Jocelyne Girard-Bujold

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 29th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on Bill C-55. I want to commend my colleague from Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière for his performance. Indeed, I have things to add.

As I was saying during my last speech on this bill, in the area I come from, there is a military zone, a military base at Bagotville. I do not know if many members of the House know about it, but I can say that this base is responsible for issues concerning NATO. NATO is also represented on this base. It is a major military base, and I live 15 kilometres from it.

Tomorrow morning, the newly appointed minister—it may not be him, because, unfortunately, this seems to be a very rapid ejection seat—who is a total unknown, whose philosophy we do not know in terms of the powers that will be given to him by Bill C-55, might say that he has decided to take actions that might affect the surrounding communities. All we know is that the new minister is a banker, a guy who is used to count money, but is not used to say such things.

Like my colleague, I am very skeptical about the minister's qualifications at this time, during consideration of Bill C-55.

What is serious is that these zones will be restricted. Ordinary citizens, people in my region, will not know if they are in such a zone. If someone commits an offence and military personnel arrests that person, the military will not have to tell that person why. That person could be convicted and not know why; whether or not the person is convicted will be left to the minister's discretion.

This bill is really devious. I think that back home, it is the Quebec government that has the authority. It should be the one to exercise its authority. In this bill, the Quebec government should be given the authority to decide how things are to be done. That government is the first representative of those people who will be affected by this bill. But no, the Quebec government is not mentioned, it will not be consulted.

In my region, there is a very important mayor, Jean Tremblay. He came here to the House of Commons. He was laughed at. I cannot say it any other way, he was laughed at and he will not be consulted. We all know how they dislike consultations. Only the minister will have the power to decide unilaterally whether he will act or not.

As my time is up, I will be pleased to continue some other day.

[Petitions, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present some of the 30,000 signatures from petitioners from the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean area who are Radio-Canada listeners and viewers and who believe that they have the right to a quality public radio and television service.

They find it unacceptable and shameful that Radio-Canada has the power to discriminate against women and people who do not have job security. This dispute has been going on for too long. There must be a quick, negotiated settlement that is respectful of those involved. The petitioners also wish to see a change of mentality at Radio-Canada following the negotiated settlement.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2002]

I am happy to hear that.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great attention to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development. I cannot imagine that she believes everything she is saying.

The government has done nothing for eight years. It is beyond belief that the entire government machinery, and you, the people in power, have been unaware that for eight years you have been depriving seniors of their just due.

These people are constituents of mine living under the poverty level. These people came to see me in my office and said, “Madame Bujold, what can we do? We are unable to make ends meet. We receive our Canada pension cheque and we cannot make ends meet”. I could not believe it. I told myself it made no sense.

The Canada pension cheque and the guaranteed income supplement are supposed to help people stay above the poverty line. I did not understand what these people meant. I told myself, “They used to pay taxes to the government. People who helped to build the country, build the regions, are not supposed to be left in poverty”.

The parliamentary secretary has the nerve to tell them now that it was a committee which uncovered this flaw in the system, when this has been going on for eight years. On top of that, the government is refusing to make the payments retroactive.

In my riding, if I had not been there to visit some women individually at home in order to help them fill out their forms, they would never have received anything. The government was doing nothing. I was the one who told them, “We will help you fill them out”. The parliamentary secretary can tell us that it was uncovered because of the committee, but the government would have done nothing if the Bloc Quebecois had not intervened.

I have nothing against her. What I am angry at is the system, which has allowed this unfair treatment of seniors to drag on and on. It is unbelievable. In my riding, people have been deprived of $90,000 for eight years. What is $90,000? It may not be much for the member opposite, but for people who have lived in poverty for eight years, it is a lot of money.

Poverty leads to physical and psychological decline and has a negative impact on the family. Seniors use the most medication. Why? Because there was a flaw in the system which the member was unaware of.

She must stop blaming the public servants. The government is there to ensure that all Canadians who have paid taxes get their fair share from the system. She must stop saying that it is the public servants' fault. I am not blaming public servants, I am blaming the government. It knew. It is impossible that the parliamentary secretary has not had, as I have, people coming to see her in her riding to tell her that they did not understand the form. She is in her second term, so she must have had people like that in her office. And she did not see that something was wrong.

How many times did we tell them that this did not make any sense? Public servants replied, “What can I say, madam, it is the government that allows that”. I am not accusing them, but I am accusing the government of doing nothing about it.

Today, the parliamentary secretary had the gall to say that these people will not receive any retroactive payments. It is their money. Does that mean that this money that the government has saved was used elsewhere, and used to pay down the debt or to reward the government's friends? I will never accept that.

We will have to look closely at the situation of seniors one of these days. Living conditions have changed. Housing is very expensive. Seniors are increasingly in need of services.

I am asking the parliamentary secretary to rise and tell the House today, May 10, that the government will grant retroactivity to seniors for what they were denied for eight years.

[Taxation, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in his last budget, Canada's Minister of Finance estimated the surplus at $1.5 billion.

We now learn that, after all the end of year accounting adjustments, there will still be a surplus of $10 million to $12 billion for fiscal year 2001-02.

It is indecent that the Minister of Finance is unable to do the math properly and that he is unable to properly forecast the surplus for the current year. He was out by almost $10 billion. With a surplus like this, he could easily afford a calculator.

Yet all the Minister of Finance had to do was listen to the Bloc Quebecois and immediately make the necessary monies available to honour the promises made during the last election campaign to invest in highways 175, 185, 30, 35 and 50 in Quebec.

In addition to reneging on the promises made by his colleagues, the Minister of Finance is just plain thumbing his nose at people by deliberately deceiving himself about the size of the budgetary surplus.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important for me to speak to Bill C-55 today.

To begin with, like my colleague from Mercier, I am opposed to Bill C-55 though I will support the amendment to amendment moved by the member for Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, which says:

—the bill reflects several principles that violate human rights and freedoms, which have been denounced by the Privacy Commissioner and are unrelated to transport and government operations, rendering it impracticable for the Standing Committee on Transport and Government Operations to properly consider it.

I would like to raise several points. Although I do not have time to deal with all of them, I will list a few.

Who has the power under this bill? What is the meaning of “designation, delimitation of a controlled access zone”? There is also the question of rights and freedoms. Where is the consultation process at, as well as access to passengers lists? I will deal with all these issues.

Mr. Speaker, every time you are in the chair I say to you that I come from the most beautiful area of Canada, Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean. Canadian Forces Base Bagotville, which is affiliated to NORAD, is located there. My house is 15 kilometers from the military base. It is a short distance.

One day, will the minister having all the powers to designate a controlled access military zone be able to include my house in that perimeter without my being informed? Will it be the same for everyone who live around Canadian Forces Base Bagotville? Laterrière and Jonquière are located very close to it.

I will be able to do things within the zone, but I will not be aware of doing so inside a controlled access military zone. I will not have the right to pursue legal remedies. It would be up to the minister or to the President of the Treasury Board to decide if I have the right to do so.

This is unconscionable. We are in 2002. We do not live in a totalitarian state. As the Liberals often like to say, we are in Canada and we have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They recently celebrated the anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With this bill, they are disregarding all the fine principles of the Access to Information Act; it is as though they had taken the charter, folded it up and shoved it into a drawer. The minister is saying, “It is I, the Minister of National Defence, who will determine what you will have access to from now on.”

First, the House considered Bill C-42. There was a general outcry about that bill, especially on the part of the Bloc Quebecois and the opposition parties. Everybody said that the bill made no sense whatsoever. We thought this government had listened, that it had understood the objections to Bill C-42.

When the government introduced Bill C-55, we were sure this legislation would show that it had really understood. But now we see that Bill C-55 is even worse than the previous one, because it goes against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It provides for the creation of controlled access military zones without any notice being given to the people living within the perimeter of the zone.

Tomorrow, I will take the plane to go back to my riding. Under this new legislation, if the governor in council, the RCMP or CSIS wanted to see the passenger list, the airlines would be compelled to give it to them, together with 34 other elements, and any further element the minister may require, at his own discretion.

This means that I will no longer have the right to move around on my own private business. This is very much contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I have listened to the leader of the Progressive Conservative party's discussion of war measures. We have experience of war measures; Quebecers are the ones who were arrested. I have friends who were. Without any summons, without any right to an attorney, they were arrested. They are still marked by their experiences. They were arrested under the War Measures Act.

A colleague from the government side has said, “Certainly, there are still some question marks, There will have to be discussions. They will have to be examined in committee”. Hon. members will surely remember what happened with Bill C-20 on referendum clarity. The Prime Minister and the Minister of Justice of the day claimed to be very open-minded when the bill was introduced. The minister's words at that time were, “Yes, we will be open. We will study it in committee. We will listen to witnesses and improvements will be made”. We know what happened .There were no changes made. The bill was passed as introduced. They rammed it through.

The way the government is acting is unacceptable. I always say that there no democracy in Canada anymore. Today, on May 9, 2002, with Bill C-55, I think that this government is giving itself disproportionate powers following the events of September 11.

We had laws to deal with what happened on September 11. In Canada, we had laws to fight terrorism. We only had to improve existing laws, use and enforce them. Why introduce this bill?

We know what this minister has done in the past. We are told not to talk about it, but all Quebecers and Canadians talk about it. He is the one who will be responsible for this legislation. This is serious. And he will be the only one. Parliament will not even be consulted.

Mr. Speaker, like me, you are an elected member. We represent our respective constituents, as do all members in this House, and we will not have the right to discuss what the minister will decide.

This is serious. If this is not a dictatorship, it is very close. This is why we, in the Bloc Quebecois, members from Quebec, those who defend the interests of their constituents, are saying to this government that it must withdraw this bill and go back to the drawing board.

It is not that we are opposed to protection against terrorism, as the Liberal member said. Of course, there are other approaches available today with the Internet, but we will never accept this bill as it stands. Let the government do its homework; then, we will get back to the bill.

[Lisa's Law, May 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C-400, introduced by the member for Red Deer.

The purpose of this bill, the law for Lisa, is to protect a child in the custody ofone parent from being required to visit the other parent, while the otherparent is serving a term of imprisonment for any offence under theCriminal Code of a sexual nature.

Obviously, I will be pleased to support the principle of such a bill on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, because we must always be guided by the interests of the child in our legislation.

However, I will have a few suggestions to make to the sponsoring member at the end of my remarks.

As the Quebec bar association mentioned in its June 2001 brief on custody and visiting rights, and child support, and I quote:

Federal and provincial legislation gives considerable importance to the concept of the child's best interests, which is now well established as the cornerstone of all decisions with regard to the child, no matter who is doing the deciding, from parents to the courts.

In this regard, one such principle is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified in 1989. However, it should be noted that the criminal code does not define the best interests of the child. The civil code, however, sets out what must be taken into consideration, and I quote:

—in addition to the moral, intellectual, emotional and material needs of the child, to the child's age, health, personality and family environment, and to the other aspects of his situation.

Accordingly, the countries signing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children may adapt their legislation to their own moral and social values.

How then are we as parliamentarians here in the House of Commons to apply the principles in such a convention?

It seems clear to me that Bill C-400 is a step in the right direction, because the best interests of the child must be taken into consideration. When a parent, either the father or the mother, is found guilty of a sexual offence under the criminal code, the child should be protected from being required to visit the person while that person is in prison. This is in the best interests of the child. A child who is the victim of a sexual offence will be marked forever by this horrible and repugnant act.

So, according to Bill C-400, it would be in the best interests of the child not to be forced to have contact with a parent who happens to be his or her assailant. This only makes sense.

Can members imagine, besides not providing sexually abused children with the proper treatment, forcing them to visit the parent or the mother who has assaulted them? It would be total nonsense.

As the member for Red Dear pointed out when he introduced his bill, the motivation for his initiative was the high-profile case of two young girls of five and six who were forced, because of a court order, to visit their father in prison. The two young girls have been exposed to psychological damage. It is unacceptable.

The purpose of the bill introduced by the member for Red Deer is to prevent other young children from going through that. We must act to protect our children.

The government must put words into action and do whatever it takes to implement the fundamental principles set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have had enough of empty promises that never materialize.

As I said at the beginning, although the Bloc Quebecois supports the principle behind this bill, we still have suggestions to make to the sponsor of the bill.

In its present form, the bill proposed by the hon. member for Red Deer provides that it is the spouse of the person who is serving a term of imprisonment who should decide whether his or her child should visit his father or mother in prison.

The Bloc Quebecois believes, and we will debate this issue in committee if the House gives its support to this bill, that the child should have some say and freedom. Parental authority applies until a child reaches the age of 18. However, if a young person of 16 or 17 decides to visit his father in prison, and if his mother objects to the idea, what should we do? What should take precedence? Worse still, what should we do if the child simply does not want to visit his father in prison, but his mother forces him to do so?

We cannot let parents decide alone. The child must be able to decide for himself what is in his best interests. This is an issue that should be examined by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, and the hon. member's bill is an excellent way to launch this debate and find solutions that will promote the best interests of the child.

Through today's debate, we are asking the federal government, and particularly the Minister of Justice, to see how the federal legislation could be amended to reflect the guidelines of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In conclusion, I want to thank the hon. member for Red Deer for raising this extremely important issue. He can be assured that the Bloc Quebecois will support the principle of his bill at second reading.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate my hon. colleague for his excellent speech and for all the work he is doing in his community on the softwood lumber issue.

There are things that I do not quite understand. All day long, we have debated the softwood lumber issue and we have said that the Bloc has made very practical suggestions to help the industry and the workers.

Earlier, a government member told me, “I would like the member to offer some solutions”. That is exactly what we did weeks ago. We did it during question period, and we have done it all day long.

I would like my colleague to explain once again to the member, who really seems to be totally deaf, the solutions we have proposed to help the workers, so that these workers realize that we respect them and that we have tried to come up with a solution.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have a short question for the member. I want to tell him that exceptional situations call for exceptional measures.

We are facing an exceptional situation. I want to know what exceptional measures his government intends to take immediately to deal with this situation.

[Supply, May 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was very surprised by the speech made by the member for Portneuf, who went over all the previous negotiations.

I am not sure if he has read the Bloc motion which says:

That, in the opinion ofthis House, the government should set up an assistance programfor the softwood lumber industry and its workers, to supportthem in the face of the unjust decision by the Americangovernment to impose a 27.2% tariff on Canadian softwoodlumber exports to the United States, the program to continue ineffect until such time as this conflict has been resolved.

I would like to know what immediate action has been taken, besides the changes the government members told us they made to employment insurance.

Everyone in the lumber industry, the provincial governments and the business community is asking the government to take immediate action to ensure that businesses do not close down. Therefore, I would like the member for Portneuf to answer the question.