John Bryden

[Patent Act, May 7th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a slight comment. I enjoyed the member opposite's speech. I think on this side we all agree that if research in pharmaceuticals is to go ahead then there has to be some sort of profit incentive for that research.

I would also like to make the observation that the generic drug producers, the people who sell generic brand drugs, do not do research. One of the ironies of the whole situation is that the generic manufacturers of drugs produce drugs at low cost and these low cost drugs are consumed in great quantities. One of the ironies in the situation that has always struck me is the fact that the easy accessibility, for example, to new antibiotics has created a situation where we have growing and more rapid resistance to antibiotics.

We have a very ironic situation where the more we make drugs available cheaply through generic manufacturers, the harder the pharmaceutical companies have to work to design new drugs. We have a very, very difficult situation.

I do not know what the solution is. I do know that we certainly have to put incentives in place as best we can to make sure that those who are designing new drugs have the incentives to do so. I am one who believes that I would like to see government involvement, but I really do think this is a private sector initiative that needs to be encouraged.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the hon. member for Yukon for taking part in this debate because these are important debates. The hon. member for Yukon is a new member to the House and it takes a lot of courage to just plunge into this kind of thing. I will try to be brief because I appreciate that it is late and the staff are staying here, waiting for us to finish.

I have listened to most of the debate and have been here for much of it as well. I make the observation that particularly a lot of it dealt with private members' business. The theme that ran consistently through the debate tonight was the whole idea that private members' bills needed to be made votable, but lost in all of that, in my opinion, is that it is not a matter of whether private members' bills become votable automatically or whatever. It is a matter of whether private members' bills succeed.

The problem is this whole idea of backbench MPs bringing in legislation. The real message we want to get out to the public is that these bills that we do introduce actually do become law eventually.

You well know, Mr. Chairman, with all your long experience, that in fact the government holds all the cards when it comes to legislation going through the House, whether it is government legislation or private members' legislation. That is not wrong. The government is elected to govern. The government has the resources and the absolute duty to make sure that no legislation succeeds through the House that actually does not work or that is inconsistent with the interest of Canadians.

The difficulty with private members' business is, as we have heard tonight, that we get focused on our own ideas. We get focused on the interests of our own constituents. We will see a piece of private members' legislation as the be-all and the end-all. It may be selected. It may be deemed votable. It may go to committee. We as individuals will defend that legislation, even if that legislation in fact may have a very negative impact out there.

Indeed in private members' business, as I have discovered because I have been a great champion of expanding it, the reality is that we are all politicians here. We all act with the sort of self-interest of our constituents, but a self-interest nevertheless of politicians.

The classic example is all those backbench MPs who submit private members' bills with no intention of them ever becoming votable, who submit them for first reading debate for the sole reason that they can get the quick hit in the newspapers. I have seen members submit six, seven, eight or ten private members' bills and motions, all for the short political advantage that they might get in their riding or with their constituents, or just to say something about a faint hope cause.

One of my first recommendations in private members' business would be that we restrict the number of first reading motions and bills that a member can put forward. As you well know, Mr. Chairman, it is one of the things that so occupies those members of staff who are responsible for drafting private members' bills or all those, shall we say, dilatory bills that members never intend in the first place to ever go anywhere.

The second point that has come up, and I think it is a very good point, is the proposal that has been bandied about to get around the subcommittee on private members that we all agree we do not like. It works by consensus and it determines whether bills are votable or not votable. It is not a satisfactory arrangement.

What has been proposed is that every member of the 301 MPs has the opportunity during a mandate to have one bill deemed votable and that the draw would only determine the order in which the members have their bills appear on the order of precedence.

That is very good, but it still has a problem. The problem is that there are still 301 MPs in the House. We cannot deduct the parliamentary secretaries because they only serve for a short time and they need to have their turn at their own private members' legislation, but if we deduct the frontbenches and the ministers we still have 280 members of parliament, all with a votable bill. We would never get through them all.

I would propose that in a mandate every MP had the choice of having one bill deemed votable that he can put forward and still be subject to a draw, or that he be given the choice of having three non-votable motions or bills so that he can have three hours of debate on things that he does not want to go forward but he wants a debate on. In that way there will be less votable bills overall going to committee.

When a bill comes forward to debate I think it is very important on private members' bills, if we really do believe that they should succeed and they really have merit, that there be genuine debate in this House. I have heard one member say that if it is a votable private member's bill there only needs to be two people who speak on it and then it should go to the committee.

That is wrong. What we really need when it is private members' business and when it is a votable bill are questions and answers. What we have now is three hours of debate in which there are token speeches or there are real speeches but there is no debate. I think if we really believe in private members' bills, that they should have merit and they should go the whole distance, then we need to have debate.

I would also extend the hours of debate for private members' business. Again, if we really believe that it should succeed, then we have to have opportunities for that debate.

There are a lot of MPs that would rather spend less time here than more. I can tell you, speaking for myself, Mr. Chairman, I believe so passionately in this place and in private members' legislation that I would be quite happy to stay an extra week or an extra two weeks or stay extra hours in the day in order to have the private members' debates that we need.

I think it is very important that we consider formulas, ways in which we can have extended debate on a Friday, for example, or extended debate on a Monday, or even a special period for private members' business, maybe a couple of weeks even during the break in January or in June. I think it is a mistake if the House leaders rule on private members' business on the basis of those MPs who are not interested in the business of the House. I think it is very important that we serve those who have legislative initiatives that they want to put forward.

Just very quickly, I have four other points related to the general business of the House. I would like to see reports from committees when they are tabled by the committee chairman. I would like to see some words of debate with respect to them because what happens is today the chairman of the finance committee tabled the report of the finance committee. I do not know what it says and it just disappears. I really think it is important that something be said with respect to that.

On minutes of the committee, I would like the minutes of the committee to be properly hansarded and put on the Internet. It is not enough just to televise. It is very, very important to have the minutes of committees moved into the public domain as quickly as possible.

Finally, I would just say that like private members' business I think committee activity needs to be extended. As I proposed earlier tonight, I think there is much to be said for striking special committees that can sit when the House is not sitting and even pay those members to sit on those committees if necessary.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

We cannot swear.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

You are supposed to be non-partisan.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

We agree.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

Was it voted on or not?

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, we would all agree that what the member for Durham is saying is appropriate. We want that. Everything that he said about the lack of oversight on the estimates and the lack of oversight on performance reporting is certainly a shortcoming of the way government is operating and how parliament is operating on the committee system.

However what we have to ask ourselves in the context of what the member for Durham is saying is how do we achieve what it is he wants us to achieve. How do we make time for that special committee on the estimates?

The reality is that the number of members of parliament, out of the 301 in the House, who have an interest in things financial is probably less than 10%. Maybe it is more than 10%, but just around there. They are spread over the finance committee, the government operations committee and the public accounts committee. There is literally no time to use this talent to give the estimates the kind of attention they deserve.

What I would suggest, and I would like all the members here to consider it, is that this is all about modernizing the way parliament works.

Maybe what we ought to be considering is setting up a committee on the estimates that sits outside the time that parliament is sitting, that sits perhaps during the January break which is one month long or perhaps sits after the House rises in June.

To give incentives for the expertise that we need on this committee of the estimates we could, as they do in the United States, actually pay the members of parliament who agree to sacrifice the time they should be in their constituencies for working on this committee. We could pay them in the same manner that is done in the United States.

I do not like the idea of paying members of parliament to serve on committees, but this is an exceptional problem that actually needs to be addressed. It requires members of parliament with particular interest and expertise and indeed it requires a sacrifice on the part of members of parliament.

I wonder what the member for Durham and other members here think about the possibility of striking a committee that sits outside the normal sitting days of parliament and that may even involve giving a special remuneration to those members who agree to sit on the committee.

[Modernization Of The Standing Orders Of The House Of Commons, May 1st, 2001]

Madam Chairman, I would like to take advantage of the fact that the government House leader is here because he has a very long memory of parliamentary procedure.

One of the problems that I noted in my time here with respect to private members' business and trying to give it more opportunity was that often members would say, “Well, let us just vote yes for this at second reading and it will go to committee”.

Clearly the problem with that was that the committees were suddenly burdened with business that they did not properly have the time to manage. Some committees were burdened more than others. I think, for example, of the justice committee.

I have thought a lot about this. I wonder what the government House leader thinks about restoring the old legislative committees. Is there not an argument to be made for creating a legislative committee to receive private members' legislation to in some way, if you will, pre-examine it for appropriateness and viability before it goes on to the proper committee? Or perhaps the legislative committee could handle it right on to report stage.

It just seems to me, Madam Chairman, that in order to make more bills votable we have to find a new system that makes it possible to process these bills without adversely affecting the very limited time of committees.

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am very interested in the smuggling issue with respect to raising taxes on cigarettes. I may have missed the early part of the member opposite's speech. Did he make any reference to the price of cigarettes and tobacco in the United States?

During the last go around on this issue, the reason smuggling became such a large industry, particularly in eastern Canada and the Montreal area, was because of the price disparity of cigarettes across the border. I wonder whether the member opposite has done any analysis or looked at all at what the current prices of tobacco are right now vis-à-vis the time before when we went through a major price increase because it seems to me that the price of cigarettes in the United States has risen in the interval and that may ameliorate the smuggling problem when we raise the taxes ourselves.

[Canada Elections Act, April 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this is an occasion for which I as a parliamentarian am deeply grateful that this institution exists and I have an opportunity to express myself when I have serious misgivings about legislation that is passed through the House.

By coincidence, the member who spoke before me, the member for Brandon—Souris, touched precisely on the area of concern that I wish to devote my remarks to, and that is the question of third party advertising and how it was dealt with in Bill C-2, the previous legislation, and how it should be dealt with in the future.

I have to give some background just so people will understand what happened. The member for Brandon—Souris in fact gave some of the background and I am grateful that he has done so because it saves me going over that ground.

I think the general public should understand that the Canada Elections Act sets limits on campaign spending by candidates. In each riding it varies a little according to geography, size and population, but most candidates for a federal election are restricted in their spending during the campaign to usually around $60,000. I think my campaign ceiling for election expenses is around $65,000.

Going back a little, during the 1993 election campaign, which was my first experience in running as a candidate, the law was such that there was a limit under the law on third party advertising expenditures. There was also a blackout period.

What is being referred to there is the idea that people or groups who are not related to the political party or the candidate might wish to buy advertising during an election period to support one candidate or another, or one party or another, or to advance a controversial issue during an election campaign, hopefully to get a debate going among the candidates.

In its wisdom, parliament, prior to the 1993 election, put restrictions on third party advertising. The idea was that the limit of expenditure on groups who wanted to take out advertising during election campaigns supporting one candidate or another was restricted to $1,000. Indeed there was a very long blackout period.

The theory behind that limitation was that if candidates were restricted in their spending, they were restricted in their spending so that there would be an even playing field. Whether one is a candidate from the government in power, an incumbent, a candidate from a party in opposition or a candidate from a small fringe party, everyone faces the same amount of potential election spending. It is relatively modest at $60,000. Most groups and organizations can raise the amount of private donations necessary to reach that objective in spending, so it is quite reasonable.

However, when we add third party advertising into the equation, as it exists in the United States where there is a great deal of soft money around during an election campaign, then there is a danger of distorting the process. There might be a situation where a special interest group, a corporation or whatever else—and this does happen in the United States—spends enormous amounts of money, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars even in a single riding, to run advertising election material with the specific intent of seeing that one particular candidate, whether it is an incumbent or otherwise, does not succeed in the election. The restriction in my view in 1993 was very appropriate.

As was described by the member for Brandon—Souris, that provision was challenged prior to the 1997 election by the National Citizens' Coalition on the charter grounds that it limited the right to free expression during an election campaign. This provision prior to the 1997 election campaign was suspended.

This was my second election campaign, Mr. Speaker, and I should tell you that in my first mandate as a member of parliament I undertook quite an initiative to bring special interest groups that were receiving public funds to account. I put out several reports calling for transparencies of such groups and I named some of these groups.

Needless to say, during the 1997 election, when the limit on third party advertising disappeared, what happened was that I was enormously attacked by television ads, by print ads and by radio ads. The spending to attack me as the candidate by these special interest groups, some of them charities but most of them not for profit organizations linked to various charities, was easily far more than I spent. In fact in the 1997 campaign, even though my election spending ceiling was about $65,000, I only spent $32,000.

The reason is that I am very much a grassroots candidate. I have no corporations behind me. I have no big interests behind me. My campaign donations are exclusively from the ordinary people in my riding who have confidence in me as an individual. It is more their confidence in me as an individual than my party affiliation that has enabled me to raise the money in my riding that permitted me to run the campaign. I have received no money even from the party during my election campaigns, not only in 1997 but in the year 2000.

After the 1997 election campaign the government undertook, through Bill C-2, to address the challenge that the National Citizen's Coalition had succeeded in. When the Alberta court ruled that the limits on third party advertising expenditures were unconstitutional, the government undertook to redraft the law in Bill C-2 in which it defined limits on third party advertising expenditures.

What it said basically in Bill C-2 was that third parties that wanted to engage in buying advertising during an election campaign should be required to identify themselves and they would be limited to only spending $3,000 in each riding, to a maximum of $150,000 across the country.

There is the problem, and that is why I am here speaking today and why I am so very concerned. When Bill C-9 came forward it was an attempt to correct the problems that exist in Bill C-2, but there was no opportunity to address the problem of third party advertising because Elections Canada had still not reported on the effect of third party advertising under the new rules, who indeed had registered and what they had done.

I have here a printout from Elections Canada that describes the registered third parties that participated in campaign 2000. I got this only when Bill C-9 was in committee, so there was no opportunity to discuss it before committee and I have to bring it before the House. What we have here is the name of the registered third party and the name of the applicant who submitted an address, and that is the complete information.

Not surprisingly, what we have here is a number of special interest groups and organizations. We have unions. We have the Canadian Medical Association. We have an animal rights organization. None of that is surprising. We also have third party organizations that identify themselves only by name. We have Rick Smith of Red Lake, Rod Gillis of St. John's and Liz White of Toronto. That is all we know about them.

Bill C-2, the law that exists, requires no more information. It is sufficient to register a personal name. The people who are making the application are the people who take the name of the third party that is actually buying the advertising, presumably to take one stand or another for or against a candidate or for or against an issue that may be before the electors.

There is one set of third party registrants that I would like to draw to the attention of the House. The first one is the coalition for the Liberal member for Edmonton West. The next one is the Edmonton supporters for the Liberal member for Edmonton West. The third one is Edmontonians for the Liberal member for Edmonton West. The official titles of these third party organizations contesting this election name the member for Edmonton West. That member is the sitting justice minister.

Here is the problem. I am pleased to be able to say that there was no attempt to hide anything. These three organizations made it very clear that they were taking out ads under the law to support the Liberal member for Edmonton West. The problem is that under the current legislation, given that each third party organization that wishes to take part in the election campaign in a riding can spend $3,000, these three organizations were enabled to spend $9,000 in advertising to support the member for Edmonton West, the justice minister.

Indeed, had there been 10 such individuals who wished to be third party organizations buying advertising during an election campaign, they would have been able to spend $30,000 supporting the hon. member for Edmonton West. Twenty individuals would have been able to spend $60,000 supporting the hon. member for Edmonton West.

We can see the problem is that there is no control whatsoever on individuals, separately indeed, deciding to support an individual candidate in a riding and investing more money than that candidate himself or herself would spend in the riding. We have a problem there. The whole spirit of a ceiling on candidates' expenses could be circumvented by all the members of a riding association, for instance, deciding to take out third party advertising.

This is a dramatic example. I am actually very grateful that these people who were supporting the justice minister were upfront so that I can actually present this very dramatic example of what is wrong with the act.

Mr. Speaker, if you do not think that is meaningful you should be aware that the hon. member for Edmonton West won her seat by a single vote in 1993, and that in the year 2000, when these three third party organizations were buying ads in support of her, she won her riding by only 730 votes. If anyone should think that third party advertising does not have a bearing on an election campaign and cannot influence an election campaign, I assure them they are wrong, particularly if the campaign is closely contested.

When campaigns are closely contested, the real problem is that Bill C-2, as it exists now, makes it possible for organizations that we cannot clearly identify as to intent to spend enormous amounts of money to support one particular party or candidate in an election. In other words, Bill C-2, because it is loosely written, opens up the same opportunity for abuse in election spending as now exists in the United States.

I should say that it is not just a case where, as in the case I cited, an incumbent is getting support. There is also another organization which very amusingly calls itself the Zap-a-Rock organization, and it was obviously raising money in Etobicoke and we presume that it was aimed at the health minister.

What we do not know is the intentions of organizations like the International Fund for Animal Welfare, which is a very aggressive international for profit animal rights organization that makes a great deal of money by promoting animal rights causes. We have even here the Christian Heritage Party of Canada which has taken out third party advertising spending status and it, in the previous election, was a registered political party.

The point always comes down to this. As the legislation is written now, we have no guarantees as individual candidates that there cannot be spending on advertising in our riding by a dozen, 60, 50 or 100 special interest groups whose combined spending can more than overpower the campaign ceiling on expenditures that we are required to meet ourselves as candidates and that is defined by the Canada Elections Act.

It something so fundamental to our democracy that anyone in this country should be able to run for high office, for federal office, and not have to curry favour among outside organizations to enable them to spend money on advertising either across the country or in their ridings.

In my particular case, as someone who had alienated an entire sector, the not for profit sector, by criticizing numerous charities and by criticizing numerous non-profit organizations, in the election of 1997 they banded together, they grouped together and brought out advertising against me. The current legislation prevents that from happening, but there was nothing stopping every organization that I criticized from separately taking out $3,000 worth of advertising and going after me.

That is a chill on a member of parliament doing his duty, whether it is not for profit organizations or for profit organizations or any other special interest group out there. If members have to worry about organizations being able to buy more advertising against them during an election campaign than members are entitled to spend on the entire campaign, then I am afraid sitting members of parliament will think twice before they speak their minds in the House, will think twice before they aggressively go after those organizations they feel are not doing a proper job in this society or, indeed, are even questionable in the most literal sense.

We as members of parliament need to have a situation whereby the spending limits during an election campaign are known, are precise, and if organizations are dissatisfied with individual candidates, then the way they should go after those individual candidates is by investing in the parties in opposition to those candidates or in the candidates themselves of those parties, but, Mr. Speaker, it is very, very wrong, very, very wrong and dangerous if we have a situation where individuals, be they individuals as groups or individuals as persons, can separately, buy advertising during an election campaign, separately, that cumulatively might be an expenditure in the hundreds of thousands of dollars against an individual candidate. This is a very serious threat to our democratic process.

I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that when it comes to the charter and freedom of speech, it is understood that there have to be reasonable limits on freedom of speech. If freedom of speech is interpreted as allowing an open field of election spending against candidates when the candidates themselves are restricted in that spending, then I think we are all in serious trouble.