John Bryden

[Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act, May 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I intend to devote my entire remarks on Bill C-78 to the word conjugal which has been the subject of much acrimony on both sides of the House.

I will preface my remarks by saying that I have been extremely disappointed in my government, or the advisers to my government, who chose to use the word conjugal to achieve what I think was a correct purpose to extend survivor benefits to same sex couples. Unfortunately they chose to do it in entirely the wrong way and it has caused a division on this side and unhappiness. I am sorry that has occurred.

I would have thought there would have been very grave concern on the other side of the House about legislation that has the intention of providing survivor benefits to same sex couples, but does no such thing. It is that kind of ineptitude that makes me regret this particular aspect of what is otherwise a very good bill.

What was attempted in order to extend benefits to same sex couples was that the bill amends existing legislation which defines a survivor as a person of the opposite sex. Clause 25(4) of Bill C-78 redefines survivor as someone who is cohabiting in a relationship of a conjugal nature for a period of a year.

That came up during second reading and I saw the word conjugal. I know a little bit about words. I knew immediately that conjugal in any context does not mean same sex. It is a word that goes back 2,000 years, back to the early church in Rome. It is from two Latin words involving togetherness and yoking together. That is what it means explicitly. The history of the word has to do with conjugal rights and the whole idea that in medieval times, in the early church and even in the later church, the idea was that when one got married this legally permitted one to have a heterosexual relationship with the woman and procreate.

That was how the early church regarded it, both the Catholic church at the beginning and later the various Protestant churches. It has not changed. Go to any dictionary including Black's dictionary. One of the members mentioned Black's dictionary and suggested that conjugal means something other than a married relationship or a relationship involving sexual intercourse in the conventional fashion. Everywhere you go you can look it up and find that, Mr. Speaker.

I challenged the officials of the minister's department. I said “Explain to me why you are using the word conjugal in order to provide benefits to same sex partners”. I was led to the 1997 Rosenberg court case. The court was examining the Income Tax Act provisions with respect to benefits to same sex couples. The court decided that same sex couples under the charter of rights should be entitled to the same benefits under the Income Tax Act as opposite sex couples.

The judge looked at a particular clause in the Income Tax Act which said in essence that a spouse is a person in an opposite sex relationship who is enjoying a conjugal relationship. It states that a spouse at any time of a taxpayer includes the person of the opposite sex who cohabits at that time with the taxpayer in a conjugal relationship.

There are three ideas here: opposite sex, cohabits and conjugal relationship. The judge in the Rosenberg case ruled that in order to fulfil the intention of the charter we should read into this clause—and this is a judge creating legislation—that it should be a person of the opposite sex or the same sex who cohabits at that time with the taxpayer in a conjugal relationship. The judge added words but did not change the word conjugal which does not mean same sex. It does not mean that at all.

When I looked at that I said to the officials from the department “That does not prove a thing. Show me anywhere in law, anywhere in legislation, where conjugal is actually defined as pertaining to a same sex sexual relationship”. I looked at all the cases presented for me. There were lots of analyses of cohabit. There were lots of analyses of spouse, but nowhere in any of the things presented to me with my own research or with the assistance of the department could I find a definition of conjugal that includes same sex relationship.

What do we have? Let us go back to the original clause, Clause 25(4), and read it exactly:

For the purposes of this Part, when a person establishes that he or she was cohabiting in a relationship of a conjugal nature with the contributor for at least one year...then the person is considered to be the survivor of the contributor.

If we take that clause literally nothing has happened. In fact the clause entrenches the idea that only married couples, that is people in a conjugal relationship, can receive these benefits. The legislation actually fails to achieve what it was designed to achieve.

Yes, I support the bill, but I do not support the clumsiness of what was attempted in the bill. Let me go on the record as saying I believe the government has an obligation to find a way in which to recognize the genuine dependency that exists between same sex couples. We should enshrine that in legislation and we should pass laws, but we cannot let the courts do it because the courts are at the whim of a judge who is not concerned with writing legislation, who is merely concerned with expressing and interpreting ideas, who fails to appreciate that a word in existing legislation does not mean what he thinks it means.

Now we have the supreme court ruling in the M. v H. case in this past week. The supreme court is suggesting that the Ontario family law should be struck down because it only pertains to opposite sex couples cohabiting. In its decision it mentions that same sex couples can have similar relationships to opposite sex couples including conjugal relationships. I submit that the supreme court judges have made the same error. If they would only go to any dictionary, English or French, they would never find conjugal referring to same sex relationships.

We have the judges and courts through, shall we say, a certain amount of literary ineptitude—and we should not be surprised by that because they are judges, not authors, not legislators—creating changes in the laws that are basically wrong. It belongs to parliamentarians to make those changes.

As a result of the case with respect to striking down the family law act, we understand that the provinces of Ontario and Alberta will have to redo their legislation to make sure that their family law legislation embraces same sex couples. Let them do that, but let them, for heaven sakes, avoid the word conjugal because conjugal specifically means heterosexual sex and married.

The reason there is division on this side is not because members do not want to see gay couples treated like everyone else. The reason there is division on this side is there is a genuine and honest concern about the implications of giving gay couples legally married status because in my view the big danger there is that it would give them then the right to adopt children as opposed to the privilege that they already now have. The right to adopt children would run the danger of extinguishing the rights of children.

In the end, while I will always try to champion the rights of every Canadian no matter what their differences from other Canadians, I have to always remember that it is not the place of this parliament to ever diminish or extinguish the rights of other Canadians, especially children.

I regret this legislation. It is an excellent bill but we used the wrong word. If we had used the word cohabit instead of conjugal, I think it would have been fine. If we had used dependent, I think it would have been fine. Anything but the word conjugal.

[Access To Information Act, May 4th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, when we talk about access to information what we are really talking about in the final analysis is the good of the general public but very specifically the need for the watchdogs of government, parliamentarians and the media to be able to have the instruments and the tools to scrutinize government to make sure it is honest and efficient.

Certainly that is the role of both backbench government MPs and opposition MPs. We need good information. We have to be able to get that information from government so we can do our job.

It is the same with the media. The media must have the tools of good freedom of information legislation in order to do its job for all Canadians and for parliament.

In the context of the media I cannot tell of my surprise when after the member for Red Deer submitted his earlier bill, Bill C-216 that would do the same thing, open up crown corporations, I received a letter in November 1997 from the chief operating officer of the CBC, in which the chief operating officer appealed to me as a member of parliament—and I imagine this letter went to every other member of parliament—to resist Bill C-216 because it threatened the independence of the CBC under the Broadcasting Act and it threatened journalistic integrity and it threatened the CBC's competitive position. The CBC, we understand, is a billion dollar plus crown agency operating primarily on government funds, so I was surprised by that.

As a former journalist I fired a letter back very quickly in which I said to the chief operating officer of the CBC that as a former journalist I knew that his concerns were unwarranted and that in fact I myself had a private member's bill, Bill C-264, which put in enhanced protections to corporations and organizations like parliamentarians and the CBC in the sense that Privacy Act considerations would prevent any damage to journalistic integrity, and that he had no fear of losing the independence in the Broadcasting Act simply because the CBC would be required to disclose its administrative procedures.

There is a huge issue here. As I pointed out to the chief operating officer of the CBC, the issue here is that it is the one organization in the country that is completely outside any kind of government scrutiny even though it gets money from the government. We cannot see any of the salaries in the CBC, as I explained to the chief operating officer. We cannot see any mismanagement in the CBC, as I explained to the chief operating officer. We cannot even see nepotism in the CBC.

We as parliamentarians are subject to all kinds of scrutiny. When we undertake patronage, which is the source of all kinds of controversy in the country and which the opposition is constantly attacking the government on, we are talking about a form of nepotism that is at least public. In the CBC we can see none of that.

I wrote him back and got a letter back from him again. He simply said that he was sorry, that the CBC's administrative procedures must remain secret because exposing CBC records under the access rules for administrative purposes would in fact expose all CBC records whether gathered for administrative, creative, journalistic or programming purposes. That is not true, not true at all.

I wrote to Peter Mansbridge, one of the top journalists in this country. In my letter I said “Peter, as a journalist would you disclose your salary as an example to the rest of the CBC to show that you as a journalist believe in the principles of access to information”. He wrote me back a letter in which he said “Given the kind of scrutiny, both real and imagined, that public figures are faced with in this country, there are few things that remain private. In my case I am fortunate that my employer chooses to at least keep my salary details private”. And so it goes. The top journalist in the country, while he demands transparency and accountability of parliamentarians, is not prepared to submit to it himself.

When the journalism community is not prepared to have the same kind of transparency it demands and asks of government, then it should not criticize those bureaucrats who are afraid of the type of legislation we all know is very necessary in this country for the efficiency and honesty of this country. I say to the member for Red Deer, way to go.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is what I have said. It seems the opposition cannot come up with a better expression of a direction to take the government, the economy, the people of the maritimes and the shipbuilding industry into than a motion that has no original idea to it, and in fact was borrowed from the Liberals. When is the opposition going to come up with its own ideas?

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in his speech, this very member recalled when the Canadian dollar was worth $1.10 to the American dollar. He thought that was a happy time. Precisely the problem now is that the Korean currency is so low. It is below the Canadian dollar and below everything. It means that Korean labour, relative to North American labour, relative to Canadian labour, is very underpriced. The problem is to understand not just labour costs, but to understand the difference between the values of international currency.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, this is a crisis of international sales, of shipbuilding. We cannot get into the American market and we cannot do it alone in Canada. There are no markets in Canada that will sustain our shipbuilding industry. The American market is protected because that other party over there, in that direction generally, failed to get it into the free trade agreement.

It is not a question of going hat in hand. We are now at a major disadvantage and people are suffering. We are losing one of our heritage industries because the Conservative Party or the Conservative government never took the proper steps when it arranged the free trade deal with the Americans.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out in my speech, the minister gave the policy and we delivered. A policy is in place and it is the best policy we can have under the circumstances. This a global problem. We have delivered a policy.

If any of the members of the opposition had a new idea to add to that policy I have not so far heard it.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, the matter of tax fixes is not what this is all about.

I point out that during the debate the member for Edmonton—Strathcona felt that the motion did not have any real substance. He said that the Reform Party would support it anyway because it was inoffensive.

I suggest that we in the House are not in the business of debating ideas that do not have substance because they raise false hopes. If there had been a real idea or something significant in the motion I would have supported it. As it stands, I do not expect to be able to do so.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Americans are fond of recalling their first dollar. I can recall my first dime. It was a very small shiny thing. I remember on the one side of that small shiny coin there was the head of a man. It did not interest me much and I do not think the head on that side of the coin interests me much any more, or still, I should say. Of course that was King George VI.

On the other side of the coin, on the dime, there was a picture of a ship. It was a ship in full sail coming right out of that coin. I thought that was one of the prettiest things that I had ever seen as a very small child. This is a memory that certainly predates school age. I should also tell hon. members that dime at the time bought one Coca-Cola, but that is not the reason why I remember it so well.

That little ship is still sailing on that dime, only now it is on nickel alloy instead of a sea of silver. That ship connects this debate to ourselves as Canadians.

Later, when I got a little older, I started collecting stamps. Anyone who is listening who was ever a stamp collector will remember that the 50¢ Bluenose is without any question the most beautiful stamp that Canada has ever produced. It is a classic stamp. Of course the Bluenose is that famous vessel that was built in Nova Scotia during the 19th century that won all the races and yet was a fishing vessel at the same time.

Indeed, much, much later in life I had occasion to visit a replica of the Bluenose in Toronto harbour. It was a wonderful ship. It reflects the heritage of Nova Scotia and the maritimes, because of course in the 19th century the shipbuilding industry in the maritimes, and particularly Nova Scotia, was world class. Nova Scotia was famous for its wooden ships and the Bluenose was the most classic ship ever built in Canada, for that matter.

There are other connections of the shipbuilding industry to Canada's past. I was listening to my Bloc colleagues who have taken a very active interest in this debate and I congratulate them for it because I come from a riding that is in central Ontario, just west of Hamilton, and one would think there would be no real connection with the shipbuilding industry there.

In the 17th century a very famous French explorer visited my region at the head of the lake, at Burlington Bay, and his name was La Salle. He was the explorer who actually founded Louisiana. La Salle in the 1670s explored down the Ohio River and Mississippi right down to Louisiana, to the mouth of the Mississippi, and claimed it for France.

In the 17th century the French in New France were probably the world's greatest entrepreneurs because for La Salle it was not just exploration. It was the development of the fur trade. La Salle built the very first ship on the upper Great Lakes. He built the Griffon in 1678. He built it not very far from where I live at Niagara Falls, above the falls.

That ship set sail. It was 45 tonnes, built from white pine in the area by hand. It set sail on Lake Erie and went up to Michilimackinac. In 1680 it picked up a cargo of furs to return to the port at Niagara and disappeared. It is one of the great mysteries of Canadian history, what ever happened to the Griffon . In the cold waters of Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan or Lake Huron, for that matter, there is a very good chance that the Griffon will still be on the bottom and in perfect condition.

We know this because during the war of 1812 there was a businessman in my area who built a trading ship. The area was still forest and hardly developed. It was seized by the Americans. It was armed in the war of 1812 and sank off St. Catharines during a storm. Not many years ago they discovered that ship at the bottom in perfect condition.

The history of shipbuilding in this country transcends this country. It is all across this country. In that sense I think the introduction of the motion in the House is a very appropriate thing to do because it does touch on our history.

I do have quarrel with the motion in this sense. The motion suggests that the federal government needs to develop a shipbuilding policy, as though there was not a policy at all to date, and that it should revitalize the Canadian shipbuilding industry by maintaining and advancing a degree of excellence and the technologies that Canada is famous for.

Those are very noble sounding words. I appreciate they come from a resolution that was passed at a Liberal convention in 1998. I point out that a resolution that is passed at a convention is not the same thing as bringing something before the House. If I find fault with the motion, I find fault with it because it does not suggest a significant way of addressing the problem of Canada's shipbuilding industry. I suggest the reason is because it does not deal with the terrible problems that Canada's shipbuilding industry is facing.

The member for Saint John was the lead off speaker for the Conservatives, and this is a Conservative motion. She proposed that what the government should be doing is it should be sweetening the loan support for people who are buying ships or it should change the tax laws slightly with respect to leasing and little fixes like that. That does not address the problem of 40% overcapacity in the shipbuilding industry around the world. That does not address the fact that South Korea alone has $10 billion worth of orders for 1997.

Canada is not alone with respect to a problem with its shipbuilding industry. All we have to do is search across the world wide web and what we will find is that the European Union is desperately worried about the fact that its shipyards are beginning to perish because it cannot compete on the open market with particularly South Korea and also Japan.

We are faced with an overcapacity in the shipbuilding industry, and we are faced with the Asian flu for example which has lowered the currency in South Korea enormously. They have cheap labour, cheap currency, and they have a huge shipbuilding infrastructure.

The OECD has had meetings just in the last few months in which it has tried to come to grips with this problem in the shipbuilding industry because it affects almost every country.

Brazil, Romania and Russia are complaining. Both communist China and Taiwan have very active shipbuilding industries, but no one seems to be able to compete with the South Koreans. Indeed, if we follow the Internet, there are even some complaints or some suggestions that the South Koreans are using IMF dollars to unfairly buoy up their industry. There is a problem there. When put in that context, a few tax fixes is not going to correct, not going to help, not even going to address the desperate problem that faces Canada's shipbuilding industry.

Then there is the other aspect. The other problem is that during the North American Free Trade Agreement the Tories, the former government of the party that has advanced this motion, had an opportunity to give shipbuilding the protection of the North American Free Trade Agreement, particularly by doing something about the Jones law. The Jones law is a law that forbids carriers from American ports to other American ports to use anything other than American made ships.

There is a huge amount of traffic in coastal vessels that runs up and down the American eastern seaboard. If we had managed to get only one-tenth or maybe only 1% of the shipbuilding market of that traffic, we would not be having this debate today. It was a huge failure of the free trade agreement not to include shipbuilding.

We have this dilemma. It is not a simple matter of a couple of minuscule tax fixes. That will not do any good at all. We could try it but it is not going to do any good. What the minister has said is closer to what we must do. He said that we have to put pressure on the OECD to come to terms with the unfair advantages that South Korea and Japan have been enjoying in the shipbuilding industry. We have to bring it into the international forum and make it into an even playing field.

I point out that the minister and the member opposite from the Reform Party in his last remarks during questions and comments said that maybe we have to go back to the United States and do something about the Jones law. I would say he is precisely right. We have to go back to the United States and offer it something to allow us to take part in that industry in the United States. Just a small percentage and we would be doing just fine. We have to do that. These are things perhaps that are almost wishful thinking.

As I mentioned, the minister in his remarks said that Canada is proceeding on these two avenues right now. There is no question that the federal government does have a policy, but if I may add my dime's worth to this debate I think we need to think of novel approaches as well.

I hate to bring up the Government of British Columbia but I am going to do it. The Government of British Columbia has undertaken a very controversial, if not notorious, ferry building project. In order to buoy up the industry in B.C. the Government of British Columbia undertook a project to build three fast ferries out of aluminum hulls, the idea being that hopefully they would develop new technology, create competitive vessels and develop expertise. Unfortunately there have been major cost overruns. It projected $70 million for each vessel and now the overrun is running at approximately $400 million.

That is not the kind of thing we want to see in this climate of fiscal prudence, but there is something very strong to be said for the federal government investing not only in the shipyards to produce the ships it needs but also through various technological enhancement programs or infrastructure programs. There is a lot to be said. If the industry rationalizes itself so that it comes to the federal government in a coherent fashion, perhaps we can work with the provinces and set shipbuilding along a course where we build specialized high tech ships which we can sell abroad.

Right now I do not think there is much more that we can do other than what the minister is already doing, which is pressuring the OECD to come to terms with the unfair competition that is occurring in shipbuilding across the world. We can also do something about the unfair competition in South Korea and talk again to the Americans. That is a policy. That is what we should be doing and that is what we are doing.

[Supply, May 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I really do think that the federal government is very concerned about this issue, but I would like to ask the member, though, do the provinces not have a role to play in this. Should the provinces not be active in helping out these industries which are indeed in their territories?

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, while I respect the member opposite and many of the things he said I just have to bring him up on one point. He called for a debate, and I do believe that we have been having a debate right here. It is a debate where at least this member of parliament feels he is not speaking for the government side, but I am speaking for the nation, speaking for Canada.

Whether there is a vote or not at the end of this debate, the important thing is that we should be here in our privileged positions as members of parliament, as the very few people in this entire country that can actually speak from our hearts and speak for our constituents about the situation in Yugoslavia at this time.

The member alluded to the lack of a vote and I have to also comment on that, even though I do not want this debate to become partisan. Unfortunately, his leader at every opportunity has complained about the lack of a vote in this kind of debate that we are having.

We are not the United States. In the United States the president can unilaterally declare war. He is the chief of the armed forces and he is unreachable by Congress. It is true that in the United States he can go on for a long time until the money runs out and carry on a war; but here in Canada our leader, if he does embark on a military enterprise, be it a declared war or undeclared war, is still subject to challenge in this House at any time in a vote of no confidence. In the United States they cannot get rid of the president except by impeachment if he decides to embark on a military venture of any kind, like Vietnam for example; but here in this House we always have the opportunity to vote the government down and out.

The reality, however, is that if it comes to MPs deciding policy in times of conflict, whether it is a war situation conflict or a diplomatic conflict, we cannot make informed choices in our votes if we are not at the NATO table, if we do not have the same information that the Prime Minister has.

The Prime Minister is plugged into the intelligence services. The foreign minister is having talks with the Russians. All of this pertains to whether or not we will do something tomorrow, be it whether we will send a frigate out into the sea to conduct an embargo or whether we will use combat troops or whether we will use peacekeeping forces.

In this House one cannot ask us, we MPs, to decide on the future of the nation when we cannot be at the table. We cannot be at the table, as we have already seen in the House because of a member of the Conservative Party who rose in this House and asked questions pertaining to the disclosure of covert operations that were occurring in Yugoslavia, theoretically, which could put members of our forces at risk. So long as we cannot guarantee that members will keep the confidences entrusted in them, we cannot have a vote in this House because we can never be entrusted with all the knowledge.