John Reynolds

[Immigration Act, November 23rd, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-332, an act to amend the Immigration Act and the Criminal Code (refugee or immigrant applicants convicted of an offence on indictment).

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Immigration Act and the Criminal Code to ensure that those who commit an indictable offence while attempting to enter Canada can be removed.

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

[Immigration Act, November 23rd, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-331, an act to amend the Immigration Act (persons without identification not to be allowed into Canada as immigrants or refugees or under a minister's permit).

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Immigration Act to ensure that those immigrants wishing to enter Canada have proper identification.

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

[Privacy Act, November 23rd, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-330, an act to amend the Privacy Act.

Mr. Speaker, this bill amends the Privacy Act to invest the power in the privacy commissioner to ensure impartiality.

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

[Child Pornography, November 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we know also that children are being left unprotected. We also like this law as the minister does, but the courts do not so far. Sixty-three members of her own caucus have asked the government to invoke the notwithstanding clause. Her own parliamentary secretary has asked the Prime Minister in a letter to invoke the notwithstanding clause. Three hundred thousand Canadians have signed a petition.

When is the government going to not wait for the supreme court? Let it know right now that parliament rules the country and we do not stand for child pornography.

[Child Pornography, November 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the possession of child pornography is still legal in British Columbia. Judges across Canada are now delaying trials on the possession of child pornography until after the supreme court makes a decision. The minister at one time said that she would not let this case get to the Supreme Court of Canada.

How many years do our children have to wait to get protection? Will the minister do the right thing now and invoke the notwithstanding clause?

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman across the hall asks me to quote what the Nisga'a people say about the treaty. I will tell him something. I heard in the House today from the minister of Indian affairs that our member for Skeena had never talked to Nisga'a. That is absolutely untrue. He has met with them many times. He has asked to meet with them over the last while and they do not show up for the meetings.

Those are the facts and the member does not want to know them. He knows that area better than anybody sitting on that side of the House. He gets elected by a very big majority of people who live in that constituency. The people in his constituency do not want this treaty and that is why he is here debating it.

Let us look at what the Prime Minister said. He said:

—what we want, and the Indians are in agreement, is that they should become equal citizens of Canada.

The Prime Minister of Canada said that they wanted to become equal citizens of Canada. That is not in the bill. It creates a fishery that is racist. That has been quoted not only by the Reform Party but many other prominent people in western Canada. It is a racist treaty. It does not make everybody equal in Canada. Yet the Prime Minister said that we all should be equal in the country, and I believe that too. I have another quote from a well-known Liberal:

There is a long term intention on the part of the government, and this to be debated, I suppose, as part of our Indian policy, to arrive eventually at a situation where Indians will be treated like other Canadian citizens of the particular province in which they happen to be.

This was said by Pierre Trudeau in the House of Commons on November 5, 1968. If members read the legislation it does not match that paragraph. Yet this man was a great Canadian, well respected by his party and won a number of elections. The legislation does not allow that to happen. I have another quote from a well-known person across the hall:

For many Indian people, the road does exist, the only road that has existed since Confederation and before. The road of different status, a road which has led to a blind alley of deprivation and frustration. This road...cannot lead to full participation, to equality in practice as well as in theory...the government will offer another road that would gradually lead away from different status to full social, economic and political participation in Canadian life. This is the choice.

This was said by the present Prime Minister in June 1969. That was their position then. They have a different one now. They say we should vote for the bill, let it happen and we will all do fine. As I said earlier, this is the government that said it would ban the GST when it defeated the Tories who had really messed up the country, got elected and became the Government of Canada.

This is the same government that said it would get rid of free trade. It did nothing about that. This is a government which does not know how to keep a major promise. How could anybody in British Columbia believe the government when it says that we should trust it?

As I said, I would trust the Reform dinosaurs before the Liberal sharks on the other side. They act like sharks when it comes to legislation. They have acted like sharks when running the country. They are not doing what is good for Canada. They are trying to make the issue look like it is good for the native people. It is not good for native people. It is not good for Canadians. It certainly is not good for British Columbians.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

The Liberals say that they have not fulfilled the treaty. What makes them change? The Liberals and the Tories have been in government for the last 100 years. They have had treaties with these people and not a darned thing has been done for them. Are the Liberals telling us now that they will change? No Canadians believe that. This is a phony document. It needs some changes.

We have to ensure native people get treated just like other Canadians get treated. Some people may not think it is all that good, the way the rest of Canadians get treated by governments because of our taxes and all other situations.

I will go back and quote what some well known Liberals have said.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I just gave him the facts on the myth versus his myth. They are wrong and they get very upset when they hear the truth. The majority of the people of British Columbia and the NDP Government of British Columbia, which our friends down here support federally, do not like the agreement.

They talk in this document about fair treatment of British Columbia. I was Speaker of the British Columbia legislature for nine years. It was the worst sham I have ever seen when this bill went through the British Columbia legislature. The Government of British Columbia did not let it get halfway through the legislature before it brought in closure. The government opposite just denied us the right to sit tonight to debate the bill until 10 p.m., but in the next few days it will bring in closure on it.

That is not debating legislation the proper way. We can go back to the pipeline debate a number of years ago that went on for days and weeks and months because it was a right of Canadians, no matter how small their group in the House, to debate a bill until it was fully debated and fully discussed, so the people of eastern Canada can understand what is the problem with the legislation in British Columbia.

I suggest to people out there, as my friend said earlier the hundreds of thousands that are watching, that they should look at the treaties we have had in eastern Canada for the last 100 years. Are natives in eastern Canada living any better because of the treaties they signed? I do not think they are.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

The hon. member says that is wrong but Rafe Mair says that is right and I say it is right also. He continues:

—it creates a fishery every bit as racist as if “a whites only” fishery were enacted; and it constitutionalizes a special, entrenched style of government to which, irretrievably, are granted powers hitherto reserved to the federal government or the provinces.

We will have 50 to 75 of these constitutionaled, unamendable, self-governing jurisdictions in B.C.

And you think the Nisga'a agreement is just a British Columbia problem? Dream on, fellow Canadians, dream on.

This man is well respected in that province. He served in the provincial legislature. He said he would vote Liberal in the next election. He totally disagrees with the Liberals on this matter.

Let us get off the issue of who is calling whom a hothead. We are debating an issue that is very important to all the people of British Columbia and Canadians.

[Nisga'A Final Agreement Act, October 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the truth really hurts in this place when we start speaking the truth or reading some of their own documents back to them. I think I have been up for five minutes but time-wise I have only had about a minute and a half.

Let me talk about what the Liberals say in their document. They refer to myth No. 1, a third order of government. The member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, as reported in Hansard of June 3, 1999, said:

There are some frightening and constitutionally questionable aspects to this treaty...The Nisga'a creates a new level of government, the Nisga'a national government.

This is the Liberal myth document. Let us see if what they say is the reality. They indicated that the treaty recognized the right to self-government and returned stewardship over the land to the Nisga'a, that the Nisga'a government would not have any exclusive jurisdiction, and that concurrent jurisdiction in this case between Nisga'a laws and all existing federal and provincial laws was a common feature of Canadian communities. That is what the Liberals say in their document Dancing with the Dinosaurs .

Let me quote from a Liberal friend in British Columbia, a friend of mine too over the years, Rafe Mair. Rafe and I have had some disagreements on politics. He said publicly that he would vote Liberal in the next election, so he is a Liberal. This is what he says in this Liberal myth document:

At the end of it all, the Nisga'a deal does three things: it denies rights, i.e. voting, to resident non-natives; it creates a fishery—