Jim Gouk

[Aboriginal Affairs, October 21st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in other words, the government intends to cut off fair debate and deny the public the right to hear what is going on in the treaty.

The Liberals spent a fortune of taxpayers' money on polling and then ignored the results. Extensive polling in British Columbia indicated widespread concern over the Nisga'a treaty as it is written.

Will the government commit to holding hearings in British Columbia, as part of this so-called democratic process, to enable all British Columbians to voice their concern, a right that was requested by the B.C. Liberal Party and denied by the NDP government?

[Aboriginal Affairs, October 21st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Government of British Columbia cut off debate on the Nisga'a treaty before many of the provisions were even debated.

Today the federal minister stated that he too plans to cut off debate if he does not feel that he likes the tone. There is democracy is action.

Will the Government of Canada commit to a more democratic process and assure the House and concerned British Columbians that full debate will be allowed and that time allocation and closure will not cut off debate on this critical subject?

[Petitions, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from constituents in my riding who are concerned about violent young offenders.

The petitioners feel that the Young Offenders Act should be amended to hold young people fully accountable for their criminal behaviour and to increase periods of incarceration to deter young people from committing these criminal acts.

The petitioners look for a number of amendments, of which the government is well aware, to strengthen the act and thus reduce the incidence of youth crime for the protection of all Canadians, young and otherwise.

[Petitions, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition concerns the Firearms Act.

The petitioners point out that this legislation does not provide any evidence as to how it will save lives and that the money which is being used could be better spent on better law enforcement, health care or any one of a number of other important issues.

These petitioners call upon parliament to repeal the act respecting firearms and other weapons.

[Nisga'A Treaty, May 7th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, did you know that the Nisga'a treaty will allow unlimited tax and rent increases to non-Nisga'a living on Nisga'a land? Do you think that is not a problem? Ask the non-native residents of the Musqueam reserve who just got hit with increases of over 7,000%.

Mr. Speaker, did you know there is a clause in the Nisga'a treaty that states that if at any time the government signs a treaty with any other aboriginal group that is more generous than the Nisga'a treaty, it automatically reopens negotiations?

Mr. Speaker, did you know the Nisga'a treaty allows the banning of union certification? Do you think it will not happen? The Kamloops and Westbank bands both recently did this, claiming that it would interfere with Indian self-determination, despite the fact that aboriginal workers on the reserves voted in favour of certification.

Some claim the Nisga'a treaty is necessary to end the uncertainty over land claims, but the Gitanyow band is now suing the government and the Nisga'a, claiming that Nisga'a treaty lands are their traditional lands, and B.C. taxpayers will be paying the bill for both sides.

Canadians want treaty settlements and so do we, but the treaties have to make sense. A bad treaty is not better than no treaty at all.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we woke up the deputy whip again. I am so glad that my speech has finally got through to her.

We need to have some standardization. We do not want the same thing happening in youth crime where we say “If you are going to commit crimes, there are some provinces that are soft on crime”.

The government has a lot of work to do. As weak as this bill is, it has some possibilities only if it listens to Canadians, if it listens to the voice of Canadians through us, if it looks seriously at amendments and puts partisanship behind it, if it can do that. Let us work together to make this the kind of bill Canadians have waited for.

[Youth Criminal Justice Act, May 5th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is only appropriate that I start off my presentation today on Bill C-68 by reflecting on the irony of talking to a bill with the number C-68.

We, on this side of the house, feel that the association with that number is so bad that even if this had been a good piece of legislation we probably would have had some problem with it. Bill C-68 is probably the worst piece of legislation that has ever come forward in the House. I refer, of course, to the bill from the previous parliament dealing with the forced registration of firearms owned by law-abiding citizens while criminals get to carry on their activities untouched.

One of the problems we always have in opposition is what to do when we call on the government to bring in some meaningful legislation and it finally comes up with something that goes part way. Do we applaud them for the little bit of progress that we have made or do we lament all the good things that could have been in that bill that are not?

I hear the deputy whip on the other side saying that we should applaud them for the little bit of good they do. I can understand her feeling that way because when a government only does a little bit of good it wants as much recognition as possible.

With this particular bill dealing with youth justice, this should have been done in the last parliament but it was not. A lot of promises were made but it never happened.

What happened? We had an election in 1997. We got the perky justice minister from the west. The west is a good place, but there are not many Liberals from there. The justice minister, right off the bat, said that this was a priority for her. I will never forget waking up every night with the phrase “in a timely fashion” ringing in my ears, because that was the minister's answer every time we asked her when the bill would be coming forward.

I guess either the minister does not know what is timely or she does not know what is in fashion. We waited and waited. Finally, after much pomp and ceremony at a big press conference last year talking about what she was almost ready to do, it took her another six months to do it. It is no wonder she had so much trouble finally coming out with it, it was mostly fluff.

Why do we not accept what we have achieved thus far? Considering how long it has taken to get what little Bill C-68 has to offer, we might never get anything more. We therefore have to lament what is missing from the bill.

It would be one thing if we thought this was the first instalment, but it has taken us five years to get this little dribble out of the minister. Of course we have to lament all the things that should be in the bill. Members may rest assured that the Reform Party will try to amend the bill both in committee and, if necessary, at report stage.

If the government wants to know whether it should adopt the amendments we will be suggesting, it will have to do two things that are very uncharacteristic: It will have to listen to Canadians and it will have to listen to what they are asking for. It claims it does that from time to time. Maybe it does, but then it has to do the second part, which is something it has a tremendous amount of difficulty with, and that is actually implementing what Canadians want.

One of the things the government has come out with lately is statistics. Statistics are wonderful. Statistics say youth crime is down. Youth crime is not down at all. Convictions on youth crime and prosecution of youth crime is down, but in terms of actual problems out there we still have a lot of problems.

I have heard people say, “Oh, that Reform Party is so hard on the young people. Isn't it terrible. Why are you picking on young people”? The fact is that the number one victim of young offenders is young people themselves. We are not doing this to pick on young people. We are doing it to protect them.

The courts have taken a lenient sort of approach in dealing with youth crime because that is obviously the message and signal coming from government, the appointer of judges. The RCMP are having a harder problem because it is dealing with severe cutbacks in budgets. Cuts have to be made somewhere, but we are basically turning our backs on minor youth crime which may then become major crimes.

We have always promoted and agreed with a three-fold approach. The first approach is early intervention. Our number one priority under the criminal justice system, be it with our youth or adults, is to prevent crime.

The second approach would be when a first time offender is apprehended for committing a non-violent crime and timely action to prevent the crime was not taken, every effort should be made to ensure that person does not offend again. The best way to do that is to try to find some way to keep them out of the criminal justice system through a diversion program.

The government talks about that in the bill, but diversion programs have been going on for quite awhile. I have one in my own riding in Trail, B.C. It is run by a lot of very conscientious and dedicated volunteers, citizens from the community. The success of that program is absolutely astounding. They have dealt with a lot of young offenders through that program and, from the last figures I have heard, they have had one single case of a repeat crime. That is a pretty astonishing record and one the government would do well to emulate. It tried to emulate it in its own fashion in this bill by promoting a diversion program.

However, even when the government copies us it just cannot get it right. It includes repeat and even violent offenders in that. Under the Trail program, those types of people are specifically banned. This is a single opportunity for those who have made a mistake to turn themselves around. It applies to non-violent and first-time offenders. They get one opportunity. They get one second chance. The government wants to give people three, four, five and six chances because it just does not want to deal with the problem.

That has to be one of the great flaws in the bill. At the same time, there is no question that diversion costs money upfront. It saves a tremendous amount of money in the criminal justice system but the government has to be willing to put some money upfront. It certainly has not identified that it is prepared to put up the kind of money to make this diversion program truly work.

There is also a need at the far end of the scale for those few young offenders, the small percentage, who are repeat violent offenders. That is the small element the government must get tough with. Every time we mention this the government says “Oh yes, these radical Reformers want to crack down on everybody”. We want to the best of our ability to ensure we can prevent crime. When we cannot get someone early enough to prevent it, then we want to make sure that it does not occur again.

As I said, it does not matter if we are talking about young offenders or adults. Where we fail, where people simply will not respond to that earlier intervention and the kinder treatment for a first offender, we need to send out a message. The message is that we intend to protect law-abiding citizens and their property. That is our priority. If people will not follow the rules even after they have been given a chance, we have to be prepared to deal with that.

The government fails miserably on that part. The government has said that it will crack down on certain areas of violent crime, but it left a whole lot out. What does that suggest? That it is picking and choosing at random? Violent crime is violent crime. The government should recognize it and treat it as such.

The government still wants to place us in a position where a young offender, particularly someone 16 or 17 years old who has perhaps committed a violent crime, has a trial to see where the trial will take place. It sounds like bureaucracy to me.

The government also says that the public will have access to information in certain areas, but it bans it in a lot of other areas. The government is not clear on this. There is also a lack of standardization.

Mr. Speaker, I got your signal. I trust it was the right finger. I know how some Liberals feel, but I am sure not you.

Where we have a problem is with the standardization. We have a problem right now with certain criminals judge shopping because they are known to be limited in other areas.

[Members Of Parliament Superannuation Act, May 5th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-509, an act to discontinue the retiring allowances payable to members of Parliament under the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and to include members of Parliament in the Public Service Superannuation Act and to discontinue members' tax free allowances for expenses and include the amount in members' sessional allowances.

Mr. Speaker, my private member's bill contains two simple provisions. One is to implement the Blais commission recommendation which would cancel a non-accountable allowance, gross it up and include it as income subject to full taxation.

The second, once that is implemented, is to cancel the MPs' pension plan in its entirety and place all MPs in the Public Service Superannuation Act plan. This would treat all MPs the same as federal public servants. It would also give the government more credibility in dealing with Bill C-78. If the government wants to change the pension plans of others it should first put members of parliament in that plan and then have those changes affecting them.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Nisga'A Treaty, April 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the Nisga'a treaty is winding its way through the B.C. legislature. The NDP government is ramming it through using something the Liberals are well familiar with: closure. The federal Liberals have indicated they intend to ram it through parliament, likely using closure as well.

Are these two governments right or wrong? I guess that depends on your point of view. If these governments are dictatorships, then I guess they can do whatever they want. However, if they are a democracy, they have to listen to the people, a rather bothersome concept for both of these parties.

What are the people of B.C. saying? Three regional plebiscites on the Nisga'a treaty have all rejected it by over 90%. The 25 public meetings I held in my riding indicate the same level of rejection.

British Columbians want aboriginal issues settled, but in a manner that works for all. A treaty that places aboriginal assets and powers in the hands of a few does not benefit most aboriginal members. A treaty that provides special benefits to a few on the basis of race does not resolve past differences for anyone. If the Liberals want to end western alienation, they had better start listening to the people of the west, all of them.

[Child Pornography, March 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it has now been more than two months since the possession of child pornography was made legal in British Columbia. We still have more than a month to wait before the court hears the appeal of the Shaw decision.

The Minister of Justice and her parliamentary secretary have been consistent, if nothing else, as they falsely continue to assure British Columbians that everything is under control.

Everything is not under control. We now have two child pornographers walking the streets in B.C. because of the Shaw decision. The second dismissal was even more galling, given that the accused pleaded guilty to the charge but had to be released because of Shaw.

I have recently received an RCMP intelligence report that indicates the extent of the child pornography flooding into British Columbia from outside the country. Yes, it is business as usual for this element of sick, perverted behaviour in B.C., behaviour that is aided and abetted by a Liberal government that refuses to act.