Grant McNally

[Immigration, April 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, if the minister would do more than actually read reports and take action in here, we might see this broken immigration system fixed. The minister has had four years to clean up her act and all we see is window dressing. When is the minister going to wake up, stop talking and implement concrete measures to fix the broken system which has become known as an easy mark to drug traffickers and terrorists?

[Immigration, April 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's lax immigration policies are making news in Washington. It is so bad that a congress committee cited this Liberal government's immigration policies as a major threat to their national security.

Is the immigration minister proud of the fact that under her tenure Canada is known as a launching pad for terrorism and drug trafficking? Is she proud of that fact?

[Supply, April 13th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I know what the minister's answer is to economic development. He mentioned it in his speech. He said it was intervention based on taxpayer dollars.

The Liberal government's idea is to take taxpayer dollars and redistribute them in an unequal way, as my hon. colleague from Surrey just mentioned.

I want to ask the minister a specific question. He talked about having an open attitude in his speech. The Liberal task force will be going to the west, and perhaps to Atlantic Canada and Quebec later on because they are lacking seats there too. This question was asked earlier of his colleague, the minister responsible for western economic diversification. If this government has an open attitude, why does it have closed meetings? If it is going to find out what people want to hear about and why they are feeling alienated in these regions, why does this government, with an open attitude, have closed meetings instead of open public meetings to have real input from people and not just selected groups of people for manufactured consent? Why does it not have open public meetings?

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It is a good question. He is right when he says that first of all peace must be made before we can keep the peace. He has asked about the distinction between peacemaking and peacekeeping.

We have tried to negotiate with Mr. Milosevic for a long period of time. Many people have tried to negotiate peace and it simply has not worked. As a result of that this action has been taken.

In many ways I would agree with my colleague on the government side that yes, we have to have peace before we can maintain the peace. In Mr. Milosevic's case, it seems to be that he will not negotiate. He does not understand or he has a different philosophical perspective about what it means to stop. It seems it is simply forceful actions that will show him, and that is what it will take to stop the atrocities he is perpetrating.

In essence that is what we must continue to do. Then after the fact hopefully a resolution will be found and peacekeeping troops will be deployed as they have been in other areas in that region.

The member asked a valid and very good question.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the debate has certainly gone on for a fairly long time but it is an important debate to have. While we appreciate the opportunity to speak, we wish this was something our country did not have to face.

There certainly has been a variance of opinion. It is good that our members have an opportunity to express their points of view as they reflect the wishes of their constituents and others. We have also heard a wide range of ideas and opinions here.

This debate has sparked a deeper philosophical debate across this country. This occurs when there is an armed conflict where clearly, as in this instance, wrongs are being perpetrated against individuals in another part of the world. It is clear that what Mr. Milosevic is undertaking in Serbia and Kosovo is wrong and that is the basis of this debate tonight.

Individuals across this land are questioning NATO's right to get involved? They are questioning the fact that innocent people are being injured and killed. Yes, that is true. As a member of the government pointed out not long ago, there are innocent people on both sides of this conflict. Civilians who are trying to live their lives may not be fully aware of the terrible things that are happening in their country.

There are individuals in our country as well who when taking one side or another perhaps have not stopped to fully look at the whole situation and to look at what is involved in this kind of conflict. Historically the conflict in this region has gone on for many hundreds of years. There is deep bitterness and resentment of one side to another. That has continued on.

We are not looking in this debate to solve or to assign blame to that situation because when a wrong has been committed by more than one party then both are in the wrong. There have been atrocities on both sides over the past hundreds of years.

We see a greater wrong being perpetrated now by Mr. Milosevic in the fact that he is killing innocent people. The term ethnic cleansing has been used quite a bit in the media and in this debate. It may be easier for us to talk about that term rather than about the atrocities it represents. Innocent people are being murdered simply because they belong to one particular group or another, because they belong to one religious group or another, because they are a particular minority within that area. That is simply wrong.

We have to stand up when something as wrong as this goes on. The often stated line that evil will flourish if good men do nothing is so true. I believe that to be the case in this situation. If good men and women do nothing, then evil will flourish. We cannot simply stand by and watch this happen a world away.

We may not have intervened in other areas when perhaps we should have. We do not want to second guess that. But we know now and the fact is clear that Mr. Milosevic is doing wrong. It is a clear and simple fact. We must stand to oppose that. That is what we are here to debate today.

We think about the refugees, the over 500,000 individuals who have been displaced from their homes. Even for those refugees there is no going back in the same way after this conflict. There is no going back to their homeland with the same perspective or frame of reference after witnessing the horrors of war that have occurred.

The veterans within our own country who fought in World War II and in other conflicts are never the same people they once were after having engaged in that kind of conflict and having witnessed the kinds of things they have seen. I think of my own father, a veteran of World War II, and how that shaped his perspective. He was never the same person as he was before he participated in that conflict.

These events are terrible and awful. We would have hoped they had not happened but they have. In order to put an end to them, something needs to be done. Action needs to be taken. For that reason I support the involvement of the NATO forces, not flippantly because I know that in doing so individuals will lose their lives as some have already. It would be my hope and prayer that none of our own personnel would be lost in this.

It is a very deep and heavy question that weighs upon all of us should it come to a point in time where military troops are asked to be deployed in that area of Kosovo to further support the military action being taken. That deep and heavy question weighs on the hearts of all members in this place and a great number of Canadians across this land.

It would be my hope, should the day come where we are faced with the prospect of asking our young men and women to go into an armed conflict on the ground that we would have another debate, a full and open debate in this place and that we would be able to vote on whether or not to do that. I know that is one step further down the road. We do not know if that is going to happen and we hope and pray it does not.

Ultimately it is up to us in this place as the elected representatives of the country to have that debate, to have today's debate and to anticipate a further debate. It is our role as leaders in the country to anticipate events. We do not look ahead blindly, but anticipate the possibility of all eventualities in this kind of conflict.

It is up to us to consult with individuals in our ridings, to ask the hard questions and to look together in a non-partisan way for solutions to this issue particularly because it involves the lives of so many.

It is certainly a question that has been asked of me several times by different people in my own riding and by people on both sides of the issue. There are those who say yes, we should support the NATO actions, and those who say no, we should not. As legislators in this place, we have to weigh all that information. We have to ask those hard questions. We have to direct some hard questions toward the government on this issue.

I was quite surprised earlier today that the Prime Minister seemed to be somewhat reluctant to want to state that we would have a vote should we get to the point of deploying ground troops. I know that in other NATO countries there will be a debate. I cannot see the American forces being sent in without a debate in the congress, if not a debate in the senate. I would hope that would happen here as well.

Ultimately the objective of this NATO action is to stop the wrong, to stop the atrocities that are going on. That is the bottom line and the question that needs to be answered. It is for that reason we must have this debate. We must support our troops who are there and the NATO decision that has been made at this point regarding the air offensive, again for the reason of stopping the wrong that Mr. Milosevic is perpetrating against his own citizens.

We must stand. If we do not stand, if good men and women will not stand, then evil will continue to flourish. We cannot allow that to happen.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I want to raise a question about what my Liberal colleague mentioned toward the end of his speech about a vote in the House of Commons. He mentioned the New Democratic Party and ourselves. It is very clear that in question period yesterday the call for a vote was in reference to deployment of future troops should that be necessary. That is what the question was about. That is what opposition parties were asking about. It was quite clear.

The member said that he was listening to the debate. He must have missed some of it because it was clearly stated that members of the opposition were not asking for a vote on the motion before the House today. They were simply asking that the government put to a vote the issue of whether or not ground troops should be deployed, or if that question were to arise that it be debated fully in the House and that a vote be held not as a partisan issue of opposition versus government but as an issue on which all members could debate and, I would anticipate, strongly support the government in doing that as an issue of process.

Would the member comment on that specific and not go back into history and reiterate something that was not stated by members of the opposition in the New Democratic Party or in the Reform Party? Does he think that it would be a good thing, should the time come where ground troops are necessary, to have an open debate in the House and then to put it to a vote? Then there could be a gathering together of members and of public opinion on the issue to which he referred in his speech.

[Immigration, March 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the immigration system is broken. In 1993 Dr. Sharif Karimzada, a former Afghani diplomat, was granted refugee status here in Canada. Later the government retroactively determined that he was no longer a refugee and was going to be deported.

He was here to plead his case in Ottawa this week. I am wondering if this government's policy is to retroactively change the law to ship people out like Dr. Karimzada who deserve our protection here in Canada.

Is the government going to do that? Is it going to send him back to Afghanistan to face certain death, yes or no?

[Building Contracts, March 23rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this is what a blatant conflict of interest looks like: there are excuses, there are evasions and there is miscommunication.

Can the Prime Minister not see what every other Canadian can see, that his actions were unbecoming of a Prime Minister and unethical?

[The Economy, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister likes to brag about tax cuts, but the chief economic adviser for CIBC says that there are no tax cuts after the bracket creep and after taking a look at the real effects of what this government has done.

The industry minister said that the debt is simply too high and that taxes are 20% too high as well. Is that something which this finance minister is going to address to help improve the standard of living for Canadians which has dropped so dramatically under his guidance and leadership?

[The Economy, March 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the finance minister likes to talk about quotes, so let me read for him what the industry minister said. He said “The debt is simply too large”. He also said that “taxes are 20% higher than they should be”. One of the ministers is wrong and I want to know which one it is.

The Liberals are embarrassed by the dropping standard of living which has been found by these reports. Now we know. It is out in the open. They have to admit there is a problem before they can deal with that problem.

Which minister is right about the dropping standard of living?