Randy White

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will do that, but looking around to see how many Liberals are in the House, it is a little difficult for me to stand here and talk to the converted in opposition. I really question whether having one member of the Liberal Party in the House is the right thing to do. This is a bill that the government tabled and it is a bill that is important to this nation.

Mr. Speaker, can you see a quorum in the House? I ask for a quorum count. I am not going to speak while there is only one--

[Canada Airports Act, April 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-27, the Canada airports act.

We have an airport in my riding, in the City of Abbotsford, which serves all the folks in Langley, Aldergrove and throughout Abbotsford. In fact the whole Fraser Valley and parts of Vancouver are well served by the Abbotsford airport.

The main airline out of there, which is very near and dear to our hearts, is WestJet, an airline that we in our community are extremely proud of and which is fully supported by the folks back home. Another very large airline in Canada tried to weasel its way into WestJet's clientele but it did not do so well. Therefore, I am glad to say that the people in our community very much support WestJet and its activities.

Along with WestJet's efficient operations come these things called airport fee, taxes, security taxes and so on, levied in large part by the federal government.

I will go through what the bill reflects as to the kind of autonomy airports would have but also what kind of effect the federal government has on those kind of taxes.

To fly between Calgary and Edmonton with WestJet costs $100. Added on to WestJet's fees is a GST bill of $11.23 and a security fee of $22.43, which was imposed by the government just recently. Then we have an insurance fee of $6, an airport improvement fee in Edmonton of $15, an airport improvement fee in Calgary of $12, and a Nav Canada charge of $5. Therefore the round trip fare the consumer pays is $171.66 for a $100 flight.

One of the problems with flights today is that the government cannot get out of the pockets of the consumer. If there is a problem with security, the first thing the government does is ding consumers to pay the bills, when in fact, if it looked around hard enough, it would find all kinds of dollars in its own coffers to fund such programs as security, improvement fees and so on. The mentality of the governments, be they federal, provincial or municipal, is to ding the taxpayer. I think most people are darn sick of it.

If we are talking about airports, by and large people, if they want to go from one point to another, must use an airport and an airline. The problem is the governments are sensing that and they are dinging everybody that has any association with an airport or an airline today.

Notwithstanding that, WestJet happens to be one of the most profitable North American airlines and will continue to be so because of a good common sense approach to things. We could all take an example from WestJet, in my community at least, and look at how to operate an airline and then, coincidentally, how to operate an airport that could help the airlines.

I will be opposing this bill for a number of reasons. One of them is this government interference in a pretty good idea. In fact we fought for the privatization of airports and airport authorities for a long time in the House of Commons. That idea finally went through the thick heads across the way. Now we find ourselves facing Bill C-27, which is essentially an interference bill on what the government created.

Essentially, clause 12 of the bill gives the minister the power to make directions that are final and not subject to appeal or review. That in this place and country is a dangerous approach. If we give ministers final approval on anything, it more or less gives final approval to help their friends, relatives or whomever, anybody but the consumer.

The airport in our community of Abbotsford is a municipally run airport. It is a fine airport. We do not even have parking fees, so we keep the costs down as much as we can. The real problem is the interference in increased fees from federal government hurt us.

Let me give an example. The first year's rent for the Winnipeg International Airport, after it was handed over to the Winnipeg Airports Authority in 1997, was $900,000. After the Winnipeg Airports Authority improved the airport, Ottawa wanted it to pay $7 million in rent in the year 2007. There we go again. The government turns it over and gets its fee. The local airport authority operates it right, then Ottawa says “Gimme, gimme, gimme”. It is so typical. Then the consumer fees have to be increased sevenfold to pay for that.

Let us just go through a couple of other issues in this bill. If a passenger fee is imposed to finance a major capital program, infrastructure covered by an agreement referred to in paragraph 8 of clause 124, for instance, gives the following criteria:

--the annual financial statements must disclose, on an annual and cumulative basis from the year in which the fee is established, all expenditures made in respect of the program or infrastructure and all revenues from the passenger fee and any other fee orsource of revenue or funding received by the airport authority for the program or infrastructure.

What this essentially says is that if an airport has a capital program and it gets revenues from fees to fund that capital program, it has to go through a whole litany of reporting procedures for the federal government. I find it ironic that when a private authority raises money through revenues and undertakes a capital project, it has to go through so much reporting, yet the government blows away billions of dollars a year with virtually no reporting. When private industry or any private organization gets revenues, runs decent projects, makes efficiencies, it reports all to the government and that way it gets its fees. However, when the government takes fees and spends it on projects, it blows it away with no accountability. Does that tell us something about the government? Does it tell us something about a philosophy that is absolutely wrong?

The bottom line is that when private industry and private organizations work and when they raise their own funds for efficiencies, the government ought to stay as far away from it as possible. Our experience with government, at least since the Liberal government has been in, is that it can blow money one heck of a lot faster and irresponsibly with no accountability than an airport authority can.

I must say this about any government intervention in these organizations. One reason why we wanted airport authorities in the first place was to get out of government-run airports because it did not run them right. Now that we have implemented that process, government wants to get back in because it sees what is going on. It sees that these airports are running right.

There is one other thing that I must say I have observed going across the country. This whole issue of airport improvement fees, I believe, started in Vancouver where they charged $10.

Ironically enough, when coming through the Vancouver airport the other day, I was in a lineup with 300 people to pay a $10 improvement fee. I would like to advise Vancouver airport that if it is raising $10 per person from people going through it, the least it could do is have enough people available to collect the money so we are not standing in line. Does that not make sense?

Not only in one airport do I have to stand in a line of 200 or 300 people to pay the fee, but a few months back I went to another airport in this country and it also was collecting a $10 fee. This airport has maybe two or three planes a day going through it, but it has the same $10 airport fee that Vancouver has, and it has no improvements. In fact, I doubt whether it needs any improvements or has even had any improvements in the last 10 or 15 years.

This is not an improvement fee. This is a tax.

Whilst I say that government should have got out of all of this, I would like to tell these airports that if they need improvements they should try to fund them out of the dollars that they currently get. If they cannot and must charge a fee, they should raise the money they want and then do away with the fee. The fee should not be charged if the airport has not been or is not going to be improved. Otherwise these guys will be back in there wanting a cut of the fees and wanting to increase the fees. Eventually, if they cannot get their cut and the airport is profitable, these guys will take away the airports.

The bottom line is this. One airline in this country, WestJet, has proven to be efficient and has proven to be a good means of transportation. It is community friendly. Clientele are dedicated to it because of its attitude. WestJet does not need government fees, taxes, licences and on and on to ruin it for the travelling public.

Those are my comments on Bill C-27. I wish we could get one bill in any one instance where the government does not stick its damn feet in where they do not belong, but that is not to be. I have been around here for 10 years and every time I get up to speak to a bill I am always asking why the government has interfered or once it has interfered why it cannot do it right. That goes right from justice to health care and so on.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I hope we will get beyond this and see less of an impact than we anticipate, but I can assure members that I know where I was when the statement, “Damn Americans, I hate those bastards” was made. The statement was made by an elected official of the government and nothing was done to that elected official.

In my community it is not just an affront to Americans, it is an affront to the people of Langley, Abbotsford, Aldergrove, Vancouver, and Prince George. It is an affront to people in Toronto and London, Ontario, everywhere. We have to get beyond this part of it.

I have to say that I am very disappointed in a government that will not take any action against statements like that.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there would be no doubt about the consequences of the coalition pulling out of Iraq today. The President of the United States and the coalition forces have to finish the job this time around. As a consequence of that, for us to be one of the only countries in a longstanding history of coalitions with these people to be out of that is quite shameful.

At the very least our country could be digging ditches, driving trucks, feeding people, pitching tents. We do not have to send in an army; we do not have a large army. However, there are a lot of things we could be doing. It seems that the propensity of this country, more so the government, is to stay out of it, with the representatives of government saying statements that are completely inappropriate.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the motion. I was one of the individuals who promoted and wrote part of it.

The motion is of particular significance for me because I live on the U.S.-Canada border in Abbotsford, British Columbia. I represent Langley—Abbotsford. Since both of those communities are on the border, they have great concerns over what the relationship will be in the future, what it is today and what it has been in the past.

On behalf of my constituents I want to express the great disappointment in the kind of statements that have been made. There were statements from the Prime Minister's Office by one of his employees and basically nothing happened as far as making those statements, such as indicating that the office of the president and the president being a moron. There is more to that statement than meets the eye.

In fact, I was in San Diego as a guest of Americans and Mexicans alike at the time the statement was made. I was there looking at the situation of drug rehabilitation programs in Mexico and the United States. I was speaking to a large number of elected officials from both of those countries when that comment came up.

I was completely flabbergasted as to the statement that was made. I could not believe anyone in Canada would make that statement, much less somebody closely associated with the Prime Minister's Office. It was one of the most embarrassing times I spent in 10 years of being a politician to try and explain my way out of that on behalf of the rest of the Canadians who could not believe it themselves.

Those kinds of statements made had not just an effect against the House of Commons. They were an affront to many Canadians, many Americans and many Mexicans quite frankly. These statements have reverberated around the world. They do not put our country in a good light.

As I have said, I represent Langley and Abbotsford. Both communities border on the United States. We depend a great deal on American business. We have many friends across the border. Many of the businesses in Langley and Abbotsford in particular operate in the United States. Cross-border shopping is a regular daily routine for us. Any comments that are made that are seen as an affront against the Americans are an affront against the people of my community as well.

I happened to be talking to one of our businessmen the other day. I have a letter from his company. This company operates in Langley and he was doing business in Washington state. The company in Washington state wrote back this letter:

After being reminded of--

--and a particular member's name is used and I will not mention it--

--remarks about us Americans, I won't be considering [the company] for the SIPS house I will build in Aberdeen, Washington. Canada should really repudiate the self-loathing [such and such]. I won't spend a dime in Canada until I hear that.

This affects my community. Letters such as this one were not asked for by me. It was sent out of the blue by a constituent yesterday. These kinds of things severely affect my community.

We in the Fraser Valley spend many of our weekends in the United States. I owned property in Washington state at one point. I do not now but I did. I spent many weekends with Americans.

The people who live in my area camp on a regular basis in Oregon, California, Washington State, all through Idaho and so on. We have a close relationship. There is no distinguishing feature, quite frankly, between us and our colleagues in the states near where I live. Their money becomes our money and our money becomes their money. The only difference is the exchange rate which I will not get into with the government on that problem.

Essentially, we ought never to excuse individuals who make those kinds of statements. As I said, the moron comment affected me deeply when I was talking to several hundreds of politicians in San Diego. Right on the back of that, a government minister said:

--the world expects someone who is the president of a superpower to be a statesman. I think he has let, not only Americans, but the world down in not being a statesman.

I heard the Deputy Prime Minister this morning chalk that off that we have freedom of speech in this country and cannot be responsible for people who make those kinds of comments. The individual is minister of the government and has the responsibility to conduct himself better than that and to make comments that are in the best interests of the government and the people of this nation. It is not just a matter of freedom of speech. The Prime Minister could have easily moved that individual out of cabinet, for instance. He could have said something. But just to support that kind of behaviour has a very dramatic effect on our communities.

Some members in the House who do not live close to the border see it in different ways in how they live and conduct themselves with our American colleagues. I can assure members that coming from a border community, both Langley and Abbotsford do not appreciate in any way those kinds of statements. We do not appreciate no action being taken against those who have made the statements. And we do not appreciate just chalking it off to freedom of speech. In our community this affects our daily living, our daily relationship with people.

Our communities in the Fraser Valley have some serious issues with Americans. There is the SE2 project. We have an environmental problem. An American company wants to establish a generating plant on the American side which would actually distribute air emissions well beyond our ability to handle the content of those emissions in the Fraser Valley.

It does not help our case whatsoever for government people, government associates and affiliates to be making those kinds of statements. We have a hard enough battle as it is trying to see our way through environmental boards, energy boards and so on. We do not need this kind of negative interference.

We have shopping issues. People are using our shopping centres on Sumas Way continually. Americans come across the border at Aldergrove continually. We do not need any hard feelings whatsoever to be created by the government.

My message to the government is for goodness sake, if it cannot control its people, then move them out of positions of influence.

We have a lot of good things to say about Americans. We have a lot of things to be thankful for by having such a country share our border. We just do not need irresponsible statements being made and no action being taken against those who make them.

I beseech the government on behalf of those of us who live on the border to please be diligent, be honourable and have the integrity to treat people, regardless of what country they live in, with the respect and dignity that we would expect ourselves.

[Sex Offender Information Registration Act, April 2nd, 2003]

“Oh, come on”, the minister says. What excuse does the government have for not making this retroactive? I ask the minister to give me one damn good reason. He cannot.

There are other problems that are just as bad, and counting on lawyers for some of this stuff is outrageous. Here is another reason. Registered offenders will have the right to appeal a registration order. In other words, rather than name the sex offences, upon which the offenders name would automatically enter the registry, there is an appeal process so that the offenders would have the right to appeal a registration order. Can anyone imagine the stupidity of this? It means more money in the hands of the criminal lawyers, more time in the courtroom and less time for victims.

In addition, the bill would force the crown to apply to the courts to have the offender added to the registry at time of sentencing. That is just the most stupid thing.

I have been in more sentencing hearings where individuals, for example, Armbruster is a good case with 63 prior convictions, including sexually assaulting his grandmother. He is a guy who should have had a DSO, dangerous sex offender, designation and the crown would not apply for it because it thought maybe it could not get it. This is a guy with 63 prior convictions.

To leave it in the hands of the lawyers in a courtroom is a ridiculous position to take. We must take the arbitrariness out of the situation and make it mandatory. When someone is convicted and sentenced for a certain sex offence then it should be automatic.

As if that was not bad enough, then we come to the fact that the legislation provides a loophole for sex offenders: If they can show that being added to the registry would cause them greater harm than the public good that is served by them being on the list. That would be left in the hands of judges.

I have dealt with a lot of decisions lately by judges, particularly in the area of drugs, and it boggles the mind how they make decisions any more. How can we allow a loophole in the act that would allow a judge to consider whether there would be greater harm to the sex offender by putting him on the registry than it would maybe be for the public good? How is it possible to weigh these things? Why is the government doing this? Is there no common sense left over there?

The minister, when he woke up, looked a little confused about it. What is wrong with the people over there? Do they not understand that leaving all this stuff to the discretion of judges and lawyers in the courtroom does not work?

If someone is bad enough, it is at the discretion of judges and lawyers to decide whether the person should be on the sex offender registry, although the person would not be on it anyway until the person commits another crime. I just do not understand.

This is perhaps one of the most disappointing times I have had in my 10 years in the House of Commons. After spending so much time writing the original bill and then seeing the government follow through with that bill, putting essentially everything into it that we had in the private member's bill, but allowing these three items: discretion of the judge, the discretion of the lawyers to even apply for it, and the non-retroactivity, it has ruined the whole thing.

I cannot help but think, quite frankly, that the government really does not want the bill so it has thrown three hard things into it, which will not serve victims of crime or the Canadian people very well, in the hopes that it will just die on the Order Paper somewhere.

I guess the other thing is that it places me and my colleagues in a position to vote against something we have long fought for. We have in fact basically embarrassed the government, along with the police and victims' rights groups, to put this into legislation. Now it throws these three things in, which make the legislation quite useless, and we are forced to vote against it because it does so.

I have seen this political ploy more times than enough in the House of Commons where omnibus bills are brought in and enough is thrown in it to get the opposition to vote against it. The bill before us has to be voted against because of the difficulty the government has laid before us.

There are so many sex offenders out there. The people listening and watching do not know if they are living in their community or living next to them. They would know and could know if the government had followed our original bill. However the people living next door to a sex offender will not know because the government has seen fit to virtually eliminate that information for the next five to eight years, because it will not record people who are currently in prisons.

I can say this about the legislation. I am profoundly disappointed in how the government has tackled these two or three items. I am deeply hurt that victims in this country will not be well served. Innocent Canadians will not be served. They will never know who is living next door. The police will not know. These three changes have, in effect, rendered the bill useless. I do not believe the government had the intention of really implementing a bill that would have been effective.

[Sex Offender Information Registration Act, April 2nd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I must express my profound disappointment on how Bill C-23 has been handled in the House of Commons.

Having written the original bill on the national sex offender registry, I have followed the issue for a long time past, even when the government did not understand what we were trying to do with a national sex offender registry. Now it has come out and suggested that it has a great idea about a national sex offender registry and how to handle it.

One of the profound disappointments is the retroactive issue. Today we voted on an amendment to Bill C-23 that would have made sure this particular issue would be retroactive. I will go into that in detail in a moment.

However, the problem I am having is that the government does not want to make the bill retroactive. In other words, it wants to implement a national sex offender registry but it does not want to include all those who are currently incarcerated in this country, either provincially or federally, for sex offences. That includes approximately 10,000 sex offenders who will not be registered in the registry on opening day.

I read into the House yesterday the names of some of the people who will not be registered. I asked my staff to provide me with an arbitrary list of sex offenders who were written about in the last three months. I read out the names of some of these individuals who will not be on this registry on opening day. I do not understand why the government, which has the ability to register these people, will not do it.

I do not know what to say or what to do any longer in this country where we get lip service about implementing a national sex offender registry. The government accommodates everything that I wrote in the original private member's bill, but in the last two pages it ruined the whole damn thing. It ruined it all.

How? First, after Royal Assent there will not be one soul on that registry. How they get on the registry, if we are lucky enough to get them there, is they have to get out of prison, commit another a sex offence crime, go back to prison, serve their time and then they will be put on the registry.

Has anyone ever heard anything so stupid? For the people listening to what I am saying, I do not understand at all why they would vote for those people. It is a disgrace how they are handling this situation.

[Sex Offender Information Registration Act, April 1st, 2003]

Quality, the member on the other side says.

Now that the quality people are listening over there, this is what is wrong with the bill. The legislation will not be retroactive. This fear of offending the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on such things is ridiculous. Ontario made its sex offender registry retroactive. There was not one grievance filed against it. It is absolutely critical in the bill. Now that the government has come 50% of the way and could go all the way on this and agree with us, this is a critical point: the bill must be retroactive. It must record sexual offenders. It must record people in provincial facilities. It must record people currently housed in federal facilities. That is about 10,000 people.

If that does not happen, then individuals who are currently in prison will be able to get out of prison with a high risk of reoffending as sex offenders and will not enter the registry until after their next sentence. In fact what it amounts to is a free sexual offence of the offender. That does not make any sense at all. We brought this up at the time of the DNA databank. It should have been retroactive as well and would have resolved a lot of cases. I ask the government to please look at this issue.

Since I only have one minute remaining, I will assign two other problems with this legislation. The first is registered offenders will have the right to appeal their registration order. That is just crazy. They will all appeal this. The second is the Crown prosecutor must apply to the courts to have the offender added to the registry. It is crazy to allow lawyers the discretion. Put the offence in legislation and anyone convicted under that offence goes on the registry. Do not leave it to lawyers and judges to make that discretion. They fail consistently on that.

[Sex Offender Information Registration Act, April 1st, 2003]

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I get to speak for 10 minutes on this. I originally thought I would have about 40 minutes when this started but I was not back in Ottawa.

I initially wrote the bill on the national sex offender registry and feel somewhat attached to it having brought it into the House. In fact I had a difficult time getting the solicitor general at the time to understand what we were looking for. I think it was the lobbying between ourselves, victims rights groups and police across the country that got the bill into the House. I am glad to see that happen.

I find myself in a very awkward position of having originally written the national sex offender registry and now I will be voting against it because the government seemingly could not take very simple legislation and turn it into something that would be productive. I will go through that in a minute.

I asked my staff last week for a list, covering the last three months, of sex offenders, their convictions and things that have had happened with regard to sex offenders. Here is what is walking the streets of Canada today. These are all at random.

Colin Fuson, 39, was charged with committing an indecent act and breach of probation order and is subject to public alerts. He was released from jail last summer after a 10 year sentence for raping a Surrey woman.

Donald MacPherson, 44, was granted a conditional sentence on a sexual assault conviction of October 17. He is under house arrest, to have no contact with his victim and to take a sex offender rehab program.

Ross Lee Daniels, 47, was sentenced in 1992 to eight years after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a young girl over a four year period. Parole board records indicate every imaginable sex act was engaged in with the girl who was 11 when the assaults started. Springhill termed him high risk to reoffend. He was transferred to Dorchester and put in a sex offender program. He was deemed a high risk even after serving five and a half years. This guy is out on the streets or will be soon. This guy is in a community somewhere and we do not know where. Imagine that.

I could go through all of them all but I will not.

Brent Murray Gullison, 46, was initially sentenced in the spring of 1995 to 15 years in prison for molesting five boys who were between three and eight years old. In November 1995 the Alberta Court of Appeal reduced his sentence to 12 years. Gullison pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual assault. He is out on the streets and we do not know where.

Gregory Dean Knockelby, 43, has 21 previous convictions for indecent exposure. He admitted to exposing himself about 2,000 times. He went back to jail for two years on seven new charges. He is out on the streets.

Patrick Joseph Anthony Carson, 46, is an untreated sex offender released from jail and is labelled a predator who engages in extensive planning to secure his victims. He was sentenced last year to 18 months for sexually exploiting three girls under the age of 18 outside of Edmonton. He had a previous five year sentence for picking up underage prostitutes and choking them. He will be out on the streets in six months and we do not where. We do not know what name he will use. We do not know anything about it.

This is why we brought the proposed national sex offender registry to the House. This is the reason I wrote it originally almost three years ago. What do we get from the government? It comes in here and brags about how it has the new idea of having a sex offender registry. It basically said that it would put in all the things I originally put in the national sex offender registry except for the last two pages of the law. The last two pages are the joke of all time, a sick joke at that.

The registry will contain the names and addresses, dates, births, lists of sex offences and other necessary information about persons convicted of sex offences anywhere in Canada, including tattoos and markings, that sort of thing. That is a good idea and it is what we put into it. It was modelled after Christopher's bill in Ontario when the Ontario sex offender registry came into being. Jim and Ann Stephenson worked so hard with victims' rights groups after their son Christopher was murdered by a sex offender. It is necessary.

The bill states that every offender will register at a local police station once per year to provide updated information. That we put in the original registry. That means whether something has changed or not an offender must go to a police station and say that nothing has changed and, therefore, everything is A-OK. If offenders do not do that, they can be picked up on a warrant. This is good because then the police are proactive in going out and looking for these people.

It is good that a police officer can obtain a warrant to arrest any sex offender who fails to register and report as required. This offence would be punishable by a maximum of six months in prison for a first offence, up to two years for any subsequent offence and/or a $10,000 fine in either case. In other words, if a person does not report, it is an offence and the individual could be fined or sent up. That is good.

Sex offenders will be required to remain registered for one of three periods: 10 years for offences with 2 to 5 year maximums; 20 years for offences with 10 to 14 year maximums; and lifetime for offences with a maximum life sentence or where there has been a prior conviction for a sex offence. Those were all issues that we had in the original bill.

Offenders can ask to see personal information contained in the registry at any time to correct and update it. That is great. There is no problem there. In fact we had all those issues written up in the original bill.

What is wrong with this bill and why do I have to, as the originator of the original sex offender registry, vote against it? It is not that there is a bunch of people listening in here. There are three people on the other side.

[Young Offenders, April 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, today the federal government's Youth Criminal Justice Act comes into force.

So what is the big change? It used to be called the Young Offenders Act, but now it is called the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It must be a good thing that the government changed the act today because yesterday I listened as probation officers told me the significant problems they are having with young offenders: stealing from businesses, using drugs, beating up senior citizens in home invasions, leaving school early and leaving their homes for the streets.

Yes, after 10 long years of pushing the government to help improve life within the family unit, and to help put common sense and discipline back in the courtrooms, we get legislation that is costly, complex and offers no substantial improvements to the old act. This country needs a change all right, but it is a change in government that is needed.

The best the government could do is change the name of the act from the Young Offenders Act to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. What a disgrace. What a pathetic excuse for a government.