Ted White

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Worse, as my colleague says. Much, much worse.

One of their own members has spoken out publicly about how bad it has become. On August 9, 1996 at a meeting of the Rotary Club of Toronto, the York South-Weston Liberal MP gave a speech which he titled: "Honesty, Ethics and Accountability: Does it exist in Canada's political system?" He spoke about all sorts of things, including closure. He talked about how MPs, in order to advance in the power structure of this place, usually have to sacrifice the public interest to their own ambitions.

We have a situation where members of the government will vote for closure or time allocation because they are afraid that if they do not, there will be some sort of punishment coming down the pipe. Yet they know in their hearts there should be more discussion on issues such as this one which has come back from the Senate.

The member for York South-Weston said in his speech: "The real power, the ability to influence, is concentrated in the office of the leader of each of the parties. It is most pronounced in the case of the government, where the power is in the Prime Minister's office, or the PMO as it is known. Surprising as this may sound, in fact, this country is run by half a dozen people, half of whom are unelected. This may not be something that Canadians realize, but it is something they should be extremely concerned about. These unelected officials have a tremendous influence over public policy and the careers of individual MPs. They determine who is rewarded and who is punished, and with that control they have the real influence, and with that influence they have the real power".

That says a lot about the types of processes that take place in the House which lead to closure on a very important issue like this one.

We are not criticizing the individual justice who has been honoured with a request that she go to the United Nations to work on a special tribunal. That really is not the point. The point is the way the government has handled this issue which could potentially place a judge in a conflict of interest position upon her return to Canada.

Time allocation and closure are not the only problems we have in this place. There are other problems which impinge upon the ability to properly function democratically and to discuss these issues in a fair and honest manner. One of those issues was brought up by my colleague, who mentioned that he had to go to you, Mr. Speaker, for a ruling as to whether he was free to speak in a committee of this House.

There are serious problems with the committee structure. In fact, the member for York South-Weston in his speech to the Rotary Club of Toronto, in talking about chairs of committees said: "Committee chairs should be elected by their peers as opposed to the present soviet style system. Elections for chairmen are currently a farce. The PMO selects a person and government MPs go through a phoney ritual to vote for the PMO choice".

That was certainly borne out by my observation of the system. For example, in September not only did the Vancouver area Liberal MPs vote for the PMO choices for chairs, but they also voted for members of the Bloc to be the vice-chairs. They voted for separatists. We know they are controlled by the PMO. That is very clear.

As the member for York South-Weston said as he closed his speech that day: "Restoring real power to individual MPs will ease cynicism and restore confidence in our system of government because it will make every single voter more powerful. By reforming the parliamentary system, the current concentration of power will naturally break down and that will, in my opinion, be a large step in the right direction".

That is very telling. It is a shame to hear today that the Liberal government has intervened to disband the riding association of the member for York South-Weston, to impose its Liberal bagmen appointed riding association to remove from nomination a member who chose to represent his constituents. It is a disgrace that we have to bring that sort of thing to the notice of the public. It should not be happening. Individual MPs in this place should have a great deal more power.

It extends so far into everything we do. I had a complaint from the Canadian Plywood Association in my riding. A market access subsidy in plywood is provided to eastern based manufacturers but has been discontinued for western manufacturers. Where is the fairness in that? These things are mostly done for political reasons. It makes people very upset in the west that they are constantly left out of decisions or are treated very shoddily. Certainly the Canadian Plywood Association is very upset by that decision. I was asked to mention that in the House so I am pleased I was able to bring it into my speech today.

Bill C-42 in allowing the appointment of a judge to the UN to work on a tribunal on war crimes really relates to the whole area of justice. We have heard several Reform MPs talk about how the justice system has deteriorated here in Canada and what a disgrace it is. I certainly have had my share of problems with illegal refugee claimants in my riding who continually commit crimes so they can use the system to stay in Canada.

There is quite a dramatic case in my riding. I will quote from another local columnist who states:

If you are caught doing something naughty, like forging and selling passports, make sure you come up before B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm, who is full of the milk of human kindness.

The judge sentenced an Iranian passport expert to all of three months, to be served at home with an electronic beeper.

The maximum sentence for forging passports is 14 years. What does Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm do? He gives him three months at home with an electronic beeper. What an excellent opportunity for a home based business. The man was working from home in the first place, no taxes to pay, no business licence and no GST returns. It is a wonderful home based business facilitated by a decision of an associate chief justice. Is it any wonder that people are disturbed with the way our justice system has gone when they hear that sort of thing.

The considerate court went on to say that the offender, Mr. Ashrafinia, was just a spoke in the wheel of a larger passport forgery operation. Now I ask, does being a spoke in the wheel mean that there is no responsibility and he should only get three months for forging passports? This man was charging $1,200 and $1,500 per passport. It sounds like a pretty profitable enterprise, especially since there is no GST or taxes to pay. Anyway, we should probably bring out the violins because the lawyer complained. He said that jail time for his client would be a hardship because he does not hear very well. There it is.

I am also quoted in this article as saying that I hope that we never start electing our judges because elected judges would probably begin reflecting community values and that associate chief justice would then have to start handing out the sorts of prison terms we would expect for that sort of disgraceful conduct.

In fact, if this House would pass my private member's bill dealing with the Immigration Act, we could deport these people in lieu of a sentence. We could get rid of them right out of the country without having to worry about years and years of Immigration and Refugee Board appeals, all sorts of nonsense that just drags the system on and on and on.

The member who spoke before me said that the Reform Party uses scare tactics to get people upset. The fact is the newspapers are full of this stuff. I have here a folder which is full of pages and pages about the disgrace of our justice system. It goes on day after day after day.

In the Vancouver Sun of Friday, October 25: ``Deportation of Ontario drug dealer overturned as unfair''. It is unfair to deport a drug dealer. The article states:

A federal judge has overturned the deportation of a convicted drug dealer, dealing a blow to a controversial law allowing some people to be deported without a hearing.

Justice Barbara Reed, of Federal Court of Canada, ruled it was unfair to deport Jeffrey Hugh Williams because the law did not require he be told why he was considered a danger to the Canadian public.

Tell me, does a convicted drug dealer need to be told why he is a danger to the public? My goodness, to the Liberals opposite, obviously he does. So we are stuck with him and he is released out into the public again to do it all over again. Mr. Williams is a

34-year old who came to Canada from Jamaica when he was nine. He was sentenced to a four-year prison term in 1992 for possession of a narcotic for the purpose of trafficking.

I had another case in my riding. It took me five years working prior to my being an MP and as an MP to get rid of a convicted home invader and heroin trafficker in my riding. The Immigration and Refugee Board after he had been convicted of home invasion and imprisoned-home invasion is something that Canadians never even thought about 10 years ago and here we have home invasions going on.

Anybody who lives in the Vancouver area knows that home invasions have become something that we read about fairly regularly in the newspapers. If the member who spoke before me thinks there is not a problem, she should live in Vancouver for a little while.

This man was locked up for home invasion. The Immigration and Refugee Board listened to his appeal hearing on the deportation order and said: "He feels so remorseful about it, he is really not a bad person. We will give him another chance". Within three months he was on the streets again dealing drugs.

The IRB is so naive it should be disbanded right away. All of this relates right back to the whole way that this government approaches things. It brings closure on very important justice bills and forces us into having to deal with all these issues in just a matter of hours.

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on Bill C-42.

The member for Windsor-St. Clair tried desperately in her speech to twist Reform's position with respect to this bill by implying that we were criticizing Madam Justice Louise Arbour. We are not. We are criticizing the process that is being used by the government to deal with this matter.

She also tried to take credit for a number of bills for which she read out the numbers, bills that achieved certain things in the justice area. Most of these bills would never have been presented if there had not been a Reform presence in this place. Most of those bills did not go even a fraction as far as the people of Canada would have liked them to go.

The one that was really outstanding and which she tried to take complete credit for from the Liberal perspective was Bill C-102, the DNA bill. The fact is it was the member for Wild Rose who initiated that bill. Everyone will remember that right here in the House during question period he manoeuvred the Minister of Justice into giving a commitment to deal with the bill within a 48-hour period. It is the member for Wild Rose who deserves congratulations for that. It was a fantastic bill.

The very first case which was solved using that bill was in my riding of North Vancouver. I am certainly one person, and my constituents are a whole group of people who are very grateful to the member for Wild Rose for having initiated that bill.

Another thing the member for Windsor-St. Clair said that really needs correction is that Reform would introduce capital punishment. How many times do we have to say this to get it through to these Liberal members who obviously have some hearing impairment? It is Reform's position that we would put the question of capital punishment to the people of Canada directly in the form of a binding referendum.

I suspect that the member for Windsor-St. Clair knows what the outcome would be. The fact is there is no Reform policy on capital punishment per se, but there is a Reform policy on giving the people of Canada the right to decide. If the outcome was that the people of Canada wanted the return of capital punishment, I am sure it would be terribly distressing to the member for Windsor-St. Clair who seems to think that she knows better than the people of Canada how to handle justice issues. I can understand why she would be upset at Reform policy, but I would not want anybody out there to get the wrong impression about what Reform policy is on capital punishment.

As the member for Wild Rose mentioned, the membership in victims groups is growing by leaps and bounds. It is just exploding because of the lack of action on things like the Young Offenders Act. The member could not possibly tell me with a straight face that she does not still receive lots of letters and phone calls complaining about the Young Offenders Act.

The fact is that the twiddling with the edges of it that occurred in this House, compliments of the justice minister, were ineffective. They just made it worse. They have not done anything to deal with the real problems in that act.

Finally, in dealing with items that were raised by the member in her speech, when she talked about prevention of crime, I gave a speech in this House a couple of months ago where I gave detailed statistics from the Institute of Justice, statistics which indicated quite clearly from the United States that states which had higher incarceration rates had lower rates of crime. The estimate was that over a 20-year period there were tens of thousands of rapes prevented by having repeat rapists locked in jail. Hundreds of thousands of burglaries and robberies were prevented by having known robbers and burglars kept in jail.

A component of crime prevention is recognizing the people you are not going to rehabilitate and protecting society from those people. If we could get it through the heads on the other side of this House to start looking at that, we would not have these ridiculous, idiotic decisions coming out of immigration and refugee boards, coming from judges across this country that are just letting all sorts of criminals run free in our environment. Most Canadians are fed up to the hilt with it and they just wish we could get on with protecting society.

The motion which is being debated is an amendment to Bill C-42 introduced by the government through the other place. It removed the section dealing with a new public policy allowing judges to accept international assignments. The government replaced it with a specific exemption to the Judges Act to allow Madam Justice Louise Arbour to accept a position at the UN as a prosecutor for international war crimes at the Hague.

It is interesting that the Senate made this amendment and sent it back. I have been quite surprised at the amount of involvement of the other place in the activities of this House over the last couple of

years. They have modified and sent back items to this place a number of times.

It has been Reform policy for a long time that the other place needs an overhaul. It needs to be made elected, equal and effective. It is actually quite impressive that there has been some sober second thought. Some material has been sent back here. I am actually quite impressed in some ways.

There is an interesting little twist which has to do with that place which comes out of something that took place in this House on December 7 last year when the justice minister announced that B.C. would henceforth be considered as a fifth region in the country on a par with the prairies, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada. A journalist in the Vancouver area, Barbara Yaffe, wrote a piece about this and it was quite interesting.

A problem has been created as a result of that and it really has not had much exposure in the House. The B.C. Liberal members have been fretting about it. I guess they were hoping that it would never come to public notice but it has. If B.C. is a fifth region, why does it not have an appropriate share of the Senators?

Historically each of Canada's four regions were accorded 24 Senators. As a result of being lumped in with the prairies in the previous four regions model, B.C. has only six Senators. As a fifth and separate region, surely its Senate numbers should be adjusted up to 24 or at the very least have the rest of the other place adjusted downward in numbers so that proportionately it is back in balance.

That is a very interesting idea. It could really have an effect on the type of actions that are taken by that other place in returning bills like this Bill C-42 with amendments and degrees of sober second thought for us to reconsider in this place. That would be a major improvement for the other place. I hope it has not been too embarrassing to have brought that up in the House today for consideration.

Returning to Bill C-42 specifically, we have been very distressed, as a number of members have mentioned, that time allocation has been moved on the bill. The number of times that time allocation has been moved over the past few months is very distressing. If memory serves me right, time allocation has been used by this government more often than by the Mulroney Tories. After all the hoopla in the red book about how democratic this place was going to be, it has actually turned out to be a complete disgrace.

[Parliament Of Canada Act, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it was worth one more try. I have tried this on all of the non-votable private members' bills, but democracy did not prevail.

As I mentioned, this is an interesting bill from the Reform perspective because it has been the Reform position for at least eight years that this needed to be done. However, the Reform position was not driven by the presence of a separatist party in the House. It was driven by the recognition that MPs, in swearing only their allegiance to the Queen, were placed in the position of ignoring any allegiance to their constituents. They are forced to ignore any allegiance to the people of Canada, the people who pay their salaries. And in the case of Liberal MPs, the people who pay their gold plated, extreme pension plans.

I noticed that the Deputy Prime Minister did not even flinch in her seat, so I can tell that she is not the least bit embarrassed about those pension plans but most Canadians are quite outraged about them.

As I said, Reformers have long wanted to see MPs swearing allegiance to their constituents so they focus exactly where their allegiance should be.

I want to mention that the Reform caucus shortly after becoming elected in 1993, most of us and perhaps all of us, took a separate oath of allegiance in our constituencies. In my riding office in North Vancouver on January 7, 1994 I took an oath of allegiance to my constituents. I would like to read the preamble as well as the oath because it relates directly to the topic we are discussing.

A copy of this oath of allegiance to my constituents is hanging on the wall of my office. This is a statement of principles and a pledge of commitment by me as the Reform Party member to my constituents.

I, Ted White, having been elected by the voters of the Federal Constituency of North Vancouver to represent you in the 35th Parliament of Canada, do hereby sincerely pledge that I am committed to the following principles as I carry out my duties on your behalf:

I am committed to the development of a new and stronger united Canada: a balanced democratic federation of provinces, distinguished by the acceptance of our social responsibilities, and the recognition of the equality and uniqueness of all our provinces and citizens.

I am committed to equality for all Canadians, regardless of race, language, culture, religion or gender; and will give true and faithful representation to all my constituents.

I am committed to being your democratic and fiscal conscience in the 35th Parliament and I am prepared to demonstrate this commitment by showing leadership by example.

I believe you have sent me to the House of Commons to present your views in that forum, not to represent Ottawa's views to you. I believe that the House of Commons must be the house of the people, not the house of the parties. The word "politician" must mean a representative of the people, not a servant of the party. To that end, I shall not only encourage you to communicate with me, but I am committed to consulting your views at every opportunity, and shall make myself available to you regularly, within our constituency. I need your advice and guidance.

I believe that when decisions are to be made on contentious issues of major or national importance, it is my duty to seek the consensus view of my constituents, and to represent that consensus in Parliament, even if it conflicts with my own personal view.

I believe you have placed me in a position of great trust. I shall therefore conduct my personal and public life with honour and integrity-

I further pledge that I shall honour, to the utmost of my ability, all of the commitments made in this statement.

It finishes with the final part of the pledge:

I, Ted White, your member of Parliament, do pledge, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Canadian federation and to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and that I will faithfully represent the people of the Electoral District of North Vancouver in the Canadian House of Commons.

It is dated in North Vancouver on January 7, 1994.

Members can tell from this that Reform has long had a commitment to have the oath changed to really represent the way we feel about Parliament and what we should be doing here as MPs.

Members can also tell from that oath that, unlike the Liberals and the old line parties, I do not believe this desk and this chair belong to my party. They belong to my constituents. They do not belong to me. This seat and this desk belong to my constituents and I am pledged to represent them from this position.

When the hon. member for Carleton-Gloucester introduced the bill, he mentioned that he respects the views of people of all political beliefs, and yet in this House he has made mean-spirited attacks on Reformers on regular occasions. In fact, the whole thrust of his bill seems to be couched in the form of an attack on another group of representatives in this Parliament. It is true that most of us do not agree with the position that group is espousing. However, the reason for bringing forward this change to the oath should not be based on attacking another group for its beliefs, it should be

based on the feeling that there is a real need to change the oath for good reasons.

However, as I said earlier, the general thrust of the bill is good. It is exactly in line with what Reformers have wanted to do, even if our reasons for wanting to do so are somewhat different.

I would like to mention once again the section from the blue sheet, just to remind members that this has long been Reform policy. It was put in our material in 1987. I am sure the member has never taken the time to read the blue sheet. If he had he would have found a whole slew of policies that he would be very pleased with.

This particular policy reads:

The Reform Party supports amending the M.P.s' oath of office such that they swear or affirm allegiance to their Queen, their constituents and to Canada.

We are obviously going to be supportive of Bill C-316. I am very sorry that there was not unanimous consent to make it votable. Despite other differences between us as members, I sincerely support the member's right to have a votable bill and I am truly sorry that did not happen.

In conclusion, Reform is supportive of this bill and would have voted in favour of it had it been a votable.

[Parliament Of Canada Act, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in rising today to speak on Bill C-316, I would like to make mention that when the parliamentary secretary on the government side rose he congratulated the member for bringing the issue forward for a second time. I guess that really means that Reform can take that as a major compliment, because it has been Reform policy since 1987 that this oath needed to be changed.

In fact if I read from the blue sheet it says: "The Reform Party supports amending the MP's oath of office, such that they swear or affirm allegiance to their Queen, their constituents and to Canada". We have long had that in our policy position.

The difference between the Liberals and Reform is that we would make it happen. It is part of our policy. The Liberals have the

power to pass the bill brought forward by this member. They have the power, but for some reason they have chosen not to do it.

The first thing I would like to do is ask for unanimous consent of the House to make the bill votable.

[Judges Act, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the response given by the hon. member and I can understand his frustration with the Senate. Reform has long

proposed an equal, elected and effective Senate. It is supposed to be the House of sober second thought.

Does the member not think it is actually a good sign when the Senate does something? It has returned a bill to the House and indicated it has given consideration to it. Is that not a very important signal that the Senate is prepared to give sober second thought to something? The bill has been sent back here and the Senate has said: "Take another look at this. Is this really what you want?"

Does the member not think that is quite a good thing to happen?

[Judges Act, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, thank you. I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. member. I have a couple of questions based on things that happened in the discussions during question period in the House on this issue over the last couple of days.

I remember that the member was accused of being meanspirited a number of times in the House over the issue of the appointment of the judge.

Therefore I would really like to ask the member whether he can really answer that charge and explain why he is not meanspirited in this particular case. I would also like to ask him why he is concerned about the impartiality of this judge when she comes back, if she does, to the country.

Finally, in fairness to the government, does the member feel that its motives are well intentioned or does he feel there is really something more behind this?

[Judges Act, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I have an inquiry. Questions and comments zoomed by there. I was going to get up and ask a question of the member. Did I miss the opportunity to do that?

[Canada Elections Act, November 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the member took great pains to stress the money which would be saved by this bill and I am sure we are all very happy about that.

There is also a new technology which would enable us to save a lot of money and there was no mention of it in the bill. That is the use of electronic touch-tone voting. Introducing that technology or making it possible for Elections Canada to do it would make it very convenient for the elderly, the disabled and other people who might have difficulty getting to the polls. It would also potentially save enormous amounts of money.

Even though it is not in the bill, would the member indicate if she would support Elections Canada moving toward electronic voting as one method of voting?

[Canada Elections Act, November 26th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up on the theme raised by my colleague that there must be an election imminent. The way those members are talking, they are so afraid of our fresh start program.

The member just before mentioned how wonderfully low the interest rates are and how anybody borrowing money on a mortgage now can save so much money. That is exactly Liberal think: you have to borrow money in order to get a benefit. Is that not wonderful? What if people do not want to borrow money? They are stuck with the high taxes. In fact if you borrow $200,000 you will get the same benefit as Reform's tax reductions.

It is Liberal think to say that low interest rates are a fantastic benefit. They are only a benefit if you borrow money. It is totally ridiculous. How can the hon. member justify that sort of approach where it is a benefit to borrow money instead of to reduce taxes?

[Speech From The Throne, November 1st, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I stood for questions and comments. Is that not permitted now?