John Reynolds

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 175

That Bill C-9 be amended by adding after line 29 on page 7 the following new clause:

“20.1 (1) On the expiration of eight years after the coming into force of this Act, the provisions contained herein shall be referred to such committee of the House of Commons, of the Senate, or of both Houses of Parliament as may be designated or established by Parliament for that purpose.

(2) The committee designated or established by Parliament for the purpose of subsection (1) shall, as soon as practicable, undertake a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this Act and, shall within one year after the review is undertaken, submit a report to Parliament.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 6th, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 44

That Bill C-9, in Clause 3, be amended by replacing lines 38 to 41 on page 2 with the following:

“3. The Nisga'a Agreement is subordinate to the Constitution of Canada and to the laws and statutes of Canada and British Columbia.”

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, December 2nd, 1999]

moved:

Motion No. 25

That Bill C-9, in the preamble, be amended by deleting lines 21 to 27 on page 1.

[Rcmp, December 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in view of the powers that these triads have and the stories that are coming out of Canada, will the solicitor general not agree they should not be investigated by the RCMP, but an independent prosecutor?

[Rcmp, December 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is again for the solicitor general.

He mentioned that the commissioner told him the name of the individual investigating Corporal Read. Does the solicitor general not know that this individual is one of those accused by Corporal Read of the same crimes? It is like the fox looking after the chicken coop.

These triad leaders have power, so much power that Timothy Fu, one of those accused, said that his brother was shown in a picture shaking hands with the Prime Minister. This shows the power these triads and underworld people have.

Can the solicitor general—

[Rcmp, December 1st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the solicitor general, following on the question of my colleague.

The solicitor general says that Corporal Read should go to the Public Complaints Commission with his concerns. Corporal Read went to the Public Complaints Commission in 1998. He was told that was the inappropriate body to investigate this. We have the RCMP officials investigating one of their own members who is laying criminal complaints against them.

Is it not time that the solicitor general looked at this very seriously and appointed an independent prosecutor to get to the bottom of this issue?

[Child Pornography, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on February 2, 1999, the Minister of Justice said this about child pornography: “We are acting immediately. We will not wait for this case to reach the supreme court”.

Since she made those statements, a 300,000 signature petition has been tabled calling for the reinstatement of the possession of child pornography as a criminal offence. Numerous individuals have used the Sharpe decision as a defence to avoid prosecution. Sixty-three Liberal MPs and six Liberal senators have called on the Prime Minister to invoke the notwithstanding clause and further the petitions that have been circulated.

The result of this is the Minister of Justice has received 6,500 signatures on a cruelty to animals petition. The minister has decreed this issue as pre-eminent in the legislative sweepstakes.

It is regrettable that this minister has her priorities so wrong.

[Supply, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted an opportunity, like my colleague, to congratulate the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot for what he is doing. I think we could just about call him a Canadian hero. The member may jump at that and think it is an exaggeration, but I do not because when we take on organized crime, we have a serious problem, as the member is finding out.

I see the hon. member up in the gym and he is tailed by the RCMP. I would not want that in my life and I do not think any Canadian believes that should be happening in Canada. This should be too free a country for that.

I hope the government, in accepting this motion, will also accept witnesses recommended by the opposition parties and be prepared to go to cities like Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver for committee hearings so we can get to the root of the problem in each of those cities and solve these problems.

I could not let the chance go by to say that it is astounding in a country like this that organized crime is so deep it can get right up to the level of the House of Commons where it can make threats against a person and his or her family. We should all take that seriously and make sure that does not happen again. Organized crime has to know the government and the people in this building are serious about ending organized crime in Canada.

[Supply, November 30th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member, who was just asking the question, points out the problem we have between east and west where these stories are quite well known.

I have written the solicitor general and the head of the RCMP about the shortage of officers on the Sunshine Coast where they are supposed to have 52 officers for a population of 46,000. We are about 10 short, which is well above the 10% the commissioner sometimes talks about. Because of that, RCMP officers are sometimes quoted as saying that they cannot cover certain crimes overnight, like break-ins, because they do not have the staff. One officer was quoted as saying that they have been told by Ottawa not to go up to Pender Harbour from Sechelt to cover things at night, and yet there are a few thousand people who live there. We know it is a serious problem.

A comparison with that is West Vancouver which has 40,000 people, its own police force and 77 policemen on staff. It is an area bordered by water on two sides and a very compact area compared with the Sunshine Coast. We have a real shortage.

The member made a comment about the Fujian province. I agree with a lot of the things he said about that, but he also said that we only have one office in Beijing and at 18 cents an hour how can they afford to get there. That may or may not be true, but how can they afford to pay the $40,000 to the guys to get on the boat? It leads to the fact that organized crime is behind it.

I have been told by an overwhelming number people in the Chinese community in Vancouver that if we do not turn the boats around, or at least send the people back by airplane immediately, the people in that province will not get the message that human smuggling is not the way we do immigration in Canada.

There is a difference here to start with. Yes, they cannot afford it, but they can afford to raise $30,000 or $40,000 and/or pay it off in ware when they get here. How does the member rationalize that statement?

[Supply, November 30th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that just moving the resources that we have around is not going to solve any problems. As we mentioned to the Solicitor General earlier, we have RCMP shortages right across Canada and we need money for that. Organized crime is costing Canadians about $18 billion a year. On top of that there are the profits the criminals make and the billions a year on drugs and other issues.

With regard to the new computer data and all of those problems across Canada and across the world, that was one of the issues discussed at the G-8 conference in Moscow. It was interesting that all the countries agreed except for Germany, so they could not come to an agreement. They just agreed to study it for one more year which is much of what we get here. Politics around the world is not much different than what it is right here. At a conference like that everybody wanted to get in.

Now with encryption, criminals can talk to each other quite openly. Wire taps cannot be put on like what can be done with telephones to investigate. So it is not just resources. There has to be a will to say to people that we have to do something about organized crime in Canada, that we can do something about it, that we have not done things about. I hope the committee will make recommendations the government will listen to and act on in a very quick manner.