Chuck Cadman

[Correctional Service Canada, May 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this pair of killers deprived a woman of the intimate relationship she enjoyed with her husband. They permanently removed a relationship between young children and their father. Their reward was that they were almost allowed to continue their own personal intimate relationship. Their vicious crime was just a little glitch along the way.

Why did it take the outrage of the victim's widow to point out the obvious?

[Correctional Service Canada, May 15th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were stunned last week when Rose Cece and Mary Taylor, the killers of police officer William Hancox, were both incarcerated at Joliette. We know that the decision has since been reversed.

I want to ask the solicitor general what his corrections officials were thinking. Did they really think the two killers would have a positive influence on each other? Was any consideration given to the family of the victim?

[Youth Justice, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, a recent murder in British Columbia has highlighted the lack of resources in the justice system. It appears that the accused young man became heavily involved in the youth justice system at an early age and the lack of resources left his problems completely unaddressed and tragedy resulted.

The province is partially responsible but the federal government also carries much of the blame. Over the years it has cut its share of youth justice funding to a mere fraction of the originally agreed upon 50:50 split. The proposed funding is a drop in the bucket.

How many more tragedies will it take before the government fully restores its proper share of funding for youth justice?

[National Defence Act, May 12th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to slow down. I think I see some smoke coming out of the translator's booth.

The opportunity to speak to this Senate bill, Bill S-10, an act to amend the National Defence Act, the DNA Identification Act and the Criminal Code, puts me in a bit of a quandary.

On one hand, I do not agree that we should be dealing with legislation that comes from the unelected and unaccountable other place. On the other hand, I have to agree with much of the intent of the legislation. It illustrates once again how the government has failed to do its job properly.

Just a couple of years ago we dealt with DNA legislation. In fact this is at least the third time we have dealt with DNA legislation in the past five years. I suppose the government was embarrassed about its previous failures to adequately address all that was necessary. That may explain why it brought Bill S-10 through the back door, so to speak, through the Senate once again instead of through the House of Commons. Surely the government will get it right one of these days.

In the meantime, while Canadians want legislation to address failings in our youth justice system, while Canadians are dying through failures in our health system through lack of funding and through the lack of a plan to address the failings of our national health program, and while victims of crime continue to wait for legislation from the solicitor general, we are forced to once again spend time in this place dealing with DNA.

Do not get me wrong. I believe DNA technology is one of the greatest tools for law enforcement and our justice system. All I am saying is that it is unfortunate that we have to take three or four kicks at the can just on DNA legislation when there are so many other issues of importance to our citizens. It is a travesty that the government wastes time and money trying again and again to get something right.

I remember the last time we discussed DNA legislation. When we were dealing with Bill C-3 just two years ago, the government played politics instead of sufficiently supporting our police officers.

When our police are asking for tools to help them solve hundreds of unsolved murders and rapes, the government goes only halfway. The government is more concerned with inconveniencing our criminals than it is with protecting our communities and ensuring that our more dangerous predators are removed from the streets.

Perhaps after a number of our incarcerated criminals succeed in getting back onto the streets, only to recommit additional crimes, will we then be able to obtain their DNA samples to help the police with past unsolved serious crimes. Maybe then we will once again be back in here dealing with yet another attempt to properly legislate on this issue of DNA and the DNA databank once and for all.

Bill S-10 amends the National Defence Act to authorize military judges to issue DNA warrants to assist in investigations of National Defence personnel. The bill also authorizes military judges to order military offenders convicted of a limited number of offences to provide samples of bodily substances for the purpose of the DNA databank. Essentially all this legislation is doing is including similar provisions for the national defence justice system that we provided under the criminal code through Bill C-104 in 1995 and Bill C-3 in 1998. As a side note, hon. members will also be aware that Bill C-3 was a prime example of just how little the government really considers its law enforcement officers and its citizens.

Bill C-3 was passed in September 1998 to set up the DNA databank so that evidence left at crime scenes for very limited types of offences could be compared to the DNA samples taken from some of our more dangerous criminals. I say some of our more dangerous criminals because the government decided to severely limit just who had to provide samples of saliva or blood.

For example, individuals who have only been convicted of one murder do not have to provide a DNA sample. Furthermore, Canadian citizens will be surprised to know that such a valuable and highly effective justice tool is not even in force yet. As I say, it was passed in September 1998. It will not be in effect until next month.

The RCMP have been quoted as saying:

—it's the single most important tool added to crime-fighting since discovery of fingerprint identification.

It has taken over a year and a half to come into being. Typically there are indications that it may take our correctional service another couple of years to fulfil its responsibilities under the legislation and to provide samples of those offenders presently incarcerated or serving sentences within the community. Should Bill S-10 pass this place I can only wonder how far down the road it will take before it too is actually in effect.

As I have previously stated in debate, it is most unfortunate that our DNA databank legislation is not much broader to include most, if not all, indictable offences. We all know that the vast majority of our more dangerous criminals start their life of crime with the lesser offences and move up to the more heinous criminal activity. Once a criminal commits an indictable offence that criminal should be included within the databank so that he will show up should he ever leave DNA evidence at the scene of a subsequent crime. The government seems to think that it should be a game between the criminal and our law enforcement personnel.

I keep hearing about the government's concern for balanced legislation. Seeing its legislation and seeing its political endeavours, I often wonder whether part of its aim toward balance is ensuring that our criminals have a fair chance against getting caught and receiving punishment for their crimes. It is often more concerned for the interest of the criminals than it is for the safety of our citizens and the efforts of our police officers.

Before the listener gets the impression that this DNA databank and DNA warrant process will only bring our criminals to justice, I should point out that it is most important to also prove the innocence of some accused. We are all familiar with how DNA evidence was used to exonerate Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard. They provided bodily samples to prove that the evidence left at the scene of the crimes did not match their DNA, so this whole DNA revolution is probably more important or at least just as important to prove innocence as to prove guilt of an individual.

I have not said much about Bill S-10 specifically. As I have said, it brings to the military what we have done for our primary criminal justice process. It only makes sense that our military system operates on the same footing. Yes, it is an inadequate footing overall but at least it is a start.

I will be supporting the legislation. It is my hope that it will not take as long to come into force. For some reason the government does not seem to realize the importance of each day it delays the implementation of legislation such as this. It may result in another day that victims have to live with not knowing who was responsible for the crime. It may result in another day that an individual is falsely accused of a crime. It may result in a day that a criminal gets away with a crime, to say nothing of the added expense to the taxpayer of added investigation by our police and additional legal argument within our courts as both the innocent and the guilty make their appeals.

To sum up, DNA is a valuable tool to separate the guilty from the innocent. It will greatly assist the police. It will provide greater certainty to our justice system. It will protect our citizens. Some of us may question the necessity to separate our justice system from our military in this time of peace, but it only makes sense that we provide a similar regime for that process for the same reasons we have provided it within the civil justice system.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, May 9th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments.

In my constituency of Surrey North, I too have a very high caseload, about 80% of which is immigration files. A large number of those tend to deal with the whole visitors visa problems. One of the main problems we see is with people who are trying to have relatives come over for a funeral, a wedding or for any number of reasons. Of course, we want our front line officers to be vigilant to make sure that people are properly screened.

I have had cases where I suspected the applicants were perfectly reasonable but they were denied. At this end, people have actually offered to sign affidavits to put up tens of thousands of dollars in bonds. People who have made the application in the country of origin have agreed to put up tens of thousands of dollars or the equivalent size bond. For some reason Immigration Canada is loath to accept these bonds and has denied entry to these people.

Does my colleague have any comment on the bond issue? Should it be explored and opened up a bit more?

[Justice, May 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, two days ago a man got three and a half years in prison and an eight year driving ban for killing a man while impaired. Yesterday another drunk driver went home with a two year conditional sentence for killing Ellen Katarius, a single mother of four.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has complained for years about conditional sentences for impaired driving causing death. Parliament is considering a maximum life sentence for the offence while the courts continue to impose conditional sentences.

What does the Minister of Justice have to say to four motherless children? Where is the justice in all of this?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2000, May 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget brought forth by the government.

Once again the finance minister and his spin doctors are using five year projections to exaggerate his changes and to sell benefits to Canadians. It is too bad the government cannot be straight with the public over just what the budget will or will not do for the citizens of this country.

With a little more integrity and honesty the government would have to inform the Canadian taxpayer that the announced tax cuts for this year will already have been eaten up by recent increases in the price of fuel to operate our motor vehicles. After all, the tax cuts amount to about $10 a week and we have all seen how much we now have to pay each time we pull up to the pumps.

With a little more clarity the government would tell Canadians that the increase to the Canada pension plan premiums on January 1, 2000 was one of the largest tax grabs in the history of this country. The government sings the praises of its $10 per week tax cut, but says very little about the $8 a week tax increase to cover its mismanagement of the Canada pension plan.

With a little more sincerity the government would inform Canadians that it has done little if anything proactively to address the $576 billion debt. The government keeps putting off the reduction of the debt for some rainy day far into the future. The finance minister has survived this albatross around our necks solely because of the pace of the economy. Should the economy ever slow down or even recede, we will be in big trouble for not paying our bills when we had surplus capability. It is unfortunate when we have a Prime Minister and a finance minister who put off this problem until some time when they are no longer around to tackle the consequences of their inaction.

As I say, the spin doctors have worked overtime to sell this budget but Canadians are not buying. It is no wonder politicians are ranked so unfavourably by citizens. Even the government after years of good fortune and years of fancy bookkeeping now admits that our revenues are greater than our expenditures.

I mentioned the fancy bookkeeping or creative accounting and bring up the millennium scholarship fund as just one example. It is still a wonder how the country's chief accountant was able to write off a future year's expenditures in his current financial year. At least we now have a balanced budget even in the eyes of the finance minister and his strange accounting practices.

With a balanced budget the surtax should have been eliminated. After all, its only reason for being was to address the deficit. The deficit has been eliminated but the surtax remains and will only be finally removed sometime in the future. This reminds me of the GST. The government makes promises but fails to fulfil them.

I fully appreciate that the budget process is primarily about the money held by the government on behalf of its citizens. Maybe the government should recognize this fact occasionally. It seems to think the money belongs to it, the Liberal Party. Not too long ago the Minister of Veterans Affairs had the temerity to imply that the tax department was a Liberal Party institution. I always assumed that government departments were supposed to operate independently of the political arm of government. Perhaps he let the cat out of the bag as to the real truth in Ottawa. I would hate to think so as Canadians already have enough reasons to despise the tax collector.

Getting back to the budget and the money process, the Minister of Finance spends a great deal of time allocating money to this department and that department, but he does not spend a great deal of time ensuring the problems are corrected or that ministers are efficient and effective with their allotments. There appears to be little concern when the Minister of Human Resources Development admits to billions of tax dollars having been expended with hardly any checks and balances to ensure that we obtained value for the money invested. It appears the government views the taxpayer as a bottomless pit as the finance minister added to the problem in this budget by giving HRD more money to waste. As the saying goes, only in Canada you say. HRD should have been dramatically reduced in funding instead of being rewarded. It is a disgrace.

Let us break our budgetary process into very simple terms. Over the next five years the Minister of Finance projects he will have in excess of $119 billion from his excessive taxation policies. We all know how conservative the minister becomes when he projects his revenues. There is at least $119 billion that taxpayers are being forced to pay in excess of what this money grabbing government needs to operate. This includes the billions of dollars that are mismanaged, written off as bad debts and spent like the proverbial drunken sailor. There will be $119 billion of excess taxation over the next five years.

This $119 billion includes the $5 billion per year the finance minister continues to overtax through the employment insurance fund. There is a surplus of $30 billion in the fund but the government continues to overcharge workers in order to fund pet projects. The minister likes to point out cuts to employee and employer contributions over the past number of years. The simple fact is that there is an enormous surplus and there is absolutely no valid reason to continue to overtax workers.

The minister should be absolutely ashamed of his actions. He overtaxes citizens to the tune of $119 billion and then tries to buy them off by giving back a few tax breaks. The rest is used to perpetuate the Liberal legacy of spend, spend, spend. And we wonder why we are $576 billion in debt. And we wonder why we are facing a brain drain.

As an aside, I note that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have been noticeably quiet lately about the brain drain. Last year they said there was no such thing. They appear to have finally clued in.

Speaking of being clued in, where was the government prior to the budget? In the budget there was very little for health care. Now the Liberals seem to understand that health care is the highest priority among Canadians. The provinces are in desperate situations and have been demanding to meet with the Prime Minister.

Two tier health programs are now once again threatening our universal health care system. What strikes me as very questionable is that the health minister says that he wants to consult the provinces and additional financial resources are available. If more funds are available, why were they not included within the budget just a few weeks ago? A national plan seems to be seriously lacking.

In essence the government deserves very little praise for its accomplishments over the past seven years. Yes, when it took power in 1993, it faced a very shaky financial picture. Canadians were grossly overtaxed, government was far too big and we were in a deficit position as the revenues were less than the expenditures. The government likes to blame the Mulroney government for all our financial ills, but I seem to recall that it was the Trudeau Liberal government that started us on this downward spiral that will take generations to rectify.

Through a little bit of cost cutting but primarily through a significant change in world economic growth and significant tax increases to an already overburdened taxpayer, this country was able to balance the budget. Canadians owe very little to the Liberal government for our present economic outlook. The deficit was conquered solely on the backs of Canadian taxpayers.

I would like to go on especially on such an important topic as the budget but my time is limited. I would like to mention the new money provided to the RCMP and I would like to talk about border security problems. In both cases the government has put more money to the problems.

The government created the financial disaster within the RCMP when it gave members a long overdue raise in salary but then forced the organization to fund the raise from its existing budget. This resulted in the closing of the training academy and resulted in shortages to the extent that the RCMP had difficulty in putting fuel into its vehicles and even into buying tires for its cars.

As to the border security problems, money is not the sole solution.

Unfortunately, the government has no other solutions to the problems of the country. There is no plan. There is no vision. We continue to ride on the seat of our pants and hope that the problems are solved by themselves. Canadians expect much more. The government has gotten very old and very tired.

[The Late Hamed Nastoh, March 27th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on March 11, 14 year old Hamed Nastoh left a note for his parents, climbed onto the Pattullo Bridge and jumped to his death in the Fraser River; the final desperate act of a teenager who saw no other way out.

There was no escape from the constant taunting, teasing and bullying at the hands of fellow students. He was violently punched at least once, yet he said little, if anything, of his torment.

Bullying usually brings to mind images of children in shoving matches. At the junior and high school levels, what is commonly referred to as bullying is nothing less than criminal harassment and assault. It must not be tolerated.

Bullies survive through intimidation. They thrive on fear, the victim's fear to come forward. When victims do muster the courage to speak out, there is usually very little by way of consequence to the perpetrator, who then feels even more empowered to escalate the harassment. The victim usually moves to another school and the bully finds a new victim.

Hamed's death was preventable. I plead with young people to speak up. I beg of parents to listen and watch for the signs. I demand of educators to identify and remove the predators.

[Human Resources Development, March 24th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, our constituents would like to have some accountability at HRDC.

Much of what we requested are already completed documents. They are ready to go. The minister pretends she wants transparency. The only transparency is the apparent attempt to muzzle the department.

The Access to Information Act is clear. Departments have 30 days to return requested information. Dozens of requests have not been dealt with yet.

Is the minister's clampdown a result of some embarrassment or fear over the possible damaging content of these documents?

[Supply, March 22nd, 2000]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak about an integrated transportation system in the country.

Simply put, this debate is about getting the government to show some necessary leadership. Unfortunately it is not often we see it providing leadership with many issues. We seldom see leadership at all when it comes to transportation issues.

We saw little in the way of leadership from the government when it cancelled the Pearson airport deal which cost Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Nor did we see much leadership when it merely reacted to the Air Canada and Canadian Airline situation which resulted in a monopoly more or less for Canadian domestic air travel. Consumers will once again be expected to pay significantly through increased fares and limited alternatives when travelling across the country.

The other day I heard that a couple of U.S. airlines were having a price war to compete with each other. Apparently the executives at Air Canada were heard laughing all across North America. It is so sad when Canadians do not know whether that is actually a joke or the truth.

We have not seen much in the way of leadership when the government continues to collect billions in fuel taxes supposedly for the building and maintenance of our highways. It retains the vast majority of this tax to be used for its pet projects, to enable it to brag about balancing the budget and to mismanage through human resources development grant fiascos, or through dozens of other equally dismal government operations.

Speaking of fuel taxes, we certainly see a lack of leadership in this regard. On each and every litre of fuel at the pumps, the federal government has its hand out for its share which last year came to $4.5 billion. But when Canadians face a fuel crisis like we are presently witnessing, the Prime Minister appears to be blind to the fact that his government is part of the problem. He claims that escalating gas prices are outside his jurisdiction. He has refused to even consider reducing his share of the profits. That is leadership. He is quite happy to reap millions of dollars on the backs of consumers and truckers whose prices rise through the roof.

The second part of this motion seeks to encourage the federal government to work in conjunction with other levels of government and the private sector to plan, implement and fund an integrated transportation system. We have not gotten off to a very good start. The federal government will go down in history as being completely unable or unwilling to work in conjunction with other levels of government.

Federal taxes affect the pricing of motor vehicle fuels but the Prime Minister is not even interested in working together with the provinces to address our present difficulties. He merely walks away from the issue saying it is not his problem. He likes a windfall in taxes but he does not want nor will he accept the problems that are created.

Then we have our rail system. The government has been party to the dismantling and the shrinkage of our rail transportation capabilities. At the same time it has been helping the American rail system. We recently learned that our federal government through the Export Development Corporation loaned U.S. government owned Amtrak $1 billion to help build the Boston to Washington bullet train.

That deficit plagued U.S. railroad agency gets Canadian federal government support. At the same time our own rail system is being dramatically reduced. It is a national disgrace to discover that the government is more interested in protecting the more competitive U.S. transportation market while ignoring our own transportation system.

I will not even go into the relationship of Pierre MacDonald who was appointed as a director of EDC by the Prime Minister. Mr. MacDonald, a former Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, was also a director of Bombardier which surprise, surprise, is a major beneficiary of the loan to Amtrak. In fact the board of the EDC reads like an old boys club in its connections to the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada but that is a debate for another day.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with representatives of Rocky Mountaineer Railtours which operates a train service through the Rockies. They bought the tourism service from VIA Rail over 10 years ago and have since turned it into a major success story without one cent of government money. They plan to expand into other parts of Canada.

I mention Rocky Mountaineer Railtours to point out that Canadian entrepreneur possess the skills to meet transportation challenges, but too often the federal government stands in the way or disrupts competition by either protecting one of the participants or creating some sort of monopoly. There is little in the way of leadership to plan for success so that all Canadians may benefit from an effective and efficient transportation system within the country.

After the success of the Rocky Mountaineer Railtours I am led to believe that the federal government is considering allowing VIA Rail to compete directly with it. Once again we will have the federal government interfering by subsidizing VIA Rail to drive out a successful independent private business.

The recent Air Canada-Canadian Airlines merger illustrates how inept the government has become with its lack of an overall plan for transportation. The government and the Minister of Transport only react to what occurred to significantly change our air transportation. There has been no plan in place. There has been no leadership. The federal government merely stood by while Canadian citizens lost any semblance of a competitive market.

These examples illustrate just how the federal government fails to lead and protect Canadians by ensuring an effective transportation system. Far too often the Prime Minister runs around trying to put out one fire after another, merely by throwing money at them. If there is a problem with health care, he puts a couple of billion dollars back into it and says he has looked after it. If there is a problem with national defence he allots a few million dollars and says it is fixed. If there is a problem with organized crime taking over the country, he gives the Mounties a few million and says things are okay.

The only overall plan is to ensure that Canadians are taxed to death so the federal government will have enough surplus funds to put out the fires. Unfortunately this puts out the fires for just a short period of time. Before too long we need more resources for health care. We need more to fund national defence and we need more for our police.

This is the same problem with our transportation industry. For years and years the government has shortchanged Canadians by taxing billions and billions of dollars for road building and maintenance. Our highways have been left to break up and disintegrate. It will now cost many billions of dollars to get them back up to scratch. The government will provide a few million dollars and say everything is fine when it knows it is like a band-aid on a hole in the dike.

Similarly the government wheeled and dealed with Air Canada and worked together to spin a tale that Air Canada would maintain competitive pricing on airfares in the domestic market. In the not too distant future Canadians will witness increased prices. At some point the federal government will react with some sort of band-aid, but the problem will never completely go away because there is no overall plan or leadership. The same goes for rail transportation.

It is interesting to note that the federal government has had difficulty in finding a band-aid for the trucking industry. The government does not know who to pay off to quiet the truckers because truckers operate independently. There is no place to hand out a million dollar grant or subsidy. The government could impose a freeze by eliminating its share of the profits gained from the sale of motor fuel, but there is no guarantee that retailers will pass on the savings to the consumer.

The Prime Minister says that it is not his problem, that it is someone else's. He conveniently forgets that he is a partner in the profits. He conveniently forgets that the federal government has a role in national transportation issues. The only answer to this problem is the tried and true Liberal response that they will study it to death.

To sum up, my constituency of Surrey North is home to the Fraser Surrey docks which handles 200 vessels per year ranging in size up to 50,000 tonnes. It is part of the Fraser River Port Authority. Surrey North is also home to a large rail marshalling yard and an intermodal facility. It is bounded on one side by the Trans-Canada Highway and has two major bridges crossing the Fraser River. A sustainable, integrated national transportation system is important to the economy of my community.

Just as an anecdote, going back to the highways issue, in 1971 my wife and I drove from Toronto to Vancouver when we moved out there in an Austin Mini, a little car with 10 inch wheels. That was in my leaner days. We went out there with everything we owned and two cats. I remember our drive across the prairies. It was just a wonderful drive on the highways. Through the mountains it was a wonderful drive. Through the Fraser Canyon the only thing we feared was looking in the rear view mirror and seeing the licence plate of a semi coming behind.

Last year I drove the Fraser Canyon again, this time in a bigger car, and the condition of the highway was unbelievable. It was washboard and bone rattling. I say this to show the deterioration we have seen our highway system go through in the last 25 to 30 years. It is criminal.

To date the government has demonstrated no vision when it comes to a national transportation strategy and it is about time it started.