Jerry Pickard

[Petitions, June 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 36, I have several hundred signatures from Essex county in southwestern Ontario.

The petitioners are requesting the Parliament of Canada to ban human embryo research and direct the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to support and fund only promising ethical research that does not involve the destruction of human life.

[National Pay It Forward Day, March 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I invite all my colleagues in the House to join the Municipality of Chatham--Kent to celebrate Canada's first National Pay It Forward Day.

To pay it forward is to do a service or good deed for someone who instead of paying it back pays it forward by giving somebody else a good deed. That does a good turn for everyone.

Today and tomorrow in Chatham--Kent people are paying it forward by doing deeds of kindness. They are volunteering their time, their energy, cleaning up litter, donating money and joining in acts of kindness for all. Paying it forward encourages us to make the world a better place by building bridges of kindness, caring and generosity without the thought of reward.

I congratulate the organizers who have taken a simple idea and turned it into a celebration of generosity and kindness in Chatham--Kent.

[Herb Gray, March 13th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, today we pay tribute to the Right Hon. Herb Gray who has been devoted to his community and his country for nearly 40 years of service in this place.

Mr. Gray is a gentleman who always worked selflessly and tirelessly to make this nation great, well respected and successful. He always showed concern and compassion for issues of importance to his colleagues and constituents.

Everyone remembers the great effort Mr. Gray made to help Chrysler Canada in more difficult times. Mr. Gray is a successful and effective leader who made an immense difference in Canada and inspired all of us to do our best.

May I join with my colleagues on behalf of all Canadians in saying our thanks to Herb for making this world a better place.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I did not say that many security guards have been replaced. The fact that I made was there is much more equipment in airports and in the airports themselves we have a lot more security equipment that is coming in for the protection of passengers and travellers.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, obviously there is a great deal to do.

There is no question that September 11 was a point of critical change. I do not believe that anyone anticipated what would happen on September 11 and that is very unfortunate.

The member mentioned that we do not know where some refugees are in the country. We do not have an exit policy. When refugees are sent from this country it is true we do not keep track of everyone who leaves, nor did the United States, nor do most countries in the free world. It is common among most nations of the free world. Canada was exactly the same as other nations in the free world.

The member made a point about criminals moving into the U.S. I believe he said the Americans capture people carrying drugs, and others. At our borders, 21,000 criminals who were attempting to come into Canada were stopped last year alone, while there were only 14,000 going from Canada to the United States.

That would say to me that we are stopping more criminals coming from the United States than the U.S. is from Canada.

A third fact relevant to the comments made is that 40% of the refugees coming to Canada come from the United States. Why? Because it is easier for people from many countries of the world to enter the United States than it is to enter Canada. They enter the United States and come to our borders for entry.

I believe a lot of the member's facts need to be researched a great deal more than they have been before being put forward in the House.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to be able to use this House as a vehicle to explain what the Canadian government has done and what directions we have taken since September 11. No one really anticipated what happened on September 11, but what it did was highlight the concern of terrorism, highlight the concern of safety and highlight the concern of economic stability in Canada.

Quite frankly, in my area in southwestern Ontario I believe we were affected very dramatically by the events of September 11 and we had to respond in a way that was difficult. However, when I saw lines of traffic some 40 kilometres long leading to the bridge, when I saw we could not have our flow of goods back and forth, when I realized merchants had difficulty getting their products back and forth between Detroit and Windsor or areas in the United States and Canada, I certainly realized how important the border is to economic stability in Canada.

The questions that were raised on security and safety in Canada were certainly questions that needed to be raised, but I believe that questions which at some point suggested Canada was a haven for terrorism were very unfair, invalid questions. If we look at the real statistics of the border, I think it will answer some of those issues.

We have a border that is 8,800 kilometres long. Shared between Canada and the United States, it is the longest demilitarized border in the world. Over 200 million border crossings took place in 1999 between Canada and the United States. Two billion dollars a day in trade goes back and forth between Canada and the United States.

There were questions about Canadians and how secure we had made our border. Canada already had at that point deployed far more people at the border than the United States had. In fact, Canada had 350 citizenship and immigration inspectors and 2,400 customs inspectors, while the United States had 700 customs inspectors and 515 immigration inspectors. Canada had twice the number of people securing our border at that time that the United States did. Last year Canadian officials stopped 21,000 criminals from entering Canada from the United States, while the American agents stopped 14,000 criminals from entering the U.S. from Canada.

These numbers tell a pretty important story: that our borders were secure. Our borders were looked upon as relatively secure in comparison to all nations. However, as we all know, September 11 created a new problem that had to be intensively looked at, looked at in a more serious way, and a great deal more effort had to be made.

As the Deputy Prime Minister just pointed out, several groups in the House and in the Canadian government started to look very carefully at our immigration policies and our points of entry, at what we could do to secure the nation and what we could do to make sure goods and services flowed back and forth across the border in the most secure way, while still making sure that trade between Canada and the United States was not interfered with so that the intense economic loss of jobs would not be felt as strongly in Canada as it could have been.

Canadians have groups abroad that screen and check people when they get on airplanes coming into Canada. Last year alone, agents stopped 6,000 people with fraudulent, forged documents from coming to Canada. In the past five years, 33,000 people have been stopped from entering Canada.

Canada and the United States are both committed to travel between our countries being as open and as secure as possible. At the same time, we have to make sure that the economic stability of both countries is maintained.

We have introduced legislation to make sure that we are diligent in dealing with terrorists and terrorist activities. As a matter of fact, in last year's budget we included some $6.5 billion in security measures.

We talked about airport security and the security required in airports. We took several measures that were very important to all of us with regard to airport security: armed officers on aircraft flying in Canada and into Canada; better trained personnel to screen passengers and carry-on baggage; new state of the art explosive detection systems in Canada's airports; enhancing policing in airports; permanent modifications to secure aircraft cockpit doors; and enhancing the security zones at airports for better handling of passengers and facilities.

There is no question that when we look at the security in airports things have been very much increased. I believe that was because of September 11, but for someone to say that before September 11 many Canadians would have expected those issues to be necessary, again, I do not believe it is accurate.

Quite frankly, September 11 did change the ball game. I can remember going to meetings in Windsor and talking with those folks involved in the Ambassador Bridge, with people involved in Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Corporation, and with tool and die operators, people who were all very involved in having a free flow of goods, information and people back and forth across the border to make sure our economies continue.

One of the major problems that did come up when a businessman from Dearborn, Michigan had a meeting with business people in Windsor was that a delay of an hour, two hours or three hours at the border was unsatisfactory and would not allow that trade to go back and forth, would not allow those meetings to go on. Therefore, initially for the first month after September 11, we were very much hamstrung by our ability to have meetings and carry on different operations.

When I look at questions about business in Windsor, a lot of the business community in Windsor was very concerned, from the retail aspect to all the aspects of casinos and the auto industry. The businesses were being curtailed in their ability to compete on the same basis as they could before September 11. Their main plea was “open the borders so that we can have secure travel back and forth, put the resources in place that are required for safety, but make sure that we do not infringe upon the business movement in our community”. I believe the Canadian government did just that in its budget for security.

On top of that, many dollars were put into the military to make sure we could move those troops into Afghanistan that were required to help in the battle against terrorism. We did a fair amount for a nation of 30 million people. I believe Canada has a tremendous track record of providing military support. As the Prime Minister said earlier, there are some 3,000 troops in Afghanistan today. That is considerable for a nation our size.

Our dedicated work with the Americans is documented very well at every step along the way. The Deputy Prime Minister, with Governor Ridge, has carried on discussions from the beginning of October, moving forward. I believe that the primary target of the Canadian government has been to ensure that we have safe, secure borders and at the same time, regarding the economic concerns for Canadians trading with our American partner, which takes over half of our goods every year, make sure that lines of communication, security and trade are maintained, because the U.S. is our major partner.

[Petitions, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition requests parliament to ban human embryo research and to direct the Canadian Institutes for Health Research to support and fund only promising ethical research that does not involve the destruction of human life.

[Petitions, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present this morning.

The first petition requests parliament to resolve the issue of residential school litigation outside the court system, specifically for the federal government to assume the responsibility for the Mohawk Institute lawsuit thereby recognizing that the Anglican Diocese of Huron was never a party to the operation of that residential school.

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I never once said that health care is a federal jurisdiction. I did say that the federal government has the responsibility to help Canadians. I did say that all Canadians deserve equal health care. I do believe that we have a national Canada Health Act which is a guide for all provinces, for the federal government and for everyone in the country on the kinds of service delivery required.

On top of that, we finance 35% of the cost of health care in the country through the federal government. As a result we do have a voice at the table. Although we do not administer the programs, it is important that we have a voice at the table, it is important that we protect the weaker provinces and it is important that we protect all Canadians equally.

[Supply, February 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the administration for health care has, since the inception of Canada, been a provincial responsibility. It is not under control of the federal government.

I take up the challenge, though, when my hon. colleague from across the way suggests that people do not listen to the federal government. It seems to me that in the poll I saw yesterday, the NDP had 9% of the people supporting it, which generally would mean its rate of popularity, of being listened to, is 9%. Right now the Liberal government has a 55% support rate.

The fact is that people know this Liberal government has worked hard and is working hard in their interests. People know that we try to serve the Canadian public as well as we can and they know the government has been responsible since being elected. There is no question about our track record of being responsible, bringing the issues forth to the public and dealing with them in an open forum like we are with the Romanow report.