John Reynolds

[Citizenship and Immigration, February 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, last week the member for Saint-Léonard--Saint-Michel said that Bill S-2, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, could allow serious criminals to reacquire Canadian citizenship and return to Canada. This week the Conservative Party has learned that a convicted repeat sexual predator will soon be living again in Canada.

A 33-year-old refugee was convicted of two separate sexual assaults on young girls, the second while on probation for the first. We know that following those sexual attacks he returned to Afghanistan from where he had originally fled. Now he is back and the Liberals have granted him refugee status again on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.

We Conservatives wonder where the Liberal compassion is for these vulnerable young girls who are at risk because this so-called refugee is back in our midst. Where is the sense in allowing him to return from his country of origin to plead for refugee status a second time? If it was dangerous the first time, why was it not dangerous for him to go back and live there?

Canadians want to know why the Liberals show compassion for a phoney refugee and convicted sexual predator but none for the innocent and vulnerable young girls.

[Petitions, February 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition from a large number of my constituents in West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea to Sky Country.

These petitioners call upon Parliament to amend the Canada Health Act to include IBI-ABA therapy for children with autism as a medically necessary treatment and require all provinces to provide and fund this essential treatment for autism, and to contribute to the creation of academic chairs at a university in each province to teach IBI-ABA treatment at the undergraduate and doctoral level.

[Petitions, February 11th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of the Sunshine Coast Peace Group that opposes participation in attack, invasion or occupation of foreign countries and call upon Parliament to denounce any further military attacks against foreign nations, and declare Canada's non-participation in such aggression.

The petitioners urge the UN to seek a peaceful solution that respects the charter of the UN and all other international laws regarding the sovereignty and equality of nation states and forbid the export of arms to any nation involved in military attack, invasion or occupation of other nations.

[Citizenship Act, February 10th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to talk to my hon. colleague who read the government position. I would say to him that in the next few days before the bill gets to committee we look at the present law. It does exactly what he says is so wrong for people prior to 1977. Anybody since 1977 has dual citizenship. If individuals are born in Canada, they are Canadian for the rest of their lives, even if their parents take them to the United States and make them American for a while. They will have dual citizenship. That has been done on both sides of the border by Americans and Canadians.

However, to say we will be allowing serious criminals back into this country is scaremongering. I could give the hon. member a list of Canadians who came before the committee, people like Don Chapman, who has been denied his citizenship. They are said to be former Canadians. Don Chapman is not a former Canadian. He was born in this country and he is a Canadian. His parents took him at a very young age to the United States. His father became an American. Because of the war and what he was doing for the government, he had to be an American. It should not prevent Don Chapman from being a Canadian.

This man's family has donated millions of dollars to Canadian universities and thousands of dollars to community events inside Canada. He has a home in Canada. Yet, the hon. member is telling him he has to become a landed immigrant to get his Canadian citizenship back. I think that is shameful and so do the majority of the members of the House, including many Liberals in the House.

The government bureaucracy, through the parliamentary secretary and the minister, hoodwinked the people across the way into believing what Canadians should be. We are proud of this country. What amazes me is that the parliamentary secretary who became a Canadian citizen is denying people who were born here their Canadian citizenship. That is shameful. We pride ourselves in being Canadians and anybody who was born here should never, ever lose that birthright.

I am proud that the Senate, all parties including independents, voted for the bill. I will be very proud when we get it to committee and it comes back here for a vote one night when the majority of members of the House will vote to pass the bill to ensure that all those Canadians who were born here can be proud Canadians for the rest of their lives.

[Business of the House, December 14th, 2004]

Especially, Mr. Speaker, since we already made it Friday.

I would like to ask the government House leader if he could tell the House what we will do on January 31 when we come back here, so we can get primed. We know we will have a very busy vacation, and hopefully we will all get a bit of a rest.

We are anxious to come back. We would like to know what we will do for that first week.

[Business of the House, December 9th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader if he could tell the House what the business is for the rest of today, tomorrow, and as far into next week as he would like to forecast.

I would also like to tell him that the opposition will agree to go back to tabling of documents so that Bill C-20 can be brought back today, in the spirit of Christmas cooperation.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I could say to my hon. colleague from the NDP that part of the reason that we have that problem is the fact that the Prime Minister has probably been outside of Canada more than he has been in Canada since this House reconvened. There cannot be a government when the leader is not around while parliament is sitting.

If I remember, the Prime Minister said one day when he was a little angry at the Leader of the Opposition, “I'd rather be anywhere than in this place with you guys”. That sort of gets across. I do not doubt that for a minute when he had the member for Mississauga—Erindale who caused him nothing but grief until she had to resign, and he has a Minister of Citizenship and Immigration causing the same problems today, and who knows who will be next.

I believe that the Prime Minister, for his new year's resolution, should promise to be in the House of Commons every day next year so we can get down to real business and solve the problems that a number of us have talked about here today.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point of view expressed by the Bloc's House leader. I am very pleased that this bill will be going to committee. It is going to give members an opportune chance to speak at this level and put their opinions forth. I certainly respect his opinion on this issue. I would rather be debating anything in this House, and I mentioned the issue of student loans and getting doctors through immigration. There are a lot of things we should be doing in this House. We should not debating the amount of money for ourselves.

Sooner or later, we have to solve this problem because the government has created another problem by not believing or listening to what it did in the last Parliament, which is not unusual for the government. The bill will have a chance to go to committee where we can discuss those issues.

Maybe we will get some unanimity in committee that we should receive zero as long as the judges receive zero. We made a commitment in this Parliament, at one point, that the chief justice of the Supreme Court would get the same salary as our Prime Minister and the rest would be scaled down from there. I believe it is going to stay that way.

I look forward to getting this to committee where we can discuss those issues brought up by my colleague from the Bloc.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we have a bill before us. I will not answer a hypothetical question.

The member has raised a hypothetical question. We have a bill. The bill says the private sector wage settlement process is 1.5%. My party is accepting that.

[Parliament of Canada Act, December 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that if we support this bill it has anything to do with reasonable percentages. We are agreeing that the private sector wage settlement process is something that is coming forth from this government. I am saying that in the last Parliament we all agreed that there would be a process. Now we have changed our minds again. We have to finally get to a system that we all agree to so the public understands it. We thought we had one. It did not work this time.