John Bryden

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we really are throwing pearls on barren ground around here. If the member had listened carefully, I did not say it was the most important legislation. I said it was the most significant legislation.

There is no doubt that there are other bills and have been other bills including the constitution which are more important that have appeared before the House, but it is the significance.

This bill and what it contains expands the bounds of the imagination. It expands humanity and the spirit of humanity in a way in which no other bill before the House could ever have done because it goes beyond this country. It touches all of humankind and it takes us off this very planet.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

I do not want to sully this debate any further by cheap reflection on the type of debate I have heard here already from the opposite party. No, Madam Speaker. I will confine my remarks entirely to the legislation at hand, because I think it is turning point legislation. I think it is probably some of the most significant, maybe not the most important, that we have seen before the House certainly since I have been a member.

I would suggest it really is a piece of legislation of the century because it talks about taking the law off this planet. It talks about that one giant step, not just for moving mankind physically into space but moving the best of humankind into outer space.

I liken it to ancient Greece where one of the things we remember about the time of Plato is the fact that the Greeks, in their city states, not only discovered and developed democracy as we have come to know it. The most important thing about the Greeks and why they have a special place in history is that the Greeks discovered the law. They were known for mathematics and for advancements in science, but the most important contribution of the Greeks was a respect for law.

Before we could have democracy we had to have and understand the need for law. From the Greeks came the European society that we knew in the 19th century and the medieval years, which developed into the modern states as we know it. We still hearken back to our debt to the ancient Greeks for introducing mankind to the concepts of law for all people which has to go before democracy.

I would suggest that we could talk as long as we want about the space arm, the advancements in technology and the various technological spin-offs.

I do not think we can ever match in significance the fact that for the first time in this legislation we are actually talking about applying the laws of the land in a space vehicle that is moving around the planet, and indeed about all the subcomponents of that vehicle. If they want to send from the space station a moon lander, the laws of Canada, the criminal code and all other relevant laws will apply to the human beings on those vehicles. This is the beginning, as I see it, for the application of the laws and democracy as we know them to all of mankind's explorations in space.

I note another incredibly significant thing. When we talk about applying the law in this space station, this island of humanity in the voyage, we are talking about the law applying to human beings from different countries. It is not just Canadians. It is all of those people from Russia, Japan or whatever other country that might find themselves together on that space station.

I regret that I cannot name the film, but I can remember my very first moon movie. I am sure older members of the House might remember one of the very early films where they were landing on the moon. There was conflict among the space crew because they ran out of water, or something like that, and of course there was tension. I think we have to appreciate that wherever mankind does go in the millennium ahead of us conflict will follow. The one thing that identifies us as human beings and not animals in our conflicts is that we resolve our conflicts by the law.

I suggest that this is probably one of the most significant aspects of the bill. We are, shall we say, not only sending hardware into space. We are not only sending human beings into space. We are sending our very spirit into space, and that spirit is not just our respect for democracy but that spirit is mankind's respect for the law.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I had no plan of speaking to this particular bill as I came to the House this afternoon, but I have witnessed the way members opposite have taken what should have been a debate in celebration of one of the most significant pieces of legislation to come before the House in this century instead of celebrating that legislation by an informed debate. What they have done is that they have diverted the discussion to cheap and partisan political opportunism. They have changed a debate that should have been about the advancement of mankind. They have turned it into a debate about time allocation, about a piece of legislation that they disagree with that was debated on another occasion.

They have missed an incredible opportunity. Is it true therefore that the people on the opposite side have no sense of the historic context in which we live as human beings, much less as Canadians? Do they have no romantic souls to appreciate that, when we discuss legislation that is actually taking the most fundamental rules of organized society off the planet, that is the most mind enlarging concept I can imagine? It is the type of thing one would expect to read. In fact it is the type of thing that I did read in the fiction of my youth when pulp magazines and science fiction were very new on the newsstands and we could buy them for—

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I continue to be throwing pearls on barren ground. What we are taking about here is a historic moment, a historic debate, a historic piece of legislation. We are applying the law off this planet for the first time ever. It is going to go to the moon, to Mars, to planets all across the solar system as mankind advances.

Can the member not see for one moment the historical significance of what is before the House? It is not a matter of partisan politics. Surely the member can appreciate the moment.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I really do regret that the member for Calgary Northeast spoiled what could have been an excellent speech, which began as an excellent speech, on a historic piece of legislation by toeing his party line and obeying his whip to divert the debate to a discussion of time allocation on the Nisga'a treaty. The member for Calgary Northeast is well known for his interest in the law and legal matters.

We have before us a piece of legislation that truly is very historic in ways that go far beyond just the recitation of technology or the recitation of advancements in science. We have legislation before us that is an advancement in human organization, the advancement in democracy and the advancement in law. We have legislation that for the first time ever applies the laws of Canada not just outside of Canada but out of this world. For the first time ever, the law applies not just on the space capsule and among the spacemen, but the law applies to any vehicle that separates from the space station.

The reason this is so significant is because it takes the human spirit that is represented in our political institutions, and more than that in our legal institutions, and for the first time ever it has taken the law out of this world. That may sound trivial to some members but it is an enormous step. Symbolically, it means that the human spirit has passed the boundaries of geography, has passed the boundaries of city states, of the political states of the world and has actually entered into interplanetary space.

In 1,000 years or 500 years from now, humanity will look back at this moment and this piece of legislation, where it moves the law and mankind outside of the world, as a turning point in the history of all humankind.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. This is an historic piece of legislation before us. It is legislation that has never been seen in the House before. It is legislation of the millennium. Would the member please address the legislation at hand and leave politics behind.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

I rise on a point of order, Madam Speaker. The member had an excellent speech that was right on topic and all on this side were listening raptly. But I must protest if he does steer the speech away to a subject that is not relevant to the matter at hand. Would he please return to the excellent speech that he was conducting previously.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, as we approach the end of the millennium and the beginning of the next, there is one novel aspect of this legislation I would like the hon. member to comment on, especially since he is very well known in Canada as an expert in many aspects of the law, constitutional law among them. It is the fact that possibly for the first time we are making the provision for applying the criminal code and other statutes out of this world.

[Civil International Space Station Agreement Implementation Act, November 2nd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think it would be appropriate if debate were returned to the bill and the topic at hand.

[Supply, October 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as the agriculture minister said, agriculture is a joint federal-provincial responsibility under the constitution. The Reform Party has always championed the issue that the federal government should stay out of areas of provincial jurisdiction. “Get out of the provinces' faces” has been the Reform Party attitude.

I have some figures here. In the years 1995, 1996 and 1997 support payments by the federal government to Saskatchewan alone were $779 million, and to Manitoba, $258 million. That is two and a half times more than the provinces put in during that same period. What the Reform Party is saying right here and now is that it wants more federal intervention and more federal money for the provinces. I would like to know how the Reform Party reconciles that with its policy of the provinces first, the federal government second.