Val Meredith

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague the member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam.

I will follow up on the previous speaker and say it is important that the institution, the parliamentary system, have a reputation. Canada is taking the lead by holding an international conference on corruption around the world. Representatives of 70 countries around the world will be coming to Canada for the first international conference.

It is extremely important that Canada set an example for the world that any kind of corruption, graft or political influence will not be tolerated and will not be accepted. That is the essence of what we are trying to accomplish with the debate today. We want to make sure that the government understands that under no circumstances will any kind of influence peddling be tolerated.

There is a history here. Whether or not the hon. member wants to acknowledge it, when the Liberals were in opposition there was a rat pack. If he wants to know what the rat pack did and how it lowered the tenor and the reputation of parliamentarians, all he had to do was watch CBC Newsworld the other night and see the present minister of heritage crawling across the table to go after Sinclair Stevens.

The Minister of Public Works and Government Services was also a member of the rat pack. It was quite apparent from the newscast the other night that his behaviour was questionable at that time.

It is interesting that the government members only seemed to be concerned about patronage when it was the Tory patronage. They do not seem to be at all concerned about what they themselves are getting involved in and what they are representing to the Canadian people. It is not just their behaviour in the past. It is promises that they made when they went to the electorate. They made promises in the red book, in a document that they put to Canadians and said “Vote for us because we promise to change the system”. They promised an ethics commissioner who would report directly to parliament.

The Prime Minister said this morning, and I do not think he is wrong, that he needs a counsellor, that he needs to have someone counsel him on what behaviour would be appropriate. I do not think that is wrong. Obviously the Liberals need some help. Perhaps they need two positions. Perhaps they need someone on their staff, and I would think justice department has a whole floor of lawyers who could give them counsel. They also need an ethics commissioner reporting to the House of Commons who is open and transparent and who is free for all Canadians to have some confidence that this kind of stuff will not be tolerated.

I noticed that this morning even the Prime Minister put a plan on the floor with eight proposals, changing rules for how government members would do business, how the cabinet would do business, the rules on the floor. All of it of course is just promises, words, hearsay. We have not seen any actual bills, legislation or regulations that would give any meat to it. We heard him say that he would bring a different standard to the House of Commons, new rules on election funding and rules for cabinet ministers and so on and so forth.

If he is sincere about making this open and transparent and taking away the tint of any kind of influence peddling or patronage, I would like to ask the Prime Minister something. Since the events of September 11, financial institutions are required by law to report all and any transactions involving amounts of $10,000 or more.

We would assume that means that any transactions of significant amounts of money that might cause some influence or might show where there is money transferring for political influence, that these financial institutions would be required to disclose this money and what account it is being deposited to.

We are wondering if the Prime Minister will also abide by the spirit of this law and disclose the names of all the individuals who will be gathering in Montreal this weekend paying $10,000 for the privilege of having access to the Prime Minister. Will he hold himself to the same level of scrutiny and accountability as we hold others in this country?

It is interesting that the Prime Minister came to announce these measures today on an opposition supply day motion. What is interesting is that we seldom get a cabinet minister to respond and to speak on a supply day let alone the Prime Minister. In his speech today he made mention that mistakes were made and that the government would correct these mistakes and that it would do the right thing by bringing in a code of ethics which would be made public.

For years we have tried to convince the government to do the right thing. It is interesting that the Prime Minister admitted today that for the last eight and a half years the government has done the wrong thing by not making the code of ethics for ministers public, by not making it accountable and by not bringing it into the House of Commons to make it transparent.

That shows an indication by the Prime Minister that he understands the seriousness of the events that have occurred with his government over the last number of years. It would not be fair to say it is just the last several weeks with the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. Other members have brought up the issue of the HRDC scandal and Shawinigate. The list goes on. It is not about this one issue. It is about the way the government is doing business. One of the more offensive things that Canadians see and they see it not only from the activities in the House of Commons but decisions that are made outside the House, is the arrogance of the Liberal government.

We cannot allow any government to feel that it cannot be replaced. If we believe in a democratic process and if we believe in the parliamentary system, we cannot allow any government to feel so arrogant that it can do whatever it wants whenever it wants, however it wants. We cannot allow a government to continue to rule in a fashion that one sometimes has a hard time distinguishing it from a democracy or from a dictatorship.

Some people may think that is an extreme way of talking but Canadians outside the House understand what I mean by that. We have one individual who can choose who he wants to sit as a cabinet minister, one individual who can decide who will be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, one individual who has such control over the operations of our country and our government, and who then denies responsibility when it comes to being held accountable.

The Prime Minister said not that many years ago that the buck stops at the top, that he took on the responsibility of his ministers and what was happening in his government. It is interesting to see that it took a supply day motion from the opposition to force the Prime Minister of the day who holds such great power to admit that changes had to happen, that there had to be more transparency and accountability. Our role as opposition is to ensure the Prime Minister always understands that he and he alone is responsible for his government and he must take the responsibility of ensuring that his government is acting properly, appropriately and in a very accountable, transparent manner.

[Criminal Code, May 9th, 2002]

moved that Bill C-292, an act to amend the Criminal Code (selling wildlife), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to finally have the chance to debate Bill C-292. I first introduced it in the 35th parliament on April 30, 1996. It predates the government's first effort at its species at risk legislation which was introduced six months after my private member's bill but because of the proverbial luck of the draw, this is the first opportunity to debate my private member's bill.

The mode of the bill is quite simple. It is to protect animals. As a British Columbian, I was horrified several years ago to hear how bears were being slaughtered for their body parts. In 1995 almost 25% of the bears killed were poached. That means almost 1,300 bears, including 90 grizzly bears, were illegally killed. Bear parts can sell for thousands of dollars yet in most cases the provincial penalties pose very little deterrent.

Two years ago two residents in my community of Surrey, British Columbia were fined $7,000 and sentenced to 17 days in jail for selling 18 gall bladders from illegally killed bears. Considering that at that time the bear gall bladders were fetching $800 apiece on the street, there is a need for tough criminal penalties to deter organized poaching activities.

There is federal legislation which covers a small portion of what this activity entails. It is the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act or WAPPRIITA. It imposes similar types of penalties that are found in Bill C-292 but only for offences where the crown can prove that the wildlife or the wildlife part actually crossed provincial or international state boundaries.

WAPPRIITA does not cover any offence that takes place in one province. Only the provincial legislation is in place for these offences. What I am hoping to do with Bill C-292 is to fill this loophole, ensuring that all offences of this type can be prosecuted under federal legislation.

The bill aims to criminalize the most serious cases of wildlife poaching by providing law enforcement and wildlife officers with the discretion to either pursue the most serious cases of poaching through the criminal code or through existing provincial legislation. The bill would make it a criminal offence to sell wildlife or any part thereof; to kill or capture wildlife for the purpose of selling that wildlife or any part thereof; or to possess wildlife or any part thereof for the purpose of selling that wildlife or part thereof. It sounds repetitive but that is how one has to write legislation.

This proposed section would not apply to any person who has a valid licence, permit or exemption order issued by either the federal or provincial governments. Offences under this section would be listed as an enterprise crime offence. The reason for this is to allow law enforcement officers to use the proceeds of crime legislation to seize assets of individuals or organizations involved in organized poaching schemes.

The bill does not create any new offences. The provinces would still have jurisdiction to determine what activities are deemed illegal. It does not encroach on those provincial jurisdictions. The bill would only give law enforcement or wildlife officers the discretion to proceed with prosecutions through their own provincial legislation or in cases of more serious offences, through the criminal code.

It is very similar to the way serious motor vehicle offences are handled, where law enforcement officers are given the discretion to either prosecute them through provincial legislation or to prosecute them through the criminal code. The bill would give the provincial authorities an opportunity to determine when something is serious enough and they want to have steeper and stiffer penalties to try to stop it from occurring.

As the only reason members might not support the bill is they feel it would encroach on provincial jurisdictions, I reiterate and stress that it would not encroach on provincial jurisdictions. It would allow for a greater variety of charges and the possibility to make sure that the matter is treated the way it should be treated if it is a serious offence.

I repeat that the bill has been around for a long time. I introduced it into the system back in 1996. The bill the government has put forward, the species at risk legislation, was introduced approximately six months after my bill and still has yet to be passed. During the period of time from when the federal government introduced its legislation that many years ago until now, there has been absolutely no protection for wildlife that is being poached across Canada. Because my bill does not have to deal with the more complex issues such as habitat and compensation, it would at least allow some sense of protection for people who are concerned about protecting species at risk.

One other difference between Bill C-292 and the government's species at risk legislation is that Bill C-292 would apply to all wildlife, not just species at risk. Black bears are not a species at risk. Believe me there are a lot of them in people's backyards in the Vancouver area right now. The point is that people are illegally killing bears, black bears and grizzly bears, who some would argue might be species at risk. People are not killing them for their meat. They are not killing them because they are hungry, not because they have any use for them as food, but simply because certain bear parts have become a commodity.

The brochure “From Forest to Pharmacy: The Global Underground Trade in Bear Parts” outlines the number of bears and the number of wildlife that are killed for their parts. The parts are exported for use by individuals who feel there is some reason they may want gall bladders or bear paws. There is evidence that this is a serious situation and should be dealt with.

As I said earlier, the bill would protect all wildlife species that are being slaughtered, from the bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains, to grizzly bears, to black bears, all animals and not just endangered species.

The bill deserves to be supported. It quite simply outlines an area where we can try to address some of the issues with regard to the illegal slaughter of animals. I hope that all members in the House are able to support the legislation and allow it to go through to provide some protection for animals.

[Species at Risk Act, May 8th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is my first time to speak to the endangered species bill and I appreciate the opportunity to do so.

I listened with some interest to my hon. colleague from southern Alberta, the member for Crowfoot, who said this was an issue that pitted urban constituencies against rural constituencies. Although there is some truth to that, I think in the group of motions with which we are dealing today there is consensus among all Canadians that an openness in reporting and in sharing information is fundamental to democracy. These are things about which all Canadians are concerned.

Canadians want to participate, particularly in legislation such as the endangered species bill. They want to participate in the process of protecting endangered species. They want to know that the information they are getting from scientists and the government is up to date, complete and that they are treated with respect in providing information. I think that my colleague from Crowfoot would find that all Canadians whether they live in cities or on farms want to participate in the protection of endangered species.

I introduced a private member's bill to deal with endangered species which will be debated tomorrow. As a city representative, a member of parliament who represents an urban area, I know it is of concern to city dwellers. Perhaps there are some issues which city people tend to see from a different perspective because they have not experienced living on a farm and having their property threatened by confiscation or expropriation.

I posed that question to my constituents, about 90% of whom are urban dwellers. They felt that the compensation issue had to be dealt with and had to be fair. Even though they themselves may not ever have to face an expropriation order, they still felt that if we are to protect endangered species, if we are to protect the habitat in which the species dwell, there has to be some compensation to landowners to encourage them to participate in the program.

The motions in this group deal with how we share this information and how to get Canadians to participate in the process. The committee members who dealt with this bill and put amendments on the table felt that the aboriginal communities had to be brought into the process of sharing information. They recommended that there be a national aboriginal council brought into the discussion on endangered species. It was felt that they had an indepth knowledge of the land and of the species that inhabit the land, where they are, how one finds them and how one might protect them.

For reasons unknown to myself and to many in the House, the government decided it did not want a council and wanted to change it to a committee. One has to question, when the committee members who studied it felt that the council was the way to go, why the government would arbitrarily change the recommendation.

It just goes to show that the government is treating that committee in much the same way it has treated other committees. I sat on the transport committee for a period of time. We tabled a report in the House of Commons which was totally ignored by government. Although the committee studied for three months and listened to all the witnesses and the experts, the government really did not care what we said. I get the feeling from the changes the government has made to recommendations from the committee that studied the legislation it has the same kind of disregard for these recommendations that came from the committee.

The committee also dealt with the creation of stewardship action plans. Once again here is another area where the government chose for whatever reason to ignore the recommendations of the committee or to change them. We have to question where the executive branch of the government is going when it totally ignores the contribution that parliament and parliamentary committees make to serious legislation.

It really is a question of communication. Experts and citizens participate in the committee process by sending delegations and written submissions to committee. That is part of the consultation and community input to preparing government legislation. If that is totally disregarded, why would the government think that people would support the legislation once it was forced down their throats?

The motions in Group No. 4 deal with public consultation and how meaningful it can be and how much influence it will have. I have read some of the amendments being proposed and it would appear they are trying to clarify what public consultation will mean in the legislation.

In the other public consultations the government has had, it seems to have lacked the understanding that when it consults with the public, members of the public have an expectation that they are being listened to. Whether it is the Krever inquiry on the tainted blood situation, the Somalia inquiry or the APEC inquiry, the public is getting the feeling that when the government talks about public consultation it really means nothing. Some of the amendments proposed in this group try to clarify what the government means by public consultation and what the commitments by the government are when it makes these public consultations.

With respect to the reporting mechanism, another thing we have found is that the executive branch of government tends to think it can go away and do things on its own without communicating to parliament, without getting the advice and input of parliament. Certainly the executive branch has a duty to report back to parliament and to be held accountable to parliament for what it does on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of the House of Commons.

It is quite clear from some of the amendments in Group No. 4 there is a concern that there is no acknowledgment that the executive branch of government, the bureaucrats, have to report back to parliament and have to be held accountable for whether or not the legislation is working. The executive branch has to be held accountable for whether or not some of the provisions which are controversial are the right ones that should be there and to report back to parliament.

The committee recommended that not only should there be a review of the legislation in five years, but that it should be reviewed on a five year continuous basis. The government for whatever reason has determined that is not what it wants to do. It has made amendments to eliminate that.

That brings us to my fundamental concern which is that the executive branch of government is acting outside its jurisdiction and outside its role in a parliamentary system. Over and over again we see what the executive branch thinks the role is of a member of parliament. My colleagues who are in the House today and those who are here at other times all have a meaningful role to play in determining how legislation will impact on the community at large through regulations or whatever.

By ignoring the role of parliament, the need to bring regulations before parliament, the need to report back to parliament, the government has what I would consider to be a continuing contempt for this institution.

[Petitions, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be here representing constituents from all over the lower mainland and area. The petitioners are concerned about violence, pornography and so on that their children have access to on television during the early hours of the evening.

The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to legislate the CRTC to reduce the sexual and violent content contained in the basic cable and satellite packages.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it shows us how seriously the government takes the legislation. It took 20 minutes to get enough of its members in the House to begin parliament. I even question whether there are enough members in here at the present time.

The government introduced the legislation as an anti-terrorism bill in response to September 11. I would argue that the bill is anything but a bill that deals with terrorism.

In his speech on Bill C-42, the minister said the bill was another important step in the fight against terrorism. In the omnibus bill the only common theme, which omnibus bills are supposed to have, was that it centralized the power in the hands of the executive branch of government with little or no parliamentary review. Bill C-55 remains a ministerial power grab.

The Minister of Transport in November 2001, in response to a question by the member from Fraser Valley, said:

When there is a localized one time emergency ministers need to act quickly. That is what happened on September 11. Had there been further terrorist attacks and the country was in a state of apprehension then obviously the Emergencies Act would have been invoked.

This question has to be asked. If there was legislation that allowed the ministers to respond in kind at that time, why do they need this legislation today? I would argue that they want to enhance the powers of the minister and take it out of the hands of parliament.

The amendments that Bill C-55 brings to bear are not exact. It introduces two new security measures. One is about unruly passengers or air rage, and the opposition thinks the measures are a good thing. The other is the requirement of air carriers to provide information on their passenger manifests to various departments.

The difference between the old bill, Bill C-42, and the new one, Bill C-55, is that Bill C-55 is very specific about how this is to be handled. In the old bill the minister was given the discretion through regulations on how to handle this.

Before the Christmas break the transportation committee produced an excellent report on how to handle airline security. It balanced all the details of implementing the system with some discretion for the minister to act. Instead, the current Minister of Transport wants carte blanche to do whatever he wants to do and to be the sole authority on security measures.

It is interesting that the Liberal backbenchers seem quite willing to allow the executive branch of parliament, the cabinet, to take away their ability to be involved.

Another change from Bill C-42 is with regard to the Immigration Act. The new bill deletes parts from the previous bill which referred to the Immigration Act. In Bill C-42 the government introduced amendments to the Immigration Act that it had just put into place through Bill C-11 but which had not been implemented. Bill C-42 would have repealed Bill C-11 changes such as a 72 hour time limit on referrals and a 90 day limit on processing time which would have severely curtailed the appeals process. Bill C-42 removed that.

In February 2001 we had proposals of changes to Bill C-11. In November 2001 we had the elimination of those proposed changes. Now in April 2002, we are now getting rid of the proposed changes to Bill C-11 that would have been done in February. It is no wonder that Canadians have little or no faith in the immigration department, the minister and the Immigration Act. Does anybody over there on the government side know what is going on with the Immigration Act?

Other changes are proposed for the National Defence Act. Some are good, some are bad and some are questionable. The proposed inclusion of armed conflict in the definition of emergency, which already includes insurrection, riot, invasion and war, is presumably meant to ensure that the events of September 11 would be officially designated as an emergency. However it is questionable whether the term armed conflict appropriately defines the terrorist acts of September 11, or a biological or chemical attack, or even a major cyber attack on our computer networks. Rather the government should specifically include terrorism in the definition of an emergency.

The opposition supports job protection for officers and non-commissioned members of our reserve forces. We have been calling for such protection for years however we are concerned that this job protection is only limited to emergencies. What does this mean for the reservists that are called out for peacekeeping duties? Are they not afforded any job protection?

We are also concerned about the creation of controlled access military zones. The government claimed under Bill C-42 and again under Bill C-55 that these controlled access military zones would only protect military equipment and personnel and would not be used to battle public demonstrations. However by changing the section from how it was drafted in Bill C-42 to how it has been drafted now, the government is admitting that these military security zones that were mentioned in Bill C-42 were intended to be used against legitimate protest groups despite the minister's assertions to the contrary.

Since we could not trust the minister then, why would he think that we would trust him now not to be using these special provisions against public demonstrations? It would appear that these measures are designed for protesters and those engaging in civil disobedience, not terrorists.

Why do I come to that conclusion? We must look at the example the minister of defence used, which was the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen by the al-Qaeda in October 2000 where a boat full of explosives was used against the side of a military ship. What would the government do in this legislation? It would use some force and fine the terrorists $1,000. What kind of deterrent is that to terrorists, to fine them $1,000?

In order to fight terrorists we must use lethal force. We do not fine them $1,000 and slap them on the hand. That is why it is clear to me that this is not anti-terrorism legislation. This is to be used against civil disobedience. If the government were to do that, that is fine with me, but it should be upfront, honest and open to the public and say that is what it is attempting to do and not hide it.

We have a problem with the interim orders giving that kind of overwhelming authority to cabinet. We are upset there is no parliamentary oversight and review. That is necessary to hold the government and the executive branch accountable.

I must say this is another attempt by the government to take the responsibility out of the hands of parliament and place it in the hands of cabinet. The government is not willing to allow these interim orders to go before a cabinet committee. It only requires four cabinet ministers to agree. That should not be difficult. It has a hard time getting its members here, but surely it is not that hard to get four cabinet ministers to sit down with legislation that supposedly is designed to fight terrorism. One really has to question the intent.

Our party is quite apt to say that the legislation should be split. That is what this amendment is all about. Let us take the good parts of the legislation, deal with them and forget this thing about it being anti-terrorism. That is not what the bill is all about.

[Petitions, April 26th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to present on behalf of constituents two petitions amounting to almost 600 signatures representing a concern in my constituency that the incidence of explicit sex, pornography, violence, rape, murder and unacceptable language, swearing on television, have become extremely frequent with little regard to the time of day or the viewing audience.

The petitioners are very concerned about the effect and the exposure to our children of violence and sex on television during daylight hours. They humbly request that the House of Commons legislate the CRTC to reduce the sexual and violent content contained in the basic cable and satellite packages.

[Airport Security, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear is that the government knows everything possible about tax grabs but knows nothing about transportation security.

A recent Senate report was extremely critical of security at Canada's seaports, yet the only contribution the government has ever made to ports security was to make it worse by disbanding the ports police.

When will the government put transportation security policies ahead of its tax grabbing policies?

[Airport Security, March 18th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in two weeks the government will implement one of its newest tax grabs, but everybody connected to the aviation industry knows that the $12 one way tax in Canada is a bad idea. It is only $2.50 in the United States. It is bad for consumers, it is bad for a struggling airline industry and it provides no immediate increase in security.

Will the government listen to industry and Canadians and scale back this tax until it is at a reasonable amount that the industry can afford?

[Questions in the House of Commons, March 15th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Acting on behalf of the mover, would I get another five minutes?

[Questions in the House of Commons, March 15th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to my colleague's Motion No. 20. My colleague from New Brunswick Southwest moved the motion in reaction to a situation he found himself in where he had put a question on the order paper that the government failed to answer over a period of a year. That frustration has brought it to the point where it is now a debatable motion before the House.

The concern of my hon. colleague and all of us is that we are here representing the people of Canada to hold the government accountable. That is our job in opposition. It is to ensure that when the government makes decisions it is making the best decisions on behalf of Canadians.

The only way that a person can evaluate whether or not the government is doing its job, whether it is doing the best it can for Canadians, is to have access to information. When the opposition asks for information from the government and is denied that information it prohibits us from doing that which we are here to do and that is to ensure that all the facts are on the table, that all the information is out there for perusal, so that we can question the government on how it interpreted information and how it reached the decisions it did.

We in opposition are expressing great concern through the motion. We are trying to get the government members to understand that if parliament is to continue to hold the respect of Canadians we must operate in a manner that earns that respect.

I was confronted this week in the transportation committee with regard to the report that the minister of government services lost. I will not say that the minister lost it. The department lost a report. There was some concern that a good deal of money, half a million dollars, had been spent by government on behalf of Canadian taxpayers to have this report written. After the expenditure of these dollars, lo and behold, this report was not to be seen. One has to question how the government made the decision to hire the company to write the report.

Groupaction was the company that was contracted to write the report for the government. The contract was to propose ways to increase the federal government's visibility and was reviewing a number of programs the government was involved in.

In committee we asked the government representative who this company was, how it got the contract and what happened to the report that was the result of the work that it supposedly did. We were told that there were nine companies that were authorized by the Government of Canada to do this work.

Canada is a pretty large nation and I am sure there are quite a few companies that could do the kind of work that this company was asked to do. We asked for information about how the government picks nine companies from all of those across the country to do the work. We were told that it was the practice of government to preselect and short list companies that will do contract work for the government, not only in this department but in other departments as well.

Keeping that in mind, that it is a matter of practice for the government to short list or preselect companies that qualify to apply for these government contracts, we asked a few more questions.

It came to light, albeit through the media and the questions they were asking and the work they were doing, that three of the pre-selected companies were somewhat related to each other out of these nine. We are not talking about nine unrelated companies. We are talking about maybe six or seven unrelated companies. Three of them having the same president.

When there is some concern expressed about one of these pre-selected companies out of the nine, which really is down to six, who got the contract and then found itself giving money back to the government, it is not unrealistic for the opposition to say that something does not seem quite right. We need to see copies of the report and of the documentation around the report, and furthermore we would like to see some evidence on what criteria the government authored or pre-approved these nine companies. What kind of clearance, security or investigation went on to see whether or not these companies were related to one another?

It is because of incidents like this where Canadian taxpayers pay half a million for a report that gets lost, that was done in questionable circumstances by companies that were pre-selected by the government and that gave money back to the government, that the opposition must have access to documentation and to those things upon which government makes its decision.

If we do not have access to information, how is it possible for the opposition, those of us on this side of the floor, to do our jobs on behalf of Canadians? That is our role. In order for us to be able to do that job we need access to information.

If that was not bad enough, I just read something today, again in the media, where DND will not release the names of visitors or the money spent on them because of their rights to privacy. We heard that Treasury Board did not want to release the expense accounts of ministers because of rights of privacy. It is pretty hard to hold ministers and the Department of National Defence to account as to where tax dollars are being spent if that information is withheld from those people who are here to hold the government to account.

It is interesting that the government does not see the necessity of this function of parliament. Parliament is here, and the opposition is here, to check and question where the government is spending tax dollars. That is why we have estimates and a budget. That is why we have that process. However if parliament is not allowed to have the information where we can question the estimates then we are being denied the facility of doing our jobs.

The PC/DR coalition introduced a new concept in relation to the whole national security issue and anti-terrorism legislation that has been discussed over the last couple of months. In coming up with how we felt government should do business differently and how it should co-ordinate functions and create a new ministry, we recognized the need for a parliamentary committee to be established so that we would have access to highly sensitive information.

The reason we did that was because we saw the need to have parliament holding the government accountable. The only way we can do that is by access to information. We saw the need even in the highly secure areas of anti-terrorism and national security to have a parliamentary committee

It is not like it is not done anywhere else. In the United States information is shared and shared widely so that the opposition can do the job it is elected to do, that is, hold the government accountable.

I would like the government to recognize that and support the motion.