House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2000, with 51% of the vote.
Minister of National Defence February 21st, 2002
Mr. Speaker, on January 30 I asked the minister of defence a direct and precise question: When did Canadian forces take al-Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan? The minister replied “I was first informed about the detention of prisoners...within 24 hours”. That was a direct response to a direct question about Canadians taking prisoners.
Yesterday in committee the minister gave a different story. My question for the minister--
Bill Barclay February 20th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great Canadian, Bill Barclay, president of the Royal Canadian Legion, who passed away. Bill Barclay was truly one of our most courageous citizens. He offered his service to his country without reservation or hesitation, and in so doing offered us a great example of what it means to be Canadian.
I had the great pleasure and privilege of working with Bill to advance the issues that affect our veterans. I was always impressed by his tireless dedication to duty and the fierce compassion he brought to the fight for better treatment of our war heroes. I know in my heart that the greatest recognition we could give to the memory of Bill Barclay is to take up those causes for which he laboured hardest. That is what he would have asked of us. Now at rest Bill Barclay joins the thousands of fallen comrades whom he spent a lifetime honouring.
I ask all of my colleagues in the House of Commons today to join with me in offering our heartfelt and deepest sympathies to Bill's loved ones and friends. We will miss him greatly.
National Defence February 19th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. Is there a formal document which names the Minister of National Defence as the only civilian eligible for regular briefings on the actions of Canada's special military forces in Afghanistan? If there is such a document, will the government table it in the House immediately?
Minister of National Defence January 31st, 2002
Mr. Speaker, nobody is questioning the competence of the troops. The minister has just stated that he gets reports every day. If that is the case, how come the Prime Minister and the cabinet did not get it until eight days later?
Hundreds of our military men and women are leaving tonight for Afghanistan. In view of what has taken place in the House this week, Canadians as well as those men and women in uniform need to know who is in charge of the department of defence.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. How can they do their duty when the minister of defence is not doing his? How can Canadians--
Minister of National Defence January 31st, 2002
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Yesterday the Minister of National Defence confirmed that he had received a significant incident report about Canadian soldiers taking prisoners early last week. He was in Mexico, I believe. I did ask him why he did not use the phone. I checked with Mexico. It does have a phone system there.
Given the confusion on this issue and the changing nature of the minister's own version of events, could the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House if procedures have now been changed? Is the Prime Minister now receiving significant--
Sir John A. Macdonald Day and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Day Act January 30th, 2002
Madam Speaker, as a representative in the House of Commons of Canada's first incorporated city by royal charter it is truly an honour and a privilege for me to stand here this evening and welcome an opportunity to make an intervention at this last stage of the bill.
I hope the House will be willing to expedite passage of the bill today. Bill S-14 is about giving Canadians an excuse or an opportunity to learn more about their history.
When I was mayor of the city of Saint John I was asked by the prime minister of the day to sit on a committee known as the Citizens Forum on Canada's Future. I was asked to travel all across the nation to look at Canada as a whole and see how we could promote a united Canada.
What the hon. member from the NDP has said is what I found out at the time. It was a great shock, particularly when I went out west. Young people there did not know anything about New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I. or Newfoundland. They did not know a lot about Quebec. It was a learning experience for me.
Bill S-14 is about giving Canadians an excuse or an opportunity to learn more about their history. Our story is a great one yet for many of our citizens it remains untold and unknown. We have more tools for learning and communication than at any time in human history, yet people today know less about the Canadian story than did the people of a generation ago.
Earlier this month the Globe and Mail began publishing an interesting series of articles written by our living prime ministers about other prime ministers. My leader the right hon. member for Calgary Centre has written about Prime Minister Diefenbaker with whom he worked and sat in the House. It was a great column that offered personal insight and a perspective of history.
Last saturday Brian Mulroney wrote about Sir Robert Borden, but it is the first in the series that I want to make reference to in this debate.
John Turner wrote about Sir John A. Macdonald on January 12. His central theme was that we should do more to commemorate Macdonald. He would go further than the bill. He wanted us to make January 11 a holiday to celebrate a national hero and he does make a strong case.
I urge hon. members to read John Turner's article in full because it is eloquently expressed and well reasoned. In support of his thesis he quotes the speech given on the death of Macdonald by the other prime minister referenced in the bill, Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He stated in the House of Commons:
As to his statesmanship, it is written in the history of Canada. It may be said without any exaggeration whatever, that the life of Sir John Macdonald, from the time he entered Parliament, is the history of Canada.
The right hon. John Turner on Macdonald stated:
Britain will never forget her Cromwell, her Pitt and her Disraeli. The hero whose name we add to our list of immortals, John Alexander Macdonald, had much of the force of an Oliver Cromwell, some of the compacting and conciliating tact of a William Pitt, the sagacity of a William Gladstone, and some of the shrewdness of a Benjamin Disraeli. To read the biography of John Alexander Macdonald is, essentially, to read a “New World biography”.
The bill does not create a holiday. That may disappoint some, including Mr. Turner, but it does designate January 11 and November 20 as days to carry respectively the names of Macdonald and Laurier. That would give the Government of Canada, particularly the department of heritage as well as our schools and our media, opportunities to tell the great stories of these two great men and in doing so to make better known the story of this great nation of ours. Heritage Canada has a particular duty to protect our national patrimony but it is not alone.
I want to mention the fine work that is done at the Diefenbaker Centre in Saskatoon. Mr. Speaker, lest you think I am straying from the topic, I hasten to point out that the centre holds a number of items relating to Sir John A., including a very handsome desk. The Diefenbaker Centre contains a replica of the cabinet room and makes a part of these very parliament buildings accessible to young people in a way that is not available here in Ottawa.
Like many bodies that depend on endowments and income from interest on investments, the centre has been hard hit at this time by low interest rates. This is an important historical and political depository for all of Canada. I encourage the Heritage minister to take a personal look at the funding available to the Diefenbaker Centre. It is the final resting place for John and Olive Diefenbaker and it is an important part of the University of Saskatchewan. As we consider ways to commemorate our history, I urge the government to take an initiative to review the funding for the Diefenbaker Centre before valuable artifacts are lost.
Hon. members may think that I have gone off topic, but there is a link and it is a personal one. My cousin Gordon Fairweather was a member of the Diefenbaker government. John Diefenbaker met Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The most famous incident of a young John Diefenbaker selling a newspaper to Sir Wilfrid is commemorated by a charming statue in Saskatoon. John Diefenbaker met Sir Wilfrid and Sir Wilfrid met Sir John A. I hope that keeps me within the requirements of the relevancy rule in discussing the important work of the Diefenbaker Centre in Saskatoon.
Let me say a few words about Sir Wilfrid Laurier. He was a man who in his youth was a patriotic son of Quebec. He ended his long life with an international reputation as a son of the new Canada.
Professor Desmond Morton gave a charming three page note in support of the bill to the Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology in the other place last April 25. I commend that document to the House. Professor Morton provides us with fascinating reasons to learn more about these two leaders. They were men of the dream that is Canada. He stated:
I will say this, that we are all Canadians. Below the Island of Montreal, the water that comes from the north, from the Ottawa, unites with the waters that comes from the western lakes, but uniting they do not mix. There they run parallel, separate, distinguishable, and yet are one stream, flowing within the same banks, the mighty St. Lawrence and rolling on toward the sea, bearing the commerce of a nation upon its bosom—a perfect image of our nation. We may not assimilate, we may not blend, but for all that, we are still the component parts of the same country.
Sir Wilfrid has elegantly given us a daily reminder of the nature of our country as we look out on the waters of the Ottawa River from Parliament Hill. We have much to learn from Macdonald and Laurier. The bill, as Professor Morton stated, allows us to “find a little time each year to learn from their experiences.”
We need to find ways to tell our story to our children and our grandchildren. Canadian history is more than the legends of politics or of government. By marking the anniversaries of Macdonald and Laurier we would go some way to highlight the history of Canada. There can never be a stated approved version of our history, but the state can facilitate the learning of its history. The bill would help do that.
I ask the House to support the passage of Bill S-14 and I thank the hon. member for bringing it forward.
Foreign Affairs January 30th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, apparently Mexico does not have any phones because he could have picked up the phone and called the Prime Minister.
Things do not add up here. We are supposed to have 50 Canadians at central command headquarters in Florida agreeing to Canadian participation in missions. Who do they report to?
Is the Minister of National Defence not the Minister of National Defence they report to, national defence headquarters or is it Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon? Will the minister table today the significant incident report of eight or so days ago that states Canadians took prisoners?
Foreign Affairs January 30th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. When Canadian Forces personnel took prisoners in Bosnia, they sent a significant incident report to the National Defence Headquarters Operation Centre within 24 hours. We have been informed that this procedure is still in place. According to this, the minister would have been aware within 24 hours that Canadians had taken al-Qaeda prisoners.
Why did the minister not inform the Prime Minister about this immediately? Why did he wait eight days?
The Budget January 29th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, I would to like to ask the hon. member from the Alliance how he feels about what has happened to the military in the budget.
I just got word late this afternoon that was very shocking to me. Lord Robertson of NATO is to step down as a member of NATO because there is not enough money in the NATO budget for the military. He told them last week.
I am wondering what we should do here. Should our minister of defence step down because there is not enough money in our budget for our military? How does the hon. member and his party feel about the budget tabled in the House with regard to our military?
National Defence January 29th, 2002
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. The minister has admitted today that the JTF2 force has been involved in the capture of al-Qaeda prisoners. This is a combat operation.
Yet the minister told our joint committee of defence and foreign affairs two weeks ago that the rules of engagement for the Princess Pats battle group are still not finalized for combat operations.
What we want to know is, are there two sets of rules of engagement, one for the Princess Pats and another for JTF2 operations?