Val Meredith

[British Columbia, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the media talk in terms of $50 billion that these settlement claims will cost Canadians.

Canadians and British Columbians want to know from the minister after seven years of treaty negotiations how much it will cost the governments of Canada and British Columbia to settle these land claims.

[British Columbia, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the people of British Columbia talk about compensation. They want to know from the minister how much. How much will it cost Canadian people to pay for land claim settlements?

[Judges Act, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to Motion No. 2 which is asking for legislation to establish a mechanism for reporting a decision made by a commission back to the House of Commons.

I have to support the motion. Over the period of the four or five years that I have been here I have watched how parliamentary democracy is being undermined by a government which continues to transfer regulatory authority and other authority to boards, commissions and the executive branch of government, cabinet, without considering bringing those decisions to parliament and allowing elected officials to discuss, debate and make comment on matters that will have dramatic effects upon Canadians.

I have been very concerned about the tendency for this to occur. It is just another indication or another vehicle where we see parliament being removed from the decision making aspect or even the accountability aspect of what the government is doing. That is a very dangerous precedent for us to support.

As parliamentarians who have been sent here to represent Canadians, people across the country, it is imperative for us to be watchful that parliament retains its authority and its ability to watch and check things occurring in government agencies and boards.

There is a need for an arm's length commission to make decisions on salary and pay benefits. The concern raised by the electorate outside the House on pay increases for members of parliament is a good example of what happens when people have a benefit to reach in making decisions.

An independent commission was established to look at the pay and benefit packages of members of parliament. That commission put out a report. The report from that independent body was completely ignored by the government. We are faced with parliamentarians once again having to deal with changes to their pay and benefit packages. That should not occur.

Parliamentarians should never be in a position of having to debate and having to support or not support their salary and pay benefit packages. That should be totally removed from people who benefit from those decisions.

I suggest the same point should be considered in terms of this commission. We have a commission made up of individuals who belong to the judiciary one way or another, or who are attached through the justice department, the judiciary committee or whatever, to a decision on what pay and benefit packages the judges will be given. That is wrong. It should be an independent arm's length group that makes those decisions and those decision should be reviewed by the Parliament of Canada.

I may sound repetitive but I cannot express it enough. I do not think Canadians are aware of what is happening. I do not think Canadians realize how much authority and decision making is being removed from members of the House. I do not think Canadians are aware of how powerless the House is becoming because of legislation that hands over responsibility and authority to non-elected boards and removes them from any accountability or follow-up.

We have seen it with parole boards and immigration review committees and this commission and that commission. We saw it once again with the commission struck by the House, or by somebody, to review our pay and benefit packages. Committees and commissions come up with decisions which do not have the support of the Canadian public that has no recourse.

We have often asked questions about semi-judicial committees and boards. We have been told that they are arm's length and cannot be held accountable. Who can hold them accountable if it is not the House or a committee of the House?

The motion makes a whole lot of sense. All it is asking, as I understand, is for a commission to report back to a parliamentary committee so that the parliamentary committee can review its report and can make a judgment on behalf of Canadians whom we represent as to whether or not the report should be supported or the recommendations should be legitimized.

If for a moment we stop trying to hold commissions, committees and the executive branch of government accountable to parliament, we are undermining the whole parliamentary system that Canadians think exist.

I have absolutely no problem and I would encourage all members of parliament to support the motion which asks for parliament to know what is going on, to be able to ask questions about what is going on, and to be able to bring it into the public forum so that the Canadian public knows what is going on.

Much of what happens outside the House, committees, commissions, boards and the executive branch of government, cabinet, is held behind closed doors. It is not public information. The discussions are not public. Whenever that happens Canadians become suspect and often with very good reason. They become cynical. They feel that if it is not a debate that is happening in public there must be something somebody is trying to hide and they become less willing to support the end result.

We see it in the judicial system. We see it in the parliamentary system. We see it in the immigration system. I could go on and on. Canadians are losing respect and their support for what we are trying to do because of the things done behind closed doors.

It is very important that in the 36th Parliament we do everything we can possibly do to bring our discussions and debates into an open forum. We should not only allow Canadians but encourage them to participate in the discussions and in making decisions that have to be made about where Canada is to go in the next millennium, what kind of direction we should be going in and what end result we are trying to reach.

This is one measure with which we can start opening up the process, opening up the dialogue, opening up committees, commissions and boards, and letting Canadians know that we are not afraid of talking to them or of including them in the discussions. We should encourage them to enter into what is happening in the House.

I would like to see support by all members of the House. It would send a strong message to Canadians who are wondering what we are doing that we are open, have nothing to hide and want accountability. We want to be able to bring forward boards and commissions that are accountable to parliament. Then we could stand behind the decisions we make. We could review issues in a House committee and the House committee could make suggestions. Then the executive branch of government could respect the decisions, the reports and the recommendations that come before it.

If we had a government and an executive branch of government that respected parliament and the decisions made by committees and commissions which are held accountable through parliamentary committees and parliamentary sessions of the House of Commons and its members, Canadians would become less cynical about government and about politicians and certainly less cynical about the justice system and the judiciary.

[Reform Party Of Canada, June 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this past weekend London, Ontario played host to the best example of democracy in Canada, a Reform Party assembly.

It was absolutely wonderful to see the grassroots members of our party overwhelmingly support initiatives like the united alternative and the new Canada act and other policies that would be beneficial in governing this country. Yet these independently minded individuals also rejected a number of resolutions that they felt would be detrimental to the country.

Our assembly once again demonstrated the difference between Reformers and Liberals. In the Reform Party grassroots members give direction to the leader, whereas in the Liberal Party independent thought is prohibited. Their leader rules with an iron fist, or sometimes a choke hold.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 15th, 1998]

Could the Minister responsible for Revenue Canada Customs, list the total cost of administering the PACE/CANPASS program at each of the British Columbia border crossings for 1996-97 and 1997-98?

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 15th, 1998]

Could the Minister responsible for Revenue Canada Customs list the total revenue for the PACE/CANPASS program at each of the British Columbia border crossings for 1996-97 and 1997-98?

[Petitions, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, due to the negligence of this government in dialoguing with Canadians on the MAI, I have two petitions to present to this House.

The petitioners are requesting that parliament impose a moratorium on Canadian participation in the MAI negotiations until a full public debate on the proposed treaty has taken place across the country so that all Canadians may have an opportunity to express their opinions and decide on the advisability of proceeding with the MAI.

[Hockey, May 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, when much of the country is wrapped up in the NHL playoffs, hockey fans in British Columbia have had to suffer through another year of the Vancouver Canucks missing the playoffs.

However, not all is bleak for the BC hockey fan. Yesterday the junior A league South Surrey Eagles capped off a wonderful season by winning the national championship in Nanaimo with a four to one victory over the Weyburn Red Wings.

The Eagles capped off an incredible playoff run which saw them win 25 games and lose only three. In the Royal Bank cup tournament they won all six games, outscoring the opposition 32 to 7.

Congratulations to owner Cliff Annable, coach and general manager Mark Holick, the staff, and especially the players who showed hockey need not be about money but about the joy of playing the game.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on some of the comments made by my colleague from Maclead.

I recognize that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour has sat here all day. It is a shame that she has not been accompanied by too many of her government colleagues in this debate while listening to the concerns of the opposition parties to government legislation.

Unless I am mistaken, the whole purpose of report stage is for the government to look at amendments placed on the floor by opposition members to try to make a better piece of legislation than what the government has provided.

Our job in this place is to hold the government accountable and to make sure the legislation that the government passes on behalf of the Canadian public is the best it can possibly be. It is sometimes very disarming for us when debating to an empty House to try to convince an empty House that the legislation is inadequate, needs to be corrected and needs changes. Today is just another example of what we put up with day after day in trying to hold the government accountable for bad legislation and to offer some innovative changes.

We have a genuine concern with Bill C-19 under Group No. 2. Let there be no mistake that I will be speaking about the lack of vision the government has shown in Bill C-19.

I represent a province which has had labour legislation that has been very damaging to the economic well-being of our province and of employment. We have a problem in our province with labour legislation. We do not want to see as representatives of that province those problems compounded by labour legislation brought in by the Liberal government.

We have a concern with the democracy that is not being supported in the legislation. We are talking about legislation that would allow a union to come in and organize in a place of work and to convince some people, sometimes the ones with a lot of influence, to consider unionizing. These people of influence, although they may be a minority, could end up placing that place of work in a situation where somebody declares that it will be a unionized shop even though the majority of workers, for very good reasons perhaps, feel that they are not ready to be unionized and do not want to be unionized.

That just rubs the wrong way any Canadian who believes in democracy, who believes that people have a right to make decisions for the best of the majority in the situation. That means workers and that a majority of the workforce in a particular work environment should feel that a union is required to speak on their behalf.

In many instances people find themselves in a union when they do not really want to be. They are paying union dues when they do not see any benefit from it. We even have young people who are union members. They get accreditation, their journeyman certificates, but because of union salaries they find themselves too expensive and the union shops do not hire them.

I have talked with several young people who have found themselves unemployed for years on end because they cannot work outside a union shop. The employers are being asked to pay them journeyman wages which they cannot afford to pay. The young people find themselves in a conundrum: they cannot work because the union will not allow them to work and have no options open to them.

Many people are looking at unions in a different light. A majority of workers should be required before a workplace decides to belong to a union. I do not think we should be taking that right away from the average employer.

Another concern I have with Group No. 2 is the motion the Bloc has put forth. I have difficulty with it. I like some of the concepts but not all of them. This is an opportunity in the House of Commons for people to debate the motions in amendment raised by other parties.

I do not like the idea that we have a government which feels that this is a waste of time and that we should not have the right to be raising points on other people's motions that we feel may be going in the right direction but do not quite make it.

Bloc Motion No. 8 talks about the automatic removal of an employee representative upon the receipt of an application. This is when employers are being blended. I have a problem with the way it is being dealt with. I like the concept that there needs to be some negotiation, but who should decide which side is to have the employer or employee representatives when there are amalgamations or mergers. There may have to be a concession that all of them are represented or a means of figuring that one out.

This is the vehicle. This is the process. In parliamentary debate we debate these issues. I resent that we have a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour who is trying to say that we do not have the right or that we are wasting time debating these issues.

In Motion No. 7 we indicate that the wording is not quite right. One word can make all the difference in the world. “May” rather than “shall” can make all the difference in the world to workers who are looking for somebody to represent them.

I do not think it is wrong for us to move a motion to say to government that a word is not quite right, that it can be interpreted in such a way that it is not representing the best interest of the employee, and that we feel it should use another word in the legislation instead of the word it has chosen to use.

In the motion we are saying that the government is offering the labour board a choice that it may or may not call for a representative vote of the workers. That should be automatic; that vote should be required. It should not be conditional and not something the board can choose to use or not to use.

It may be naive of me after five years in this place but I would like to think the government is open to suggestions, that the government is open to having motions brought forward and debated pointing out the usage of words that may make a difference in the interpretation by the board being created by a court if it comes to a court situation.

We would like to think that the government is open to those kinds of suggestions. However my experience tells me otherwise. My experience tells me, no matter what the issue, that once the government has made up its mind it is not willing to accept that maybe it has made a mistake.

It does not matter whether it is in the drafting of a bill or in the hepatitis C debate. We very seldom see a government that says that maybe it made a mistake, maybe it could do better, maybe it should listen to the opposition side, maybe it will make a change because of something suggested that offers improvement.

Rather than listening to the cat-calling, the hissing and the screaming from the other side, maybe they should be listening to the logical and well presented arguments from the opposition side to improve government legislation so that Canadians can receive the best possible legislation from the House.

[Hepatitis C, April 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Doris Corrigan is an 83 year old Surrey resident who contracted hepatitis C from tainted blood during an operation in 1987. Although she qualifies for compensation under the Liberal's plan she will refuse to accept any compensation unless the government extends its offer to include all hepatitis C victims of tainted blood.

Why is the government reneging on its promise to allow more free votes in the House of Commons, forcing its members to support a compensation package that is not fair and not just?