Gurmant Grewal

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, April 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the solicitor general's neglect and mismanagement of the RCMP is causing it to go bankrupt.

Officers are leaving the force for better paying jobs or are going on stress leave due to the pressure of not having the resources to fight crime. Frontline police are frustrated by laws without teeth that are passed by the Liberal government.

Surrey, B.C., has the largest RCMP detachment. No wonder it is hard to fight crime with at least 10% fewer officers and 20% fewer vehicles. The RCMP knows that the Liberals will not walk the walk when they are not even talking the talk about getting tough on crime.

Despite repeated requests by the city of Surrey, the solicitor general refuses to answer questions about how $36 million per year is spent on RCMP service in Surrey. The city has been forced to threaten the solicitor general with a lawsuit to get the facts and figures. My constituents hold the Liberals responsible and the solicitor general accountable for our local RCMP service.

[The Late Edmund Tobin Asselin, April 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Reform Party of Canada and Her Majesty's Official Opposition, I rise to pay tribute to Mr. Edmund Tobin Asselin who represented the Montreal riding of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in the House during the early 1960s.

He was elected in 1962. He was part of the Pearson government. He did not seek re-election in 1966. He was a Montreal municipal councillor for 12 years before successfully entering federal politics.

Edmund's brother Patrick was also elected as an MP in 1962 to represent the eastern townships seat held by their grandfather for 30 years.

Edmund's mother was also active in civic life and started the Canadian Prisoners of War Relatives' Association. Edmund was a prisoner of war during World War II.

It is said that he had politics in his blood. He came from a family that did not shy away from civic duties.

His survivors can take pride in his accomplishments and those of other family members who have played civic roles.

[Business Of The House, April 15th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the official opposition I ask the government House leader what the business of the House is for the remainder of this week and for next week.

[Canadian Sikh Community, April 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Surrey Central has the largest concentration of Sikhs in the world outside India.

On this day 300 years ago the 10th Guru Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji created Khalsa. He gave Sikhs a name, a visible identity, a code of conduct and discipline based on equality, love, justice, peace, courage, hard work, honesty, community service and universality. These values are important to all human kind and as a community Sikhs have easily fit into Canadian society. In the last 100 years the Canadian Sikh community has made a significant contribution to the social, cultural and economic prosperity of our great country.

Sikhs around the world are celebrating the tri-centenary of the creation of Khalsa and Vaisakhi. I invite all members of the House to join me in congratulating Sikhs and wishing them great success.

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member opposite talked about the role and flexibility of his government.

Being the former critic for CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency, I discovered that 90% of CIDA money goes to two provinces, leaving only 10% for eight provinces and three territories.

With respect to immigration settlement dollars, British Columbia receives approximately $980 per immigrant, whereas Quebec receives approximately $3,333 per immigrant.

There is an unequal distribution of senators in the Senate, which is not very efficient as we know.

With respect to trade issues, the government is sitting on its hands, doing nothing about the Pacific salmon issue, the softwood lumber issue or agriculture. These issues affect my province of British Columbia.

The government has closed CFB Chilliwack, leaving British Columbia without emergency preparedness.

All of these issues indicate that this government is playing cheap politics with my province and other provinces, and the people are suffering.

Why does it not sink into Liberal heads that all provinces are equal? Why is there discrimination?

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the people of Surrey Central to participate in this take note debate.

We have already heard from the Prime Minister and some of the Liberal government cabinet ministers in this long, take note debate on the crisis in Kosovo.

I think the House can and should do much more than this take note debate of the obvious. Canadians want us to participate in a non-partisanship way on this important issue. This take note debate becomes irrelevant and just acts as a rubber stamp. It allows parliament to simply rubber stamp the policies and decisions that have already been made by the Prime Minister and his top bureaucrats. I think that is harmful to the House and will be more so in the future.

On the Liberal leadership mismanagement, I would like to point out two things. The American secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, has been left to conduct a form of shuttle diplomacy in the time period preceding the NATO bombing of Serbia, as we have all seen on TV.

The Liberals have done very little on this issue. This is unlike the historical role and conduct of the Canadian government in this century. I do not recall anything that it has done to resolve this crisis diplomatically so far.

Canadians served in the Boer War early in the 1900s. We served in two world wars, in Korea, in Cyprus, in Haiti, in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia and in Bosnia, to name a few of the conflicts around the world where we have contributed a peacemaking and peacekeeping role.

The point is that throughout this century Canada has been seen as a just country active on the world stage and a major contributor to peace in the world. We have led negotiations in treaties. We have prevented the outbreak of violence. We have been perceived as fair and just in the conduct of these affairs.

Canada has earned a name as a mediator and we have been in a better position to mediate than any other country in the world. On the world stage our leaders have been looked up to with great respect and hope by those who find their rights and privileges threatened or even taken away. That is our legacy.

Today we find that the Liberals seem to have abandoned our traditional role of exemplifying leadership in resolving conflicts around the world.

I scold and blame the Liberals for abandoning Canada's traditional role of seeking out and managing to have peaceful negotiations engaged in by the international community. That is where the leadership has let us down. The Prime Minister, the foreign affairs minister and the defence minister did not exercise the kind of diplomacy that Canada is famous for.

On ending ethnic cleansing, the official opposition strongly believes that Canada must stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO allies to ensure that the Serbs end their aggression against ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

The political and moral objective of NATO military action in Yugoslavia is to punish and halt the ethnic cleansing which is being perpetrated by the Serbs in Kosovo.

The military objective is to damage the Serbs' military capability, to end the practice of ethnic cleansing and to bring the Serb government to the negotiating table. Ground forces may be required to facilitate and reinforce the resettlement of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, but this is a NATO decision.

On refugees, the Reform Party's blue book policy states:

The Reform Party supports accepting genuine refugees who find their way to Canada.

Kosovo Albanians are being displaced against their will and are clearly genuine refugees.

On other issues, the current NATO military action raises a number of important questions which Reform intends to raise at an appropriate time. These include: examination of NATO's changing role as an international police force; examination of the causes of Canada's diminishing role in international military decision making; examination of Canada's—

[Business Of The House, March 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, while most Liberals do not know what day it is, it is Thursday. Therefore the hardworking MPs from the official opposition will be heading home to listen to their constituents for two weeks. Before we go would the government House leader tell the House what the business of the House will be when we come back from the two week break?

[Cancer Awareness Month, March 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, April is Cancer Awareness Month. An estimated 129,000 new cases of cancer and 62,700 deaths from cancer occurred in 1998.

The most frequently diagnosed cancers are breast cancer and prostate cancer. The incidence of breast cancer has risen steadily over the past decade but the mortality rate has been slightly decreasing.

Early detection techniques are responsible for our progress in beating cancer. Cancer can be beaten. Lung cancer remains the leading cause of death among men and women. Keeping Canadian youth and children from smoking is the most effective cancer prevention.

My past involvement with the Canadian Cancer Society makes me proud to extend a special thanks to all volunteers. Let us give generously when the Canadian Cancer Society knocks on our door. We can achieve our goals through research, education, patient services and advocacy for healthy public policy. Cancer can be beaten.

[Division No. 359, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Chairman, the President of the Treasury Board has made no mention of the Canadian Grain Commission. Is there anything that prohibits the Canadian Grain Commission from eliminating positions in order to create efficiency and effectiveness in the Canadian Grain Commission?

[Committees Of The House, March 22nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 123(1), I have the honour to present the fifth report of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations concerning SOR/93-43, an order varying a letter decision of the Chandler Subdivison issued by the National Transportation Agency. The text of the relevant section of the regulations is contained in this report.