John Bryden

[Lester B. Pearson Act, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I stand before you today to support the bill of my colleague, the hon. member for Cambridge.

I come at it in quite a different way. The reason I appreciate so much that he has brought this issue forward is that I believe he is quite right that we so often fail as Canadians to recognize our heroes. We have many heroes; heroes of literature, heroes of history, heroes in Quebec, heroes in the west. We do not recognize them enough. Sometimes I believe that one of the reasons why we have problems as a country is because we do not have a strong enough sense of self.

When it comes to Mr. Pearson as a person who would be appropriate to be celebrated on a particular day, I do not believe the member is suggesting a statutory holiday but he is suggesting a name day, a recognition day. When it comes to Mr. Pearson, the politician, I find myself inclining toward the views of my colleague in the Reform Party, although from a different way. This is the reason.

In another life I am a little bit of an historian and I am familiar with other aspects of Mr. Pearson's life. I can tell the hon. member for Cambridge that one of the problems with politicians, and particularly leaders, is that history tells more about them as the years go by than we might know or appreciate at the time. In the case of Mr. Pearson, documents that are now becoming available, as they are in Britain regarding Churchill, are revealing that Mr. Pearson was very much involved in the intelligence world in co-operation with the United States and Britain, and that Mr. Pearson was very, very conscious of the threat of communism. That was mentioned. Mr. Pearson was actually a bit of a hawk rather than a dove when it came to the Soviet Union.

As he was talked into a very close relationship with the Americans at the intelligence level, during the Suez crisis, as the hon. member will remember, it was a situation where the British and the French had attacked the Sinai and the Americans were opposed to it. The Americans and Canadians were opposed to it.

What happened there, as we now know from documents, was that the British and the French were reading Egyptian ciphers, codes and ciphers. The Americans and Canadians were reading the codes and ciphers of all the other Arab nations. When it came to sending the forces into the Middle East, Mr. Pearson by benefit of the Americans had the advantage of terrific intelligence. He was not at risk of losing lives or making a bad decision.

Furthermore, there is evidence today that Mr. Pearson's initiative in the Middle East in solving the Suez crisis with UN peacekeeping forces was an initiative that was worked out with the Americans. He got the Nobel Prize for it, but I think as the years go by we will see a little more about what actually happened there.

This is not to take away from Mr. Pearson in any way, manner or form because, as the hon. member for Laval Centre so eloquently said, Mr. Pearson contributed marvellously to this country, not only in terms of foreign policy but in terms of opening up this this government to francophones from Quebec.

Prior to the second world war there was not anything like that accessibility from Quebec. Mr. Pearson recognized that Quebec was moving forward after the second world war. Mr. Pearson tried to join with that.

That is a problem. When it comes to naming politicians, as my Reform party colleague was saying, it is a little delicate when we set aside days to commemorate them. Something might come up in the future that would give us second thoughts about it or we might decide that it is not that appropriate. When we look down, I will agree with the member for Cambridge that I could not think of another statesman or politician in this country who would be more suitable or almost.

Certainly if we look down the roll of Prime Ministers, only Mr. Pearson has the stature that would qualify for the type of recognition the member proposes. Oddly enough, I would make one exception. In speaking from the heart, from my experience of life in this country in the last 30 years, I would make one exception of a leader in this country who showed he had a heart that went beyond politics, having his country at heart and a real sense of the country. The member for Laval Centre will just love this. It was René Levesque. Mr. Levesque was a man who spoke for not just the people of Quebec. He spoke for all Canadians with what he brought to the fore. At least in my mind he gave me in that entire debate, now quite a few years ago, a sense of what being a Canadian really was.

I want members to know, members of the Bloc Quebecois particularly, that René Levesque, who I saw in action, was an incredibly human man, so easy to relate to, not a person like Trudeau who tended to be arrogant, or a person like Mr. Turner who tended to be inaccessible. I always felt he was a man of the people. That was the warmth. He brought us forward as a nation, not just Quebec, but as a nation at large.

I do not feel the same way about Jacques Parizeau. I feel very strongly that what Mr. Levesque created in raising the sense of Canadian identity was largely destroyed by a subsequent Prime Minister who led us into a fruitless debate and brought us to where we are now. I am very confident, on the other hand, that we will remember the spirit of Mr. Levesque and that will come out of the debate now on the subject of separatism. We will come to be a much stronger country. I am very convinced of that.

Obviously we are not going to have a day recognizing Mr. Levesque in the near future.

This is a delicate thing I would say to the hon. member for Cambridge. When one raises the issue of a recognition day for prominent politicians it does risk running aground on the rock of politics of the day. I would suggest to the hon. member that maybe we should look for another sort of hero. There is no doubt that as Canadians we constantly overlook our heroes.

I would like to suggest to him there is a heroine we constantly overlook as Canadians, whereas the whole world recognizes this particular person. I speak of Anne of Green Gables. Do we realize in this House that a fictional heroine-

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add some comments to the debate because it is a very important one.

When we look at the social safety net and its origins all members in the Chamber would agree it essentially a Liberal creation. In the post-war years there were successive Liberal governments. There was a period when we had a Conservative government under John Diefenbaker. However I think the Liberals, particularly those under Prime Minister Pearson, can take credit for many of the social safety net reforms we have today.

There is no doubt anything that is put together will eventually develop flaws and difficulties and will be subject to change and reform. What has happened here and the reason why we are having this debate right now is that reform of the social safety net is long overdue, not just because we cannot afford it but because it is not working as well as it should.

I would not like to discuss the reforms in detail in this debate, but my experience in the last month has been that Canadians are ready for the type of debate and the type of reforms being contemplated now. We do not know what the final answer will be on unemployment insurance. We will have to see. It is a very contentious issue. However we have to address it and Canadians are ready.

I can give a couple of examples. Every year there is a very popular fall fair in my area. This is typical of the ridings of most MPs; they have fall fairs in their ridings. I took the green paper of the Minister of Human Resources Development to the fall fair and sat it on a table there. In the course of two days I gave out 200 copies of it.

People would come up to me and ask: "What is that?" I would say: "You have to read this because it is something that is going to affect every Canadian". People from all walks of life at the fall fair took the paper, promised to examine it, read it carefully, and send in their reactions.

I now have in my office at least 300 replies, not all of them sophisticated papers from special interests groups about which the Reform Party and perhaps myself love to talk from time to time. They were ordinary Canadians reacting to a very important initiative by the government, one that has to be debated thoroughly not only in the Chamber but in the community.

I took the green paper one step further. Once a month I have a cable TV program. I use it as an open line show. A local journalist comes down. It is quite interesting. Actually it is a lot of fun to do because there is no pre-preparation; we do not work out the questions beforehand. We simply sit there and talk and people call in.

People often think that cable TV is not well watched but I can assure the House that this program is very well watched. I had a tremendous response. The lines were flooded, particularly on the subject of the social safety net or reform of our social systems. I had all kinds of people call in, but the most compelling people who called were are on welfare, the people who are the beneficiaries of the system or are seen to be the beneficiaries of the system but are also the ones who are losing the most by it. One person called in and identified herself as a young single woman on welfare with a child; I cannot remember whether she had one or two children. She said that she felt terribly trapped.

I conclude by saying that the debate we are engaged in, whether in the House or in society, is one of the most important debates of this Parliament.

[Social Security Program, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's remarks with great attention, particularly his comments about social services reform in the context of federalism.

We are all agreed, in the House and in the country at large, that the previous government, because it concentrated so much on constitutional issues, left our house in a state of great disorder not only in the accumulation of debt but also in failing to address these very crucial problems of social security reform.

I would like to suggest to the member opposite that we now have exactly the same situation. We have another leader in Canada pushing a constitutional agenda which will take us away from the focus on necessary reforms involving social services and reducing the debt. I suggest to the member that person is Mr. Jacques Parizeau. I wonder how he can explain that Mr. Parizeau is not directing us away from where we should really be looking, that is looking after Canadians, finding jobs and increasing the benefits in the economy.

[Government Funding, November 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, like most MPs in the Chamber on all sides of the House, I am anxious to help government cut wasteful spending.

With that in mind, I had occasion to ask officials in various ministries to supply me with the actual grant applications of certain special interest groups that regularly receive government funding.

I have been denied those applications. They have been withheld pending formal rulings under the Access to Information and Privacy Acts. I have been told, and I know it sounds incredible, that the names and addresses on the forms may be confidential.

This is crazy. The legislation that is supposed to open government is closing it. There is no excuse for not being able to see, on demand, what special interest groups actually promised to do in exchange for the government grants they receive.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

The issue is double dipping in my riding. I point out to the member, if I may, that behind him is the member for Lethbridge who is already receiving a pension of some $63,000. I will also point out that the $63,000 is from another level of government. I just want to say that the taxpayers' dollars are the same dollars no matter what level of government. I would like to know what the member has to say about the member for Lethbridge and the fact that he is double dipping right now.

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I was quite surprised by the remarks of the member opposite. He knows as well as I do that the issue is not simply MPs receiving pensions or even significant pensions. The issue is one of double dipping, where an MP obtains money from the taxpayer-

[Supply, October 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Okanagan Centre on his speech. Once the passions are defused from the House of Commons, I often hear very constructive suggestions from all members of the House, including members of the opposition.

I would like to ask the member a question concerning his formula for prosperity. Would he not agree that what we need to have is a strong central government to implement the kind of programs that he is suggesting?

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services Act, October 18th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like my vote to be recorded as being with the government on this amendment, if I may.

[Department Of Canadian Heritage Act, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions. I listened to the hon. member and I find myself in accord with some of his remarks and in disagreement with others.

When he talks about rejecting multicultural policy, is he not really talking about rejecting a kind of implementation of it? I take it the hon. member is not really against multiculturalism. He is against a multiculturalism policy which tends to divide us rather than unite us. If I understand the member correctly, he still is in favour of our multiethnic nature as a country.

I have also been looking at the grants issue to various ethnic groups and I have found during the last government a correlation

between payments to ethnic groups and election years in which the actual payments increased.

Would he care to comment on those two points?

[Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, October 4th, 1994]

Hold on a second. This is precisely the situation that exists. When we require citizens to do something we need to have choice. Previous speakers did not deal with the question of how we are going to enforce responsibilities. Is it going to be something that is mandatory or is it going to be something that is voluntary?

If it is going to be something voluntary then it is the rules of conduct or what we would expect in a good citizen and that really belongs in a citizenship act, not in a charter of rights and freedoms.

On the other hand, as one member suggested earlier there is the idea that we should actually require citizens to do it. Then again we come back to the problem of where the state is actually requiring and enforcing behaviour.

There may be instances where a Canadian citizen for whatever reasons, perhaps fear, does not want to report on a crime that he or she has observed. Do we punish that person? I go back to the historic past to see that certainly in countries with dictatorships it was very common to punish people who did not properly report misdemeanours against the state. This is very serious.

I do not think that is what was intended by members opposite when they demand a charter of responsibilities. I think they are basically talking about the Citizenship Act.

I would like to make another point, if I may. We go on to very dangerous and difficult ground when we discuss issues like this one but we should discuss them, certainly. We heard another member talk about the difference between individual rights and freedoms and collective rights and freedoms. Here we have another problem. As the charter exists it looks at individuals. I submit this is the way it has to be because each one of us is our own self. We are true to ourselves. We may not be as strong as other people but we need protection as individuals.

When we talk about collective rights, however, we get into the same type of situation that occurred during the early part of the 20th century when nationalism flourished in Europe and led to the rise of Nazi Germany and Franco Spain and so on and so forth.

When we approach collective rights, I submit we have a situation in our country where I think it was suggested that some people in the province of Quebec would like to have collective rights for self-determination. If we subscribe to that dictum then the Cree in northern Quebec ought also to have collective rights for self-determination. Therein lies the contradiction. When we talk about such collective rights, then the country is broken up. I suggest if separatists were true to that principle then it would break up Quebec.