Rick Laliberte

[Speech From The Throne, November 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I had an opportunity to travel through the city of Dauphin. It was the first time I realized that it was in the interlake area.

I dare not compare the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board to the Canadian Wheat Board. Freshwater fish have to be fresh. We cannot wait for fish to go to market. Wheat and other grains can wait. We see silos and holding elevators all over the prairie provinces. These containers can hold their grains for months on end, but we cannot hold fish. It has to be fresh.

The most delicate fish is pickerel. It is the best fish to be eaten, right out of the lake, into the frying pan. If we buy it in markets it is drowned fish. My uncle, who is a professional fisherman, tells us that.

Fresh fish is not governed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board. That is frozen fish. It is like McCain's fish and chips in the store. That is not the nutritional fish that comes from our lakes.

We cannot compare the Canadian Wheat Board to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board. That is all I can say. There is no comparison. The federal control that the hon. member was referring to is a whole different thing. When we talk about freshwater fish, let us keep it fresh. Let us sell it as directly as we can to the markets. Let us bring the processing plants back to those little communities. The processing jobs, the jobs of the people who fileted the fish, who gutted the fish in our little plants, all went to Transcona. It is a sad fact. There could have been one or two jobs in Williston Lake, which has a community of 200 people.

[Speech From The Throne, November 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my first language is Cree. I was raised speaking Cree and I had to go to school to learn English. I am a very fortunate person to have that language. It is a gift from the Creator. In order to speak from the heart, as I did in my speech today, I had to open with my language. That is how I opened the door to share that with the House.

The member highlighted one reserve in his question and wanted to know what the throne speech had to offer. The throne speech aside, the relationship between aboriginal communities, mine included, and the rest of Canada is a major challenge that started 500 years ago. The challenge is whether we can live with each other's laws.

I say each other because we have grown accustomed to and have lived under the British North America Act and the laws that came through Britain and this House for all of Canada. However, can Canadians who came to this continent live with the aboriginal laws and policies? That is where the empowerment is.

Aboriginal people could see that giving up a way of life and allowing other people to live on their land was a major investment. However, if those people can build their houses, build their roads, teach their children, preserve their language and make their people healthy, then they will feel a sense of pride that will take them and ignite them and keep the cycle of life going.

It is not a linear journey; it is a cycle. We only serve one cycle. So when aboriginal people are given an opportunity to prove to their community that they can achieve something in a respectful way, that is the investment that will take us into the next generations.

With respect to the throne speech, I said that I would not get political in my speech, so I cannot slam anybody for not having anything in there. What we have to do in the relationships we have in the new millennium, among our communities, is to live with each other and respect each other's laws and ways of life. That will take us forever.

[Speech From The Throne, November 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my comments on the throne speech delivered on October 12 in my first language.

The throne speech is entitled “Building a Higher Quality of Life for All Canadians”. My understanding is that we are trying to provide a better quality of life in the future for our children. A large part of the throne speech is directed to children and the agenda of the government to improve the quality of life of children to ensure they have a good foothold in the new millennium, to ensure they have an economic future, an educational future and are wealthy, healthy Canadians.

I challenge the government not to care only about certain sectors of the population. It should truly live up to its promise that all Canadians will have the same opportunity regardless of where they live.

We can look at the interconnectedness which the Minister of Industry highlighted. Internet connection will be a major part of Canadian development in a very short time. However, small communities in my riding cannot necessarily make a career or a livelihood by bringing Internet into their homes. We live in the middle of the forest. We live in the middle of abundant resources. This is the direction we should be working toward. We should be training our people to be engineers so that they can make master plans of the resources in those regions.

When Canadians were told to wait a month until the House of Commons returned to listen to a throne speech in October we thought of a grand vision. I am trying to make the best of the throne speech. I understand that our children and their journey are a major part of it.

We must afford our children the wisdom of our elders so that they have the strength of their families and are connected with their communities. Then children can stand with pride knowing who they are and where they are going. They can figure out what is right and what is wrong in life and can go forward with that knowledge.

In the throne speech a promise was given to a certain group of elders that should be truly recognized, our veterans. As we are close to Remembrance Day I wanted to raise this issue. We talk about merchant marines, the mariners who supplied our troops abroad with many provisions in times of war. These people were not truly recognized in an honourable way and have been asking to be treated equally.

The other veterans I would like to speak about at this time are aboriginal veterans. Aboriginal veterans in some cases disenfranchised themselves from their treaty status to fight for peace in the world. Upon returning home other veterans were afforded economic development opportunities and land grants, but these grants and opportunities were not given to aboriginal veterans. They were not treated equally. I ask my colleagues in the House on the government side to look at treating aboriginal veterans fairly and equally.

As a child grows education is crucial in this day and age. There are young pages in the House of Commons who are seeking knowledge and gaining life experiences just by being here. That is what I challenge other youth to do as well. They should leave the schools, move around Canada and experience life elsewhere.

The throne speech challenges all of us to experience the beauty of Canadian geography, history and people. I challenge people in Quebec to go to Saskatchewan and to the north. I challenge people in British Columbia and the prairies to go to downtown Toronto to see what life is like in a big metropolitan centre. I challenge the Blue Jays to play rubberball with children in La Loche. I challenge the Edmonton Oilers to play street hockey with homeless people in downtown Winnipeg.

We should enjoy each other's lives and the gifts that we have. Let us not put ourselves on a higher pedestal. We are all Canadians. We all live on the same beautiful land. Just because some people have a different paycheque than others, it does not afford them a different status.

I learned about the economy in grade 12 economics. Money can circulate as many times as it can in one region and afford a certain amount of value. If the Canadian dollar is to retain its value in world markets, we have to circulate the Canadian dollar as many times as we can in Canada before it leaves the country. I also extend this advice to certain regions.

I look at my region and the people of Churchill River. We have very few supermarkets. We have very few butcher shops. We do not have an abundance of hardware stores. All our shopping and our economy are bound to the southern urban centres of Saskatoon, Prince Alberta, North Battleford and Meadow Lake. That is the sad place we are reaching in rural Canada. Farm communities are evaporating as we speak. Credit unions, schools and hospitals have been dismantled because the community no longer functions. That is the sad fact in rural and regional Canada.

The urban centres cannot demand all the economy and strength of the country. We have to share from coast to coast to coast. We cannot all be Torontonians, Montrealers, or people of Regina and Vancouver. It is not the dream of all Canadians to live in a huge city in suburban Canada. I ask members to imagine living in the north, living in the wilderness. Maybe with a satellite dish they could make billion dollar deals right there with e-commerce, as the industry minister said. One does not have to be in a city to do this. It could be done from one's home in Pierceland, La Ronge or Cold Lake.

I challenge Canadians to treat each other with respect. I have seen an abundance of ill feelings among certain sectors and peoples in the country which just does not flow with the Canadian vision. We have founded a nation where people from all over the world have found a home. I say a home because that is basically what we are talking about. The House of Commons is a home for Canada.

We must not forget that for generations aboriginal people have held this country and land together, living in harmony with its nature and its unique gifts and challenges in a respectful way. That is the challenge I extend to everyone. Let us live in that essence into the new millennium. Let us live together. Let us welcome people who find refuge here perhaps because of hard times in other parts of the world. We have a lot to offer. Let us not point them to the urban slums of our country. Let us share the beauty of our villages, hamlets and little settlements of 15 people that are so proud.

In my riding there is a community that built its own school out of logs. One could not see a prouder student attending a school than those whose school was built by their aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers.

Now we have the vision that a technologically innovative future is a school that is interconnected. Could one of our grandparents connect a computer? No. It is our 12 and 15 year olds that connect the Apples and IBMs together, but we still have to put the two generations together. They cannot travel on different journeys. We have to envision them living in harmony together.

This opportunity to speak gives me the opportunity to thank the people I represent. As I mentioned, this seat belongs to the people of Churchill River. They are the ones who empower me to say these words. That is the story I wish to tell.

I come from a region that is called a boreal forest. It is basically in the middle of the bush.

These are the people of the woods.

All the highways in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Manitoba go north and south. The infrastructure is not the same in the north. The north is basically a colony to the south. Canadians have to stop treating the north like a food supply, a wood supply and a mineral supply. We have also at one time provided Britain with all the furs they needed. All the beavers which came from the north were sent over there. We cannot do that anymore. We must be given due respect. We make our living in the north and envision our people and our children growing up in the north and sharing with the rest of the world. It cannot be done without us.

There is no master plan for infrastructure in northern development. We see logging roads and mining roads but when are the communities going to be connected? When are the dots going to be connected to the northern villages? We used to travel along the river east and west, but our highways are all north and south. These roads do not connect our communities at all.

For many years we have had major discussions on national parks. I have one in my riding. I believe six future parks are being committed for ecological integrity, national identity and for preservation and conservation. These parks are targeted for the boreal forest. However, we have to talk with the community members, the people who make their living off the land. These people cannot be relocated.

CMHC has brought in housing programs to urbanize northerners. Northern trappers and hunters have never been agrarian people. We have never lived in a commune for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We were hunters and gatherers who went 30, 40 or 100 miles to get the goods and bring them back to our families. These people moved around. The expanse is huge. It is not like an agrarian centre where the farmers stayed in one central area. The hunter-gatherer society was a a totally different concept. We cannot impose an agrarian principle on a hunter-gatherer. Going into the bush is like going into a new world. Welcome it because it is a beautiful place.

We see the head offices of industrial and corporate developments in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver but they have no presence in the north. They have to leave legacies. I challenge institutions such as universities, research centres and hospitals. I challenge anyone in the House to identify anything that the Hudson's Bay Company has left in our northern villages. Not one swing, not one slide and not one hospital bed has been left by the Hudson's Bay Company in any of our northern communities. That is a shame. That is not what corporate consciousness should be like here in Canada or in the world.

I challenge the federal government to take leadership in northern development. We have a department called Indian Affairs and Northern Development that has been comfortable with identifying north of 60 as the north. The north is not north of 60. It is further south than that. The 55th parallel or even the 53rd or 52nd parallel in some of our provinces is truly defined as the northern half of our provinces.

I want to touch on the agricultural crisis that is growing and offer my perspective on this whole process. The throne speech was very remiss in not identifying the farm income crisis. The whole industrialization of the agricultural industry has taken its toll on the independent farmer. It is beyond many of the factors that have come into play. There are multinational interests.

There are four or five multinational companies that control the food and drug industry in the world. They are not in this debate. We have farm aid, which I just recently acknowledged. Country music is near and dear to many people in the country. Willie Nelson throws a major farm aid benefit in the U.S. The non-profit farm aid corporation identifies its concerns with the multinational interests in farming. They say that no matter how much money or how much aid the farmers get, unless the corporations ease up on the input and output costs of the farm, it is the same corporations controlling both ends. They basically have the farmers in the middle, in the crunch.

The whole issue of floods, droughts and the extreme conditions we are getting from climate change will have an impact on the agricultural industry for years to come. It is not only a short term problem, it will be a very long term issue.

In one of my local papers I was bold enough to raise the idea that maybe a royal commission should be commissioned to report on the family farm in order to protect it. Let us document 1999 and the year 2000. Let us show our children in documented form how the evolution of the farm came to be in Canada, where it should be going, what the factors are and who had their hands in the farm industry and economy.

Farmers only get mere cents. I understand that because in my riding there wild rice farmers, ranchers and trappers. I come from a generation of trappers and hunters. When the fur industry fell down nobody helped us. We had to look at ourselves and where we were going. The fur industry is still there.

The people just love living off the land. There is pride living off the land and being able to provide one's family with the food and shelter they need. A lot of our urbanized people who had lost touch with the land have regained a whole new connection with respect to the beauty of it.

My father still goes out on the land, as did my grandparents before that. That is the connectedness that we have to give our children for the future, as well. Let us not remove them and put them all in an urban centre.

The throne speech contains grand promises for children, health and the environment. We have the economy, diversity, technological change and all these exchanges being promised in the throne speech. The challenge now for Canadians is to push the government to make good on its promises. We have to make sure that the surpluses are spent right, that they are not going only into political strongholds or pockets. We have to make sure that all Canadians benefit.

I am here to bring a message, on behalf of the people in the constituency I represent, that we are in northern Canada. The people in Churchill River consider themselves as northerners. We cannot be brushed off as “those people from the west”. We are living in western Canada but we live in the northern region, in the northern climate of the country. It is a whole new and different economy with a new and different social community. When mining and timber industries make plans for one's backyard, it does have an effect on the north but does not affect the social or economic well-being in the country.

On behalf of our people, I beg for a change in the freshwater fish marketing industry that I spoke about earlier. The government is deregulating airlines, railroads, power utilities, telephone utilities and everything else.

We have a freshwater fish marketing that does not even allow our people to sell across the border. The people in the community of Pierceland, just a stone's throw away from the Alberta border, cannot even sell their pickerel to Cold Lake which is just across the border. They have to sell it all the way down in Winnipeg which is one big fishing plant. By then the fish is not fresh anymore. It is old, frozen fish by the time it leaves that plant.

Anyone wanting to buy fresh fish should come to the northern lakes and buy it right off our docks. We will fillet it, dry it, even smoke it and ship it. Maybe we can use e-commerce to make us economically viable as world traders. The deregulation of the freshwater fish industry has to happen. It is a far cry today from what it actually intended to be 30 years ago. I think a lot of northern fishers were blindsided by the promises of the federal government.

I congratulate the government for making bold promises, but we, as Canadians, are here to say that we have to go through with our promises, especially when we are dealing with the future of children. If it is a children's agenda, let us not sway from the promises being made. We will hold the government true to that.

[Speech From The Throne, November 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this whole interconnectedness the Minister of Industry talks about seems to be a deregulation allowing corporations to allow Canadians to be interconnected. What is the purpose of it? We can have a nice highway system, a nice telephone system and nice computers, but if we are still unemployed, if we are still without the basic necessities for our families, what is the whole purpose of this interconnectedness?

In light of deregulation, I would like to pose another question. If I were a fisherman in northern Saskatchewan wanting to sell pickerel somewhere, I could easily find some buyer through e-commerce, but the freshwater fish industry is regulated under freshwater fish marketing rules. I could not go to interprovincial or international trade because of the fish. Maybe that is something the minister would like to comment on, the fishing industry, interconnectedness and the purpose of this whole exercise we are going through in Canada.

[Speech From The Throne, October 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I know the hon. member has a vested interest in the agricultural industry and the family farm crisis being experienced throughout Canada, especially in the prairie provinces. He is very close to the industry in the Brandon area.

What does the hon. member think about the concentrated control of our food and drug industry in North America and the world? A handful of multinationals control the food input and output costs of the farmers and the farmers are vulnerable. The farmers want to be as independent as they can be, but they are at the whim of the multinationals with commodity prices, input prices, herbicides, drugs, pesticides and seed costs. Now biotechnology is coming into play. All farmers have to pay for the research and development of these technologies coming in. The Liberal government seems to be very proud of this biotech division, but the farmers are being led through an evolutionary change on the family farm.

I would like to hear the hon. member's comments about that.

[Speech From The Throne, October 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the regional diversity of Canada is witnessed by everyone who travels the country, but the agricultural industry and the family farm are in crisis. Time and time again everyone points to the throne speech and says that the family farm was not discussed.

Perhaps the member could respond at some point in time to the fact that part of our family has fallen into hard times. Can he speak to this issue at all?

[Natural Gas, June 4th, 1999]

moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should provide initiatives to deliver natural gas to unserviced regions, to address environment concerns and high energy costs.

Madam Speaker, I am truly proud to rise to speak to my first private member's bill of the 36th Parliament on behalf of Canadians in the riding of Churchill River, Saskatchewan, and all Canadians.

The initiative of Motion No. 292, which was deemed votable, will be a benefit which all Canadians will be able to enjoy, as well as future generations.

Motion No. 292 reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should provide initiatives to deliver natural gas to unserviced regions, to address environment concerns and high energy costs.

Canada is the third largest producer of natural gas. Without a doubt, continuing developments and discoveries such as the Northwest Territories and Sable Island fields will ensure that a fair share of our natural gas resources will be distributed in the country, not only in royalties or opportunities but the distribution of natural gas itself.

Natural gas presently is distributed to more than four million customers in six provinces. Natural gas provides 26% of Canada's energy needs and this number is increasing each year.

In addition, Canada's natural gas exports are experiencing exponential growth. When we have natural gas exports it means we have surplus supply. In terms of trade we must take care of our own families first before we share with the rest of the world. That is the whole context of sharing with unserviced areas of this country.

We share our natural gas with major cities in the south, but there are entire regions of this country that do not have natural gas service which are being disadvantaged because of lost economic development opportunities. Natural gas provides an opportunity for economic development in unserviced regions. When major industries and manufacturing companies, pulp mills, sawmills, grocery stores, schools, hospitals and university campuses calculate the energy costs of certain communities and certain neighbourhoods, energy is the major portion of their high cost of maintaining these facilities. If natural gas were to be provided equally to certain neighbourhoods, certain communities and certain regions, this disadvantage would not be there. Not having this service is detrimental to job creation, community growth and community maintenance.

I believe that we as parliamentarians can contribute to the progress of this country into the next millennium. We have the opportunity to ensure that all regions can afford the economic and environmental benefits that natural gas presents. There are several options to look at. The biggest option for us to consider when natural gas is being distributed is that it is one of the cheapest and most economically sound of all the fossil fuels.

The fossil fuel industry in Canada has been a growing and vibrant industry. However, in recent years greenhouse gas emissions and the Kyoto protocol have challenged what we can do in the future. The first thing we can do is consider the cleanest of the fossil fuels, which is natural gas. This should be shared with all our communities so that we make a conscious effort to use heat and energy without polluting in the extreme our environment and our children's health.

At Kyoto I had an opportunity to look at the future development of the Kyoto protocol and its implications. One of the issues that I would like to raise is the domestic greenhouse emission credits that should be considered. When Europe considered the Kyoto negotiations it considered itself a bubble, so that certain regions of economic and industrial development would not suffer in terms of their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Canada has to look at itself as a bubble as well. There are regions that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels, on coal-fired electrical generation and on the coal industry. Greenhouse gas is another consideration. We could equalize these industries. We could normalize our total output and meet our commitments.

The scary side of emission credits is that if we continue to increase our greenhouse gases we will be paying hard cash to other countries when they diminish their greenhouse gases in the future. This credit trading will be a major issue. I would rather see that hard earned Canadian cash invested in our own communities.

Any initiative to increase a cleaner carbon source is of course environmentally sound. As part of environment week, I am very honoured to raise Motion No. 292. There should be a conscious effort by parliamentarians to rally behind this motion and to challenge the federal government to undertake initiatives to share our natural resources.

Access to cleaner fuels is an economic advantage, but it is also a major win. The Kyoto credits would be another win. In terms of air pollution there is another consideration which we cannot overlook and that is health care. There are health care costs such as asthma and other illnesses caused by air pollution in our communities and neighbourhoods, especially in major urban centres. If there is any way we could reduce air pollution it would be a major win for the health care of the country.

In terms of high cost, there are far northern communities which do not have natural gas. There are major subsections of our communities, even here in Ottawa, which do not have natural gas, especially in older sections of town. Maybe the older sections of Montreal, Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary have been overlooked, but some of them have been served for many years and it is taken for granted.

I ask that parliamentarians consider all Canadians in an equal light and share our natural gas. Families could realize savings against the high cost of living, not only those living in remote areas but those living in the high cost regions of the country. Savings would be made on the maintenance of their homes. Canada has a northern climate where 40 below is a natural phenomenon in January and after Christmas when people are huddled around. Natural gas would certainly be an advantage.

Looking into the future we see the development of fuel cells and the whole technology of solar and wind energy. That might take a decade. It might take a few decades to bring forward, but natural gas will always be accessible to all of our communities.

Natural gas is being used by many taxi companies. Many communities have had opportunities to look at other sources of energy for transportation. If it is distributed equally throughout the country, it would mean that vehicles adapted for this type of fuel could be used by Canadians to travel more widely. Travel would be more accessible.

Motion No. 292 is a votable motion. I would humbly ask for the support of all parties and all members of the House. I believe it is a win-win situation. It is a win situation for the natural gas resources industry. We have distribution companies all over the provinces and regions. It is also a win situation for the health and educational industries. We have institutions that have high costs. Imagine the cost of heating and cooling the House of Commons.

These institutions, which we take for granted, might be generations old. They need to be retrofitted. It is a win-win situation for the trades industry. Tradespeople will retrofit the heating units of many facilities. It is a job intensive situation. It will take people off the unemployment lists. There could be seasonal work for young people. If this work could not be done in the winter, it would certainly have to be done in the summer when heating systems are shut off. Students could gain employment and maybe valuable apprenticeship positions as a result of this.

Industries would consider our small communities that do not have the distribution. Industries certainly look at high energy costs and natural gas has proven itself as an energy efficient and a cost effective way to provide energy to any facility, including manufacturing facilities. For example, the lumber industry uses kilns for drying lumber. We have kilns in the arts industry. We have heating systems in many car plants and hospitals. To make Canada a more self-sufficient country, let us consider sharing the abundant natural resource of natural gas.

There could be a major development in relation to the Sable Island project. Big pipelines will be installed along highways, but they will not be shared laterally. Lateral pipes will not be available to the neighbourhoods which this major pipeline will run through.

I challenge this government to look at initiatives. It might be a new infrastructure initiative. It might be a millennium initiative. It might be a greenhouse gas initiative. Let us not overlook natural gas.

While we are ripping up our highways and redoing the potholes in our back roads, highways, streets and sidewalks, while we are fixing up the infrastructure of this country, let us lay down natural gas pipelines and share our resources with all the people of this country. It is a win-win situation which we should not miss. Our children will have to do it if we do not. We should consider our infrastructure in that vision.

I ask for a national vision. I know there are provincial interests and industry interests, but I think the federal government could tie up all of the initiatives. The Department of Finance, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of the Environment and the Department of Industry all deal with major resources. All of these departments may have separate initiatives, but let us share a national vision. Let us make sure that all Canadians are treated equally and that we share our natural resources equally.

[Carriage By Air Act, June 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I would like to speak directly to Bill S-23. Everyone has concerns about the origin of the bill, but we also have to acknowledge to Canadians and to parliamentarians that the bill is to amend the Carriage by Air Act. Canada passed the Carriage by Air Act in 1947 to enact the 1929 Warsaw Convention. Back then, we had biplanes.

Flying to orbit the globe, as Ms. Payette, one of our honourable Canadians, has done and who is now on her way back home, and this whole evolution of air transportation and aerospace transportation is now before us. However, with this modernization came two agreements: the 1988 Montreal protocol and the 1961 Guadalajara convention.

This modernization by amending the Carriage by Air Act is long overdue. The last update, as we said, was over 40 years ago. We have challenges before us in this whole development.

I would like to place a challenge before the House, the government and I guess the Senate. Perhaps there was shortsightedness in the Senate, or perhaps the day was a little blurry or a little too busy, but I think it has overlooked a major issue, a passenger bill of rights for Canadians. We recently witnessed the drafting of such a bill of rights in the United States which will protect the rights of passengers.

The bill is not only about modernizing the whole issue of primary carrier responsibilities. If I board an Air Canada plane tonight and I then have to switch planes, which happens to be Canadian Airlines or Athabaska Airways, the primary responsibility for any rights or liabilities I have would rest with the primary air carrier, which would be Air Canada. Whichever carrier owns the plane I first board becomes the primary carrier. This is highlighted in the bill.

The Montreal protocol is very interesting. It allows air carriers to now use new technology to transmit documents electronically and updates the currency references in the conventions from French francs to the International Monetary Fund of conversion units.

I would like to speak about the first issue of new technology and the whole issue of the environment and how much paper is being wasted on the issue of air transportation in the country.

When we board a plane today, our plane tickets and boarding passes are all made out of flimsy paper that is derived from the fibre of trees. With the millions of passengers, not only in Canada but worldwide, this whole issue has to emerge to a new format. It could be done through the electronic monitoring of passengers in some shape or form, either by card registry or as we do with Interac. A few years ago we dreamed of not seeing a plastic based currency but it is now a reality.

This bill amending the Carriage by Air Act will require and challenge the air transportation industry in Canada to look at the new technologies that will be available for them to be competitive.

In my closing comments, I will speak about competitiveness. I read an article about Canada being pushed on several fronts toward integration with the United States. There is a fear that our Canadian airlines, such as Air Canada and Canadian, would be swallowed up and integrated into an American interest in the future.

We are here to protect our sovereign rights and to make our rules, regulations and passenger bill of rights. We must protect our needs and our industries and make them competitive. One way of doing it is by bringing this forward into the House and by regulating and modernizing our laws.

Unfortunately, the bill before us originated in the Senate and it might be a little shortsighted in terms of not expounding on a bill of rights. If there are opportunities for the government and the minister to possibly amend this bill, it should be done in the near future. Maybe in this parliament we will see that take place here in Canada.

A passenger bill of rights and electronic forms of transactions for passengers, which will eliminate the use of cutting down trees for paper, will protect our aviation industry and the rights of passengers.

[Bill C-32, June 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my second question is for the Minister of Health.

At a televised committee hearing on Wednesday of this week on pesticides, the pest management regulatory agency and various government departments explained regulatory actions for banned pesticides. In response to a NDP question to the director general of the DFO on the use of non-registered pesticides in fish pens in Canadians waters, he stated this was illegal.

This illegal use of pesticides was reported last year. Can the Minister of Health explain why he is ignoring the illegal use of pesticides in Canadian waters?

[Bill C-32, June 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry.

Environment Week of 1999 will be remembered as a lost opportunity. Canadians will remember when the Liberal and Reform Parties picked polluters as their priority and not our environment or our health by weakening Bill C-32.

The environment commissioner states that there is confusion between departments for taking immediate action against toxic substances, and that it is now common knowledge that the government buckled and sold out to industry's polluter's.

Can the Minister of Industry explain why strict environmental laws are a nightmare for his department?