying to increase its employment equity. They did not understand that. They truly did not. They thought things were based on abilities, skills, work experience and so on.

Once the bill goes through and we have more employment equity rules and regulations, I am not sure how we can explain that to them. I sincerely hope the Liberal government will have an answer because the people do not understand. It is not as easy as chalking it off, as the Liberals would say, to a bunch of dumb Reformers. That is not the case. We should get off that kind of rhetoric. I think Liberals have some explaining to do as to how the legislation will really work.

There are a lot of examples in society in which governments get too far involved in what they think is right and they legislate it, which is exactly where this government is going. I often comment in the House about the arrogance of a party much resembling the arrogance of the Conservative Party when it held a large majority. I would caution the government very closely that it not get carried away with its arrogance in its legislation. It should look at the employment equity legislation and consider that all Canadians today consider themselves equal, regardless of race, colour, creed or religion. Do not try to legislate it. Put it in your hearts and in your minds.

[Supply, May 30th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, some of the comments are indeed condescending. I would like to get back to some of the more practical aspects of what we are talking about in employment equity today. I would remind you, Madam Speaker, that I am dividing my time with my hon. colleague.

I would like to begin by quoting Booker T. Washington who said: "I have always been made sad when I have heard members of any race claiming rights and privileges or certain badges of distinction on the grounds simply that they were members of

this or that race, regardless of their individual worth or attainments". I suppose that says a great deal to what this debate is all about.

I have always struggled with the employment equity situation in terms of whether or not it is right or wrong or how it is applied. I think to a great degree we are trying to accomplish fairness and equality in the country regardless of race, colour, creed or religion. I am not entirely satisfied that we can legislate equality and attitudes or legislate how best to achieve the results of a fair and caring society.

We get into all kinds of issues with employment equity. I want to relate two. First, in my past life I happened to be the chief executive officer of operations for a fairly large organization, a school district of some 1,500 employees. I often wondered how we could legislate hiring equity with 1,500 employees. If we look at the area I come from, there is a very large number of Indo-Canadian people.

If we were to take that ratio and a ratio of male-female which is probably around 50:50, I wonder how that kind of equity would be applied to the organization I ran. Within that organization a large number of employees were female and I would suggest that they were white and of younger ages.

To turn around and apply employment equity ratios, numerical goals or quotas which are one and the same, to that organization, I do not believe would practically work. The ratio has to be applied back at the universities, in the bachelor of education courses taught at university. Then that ratio would have to be applied back at the high school level, to the graduates for acceptance into university.

[Supply, May 30th, 1995]

She is Madam Speaker. Let us have a little equity here.