John Bryden

[Dna Identification Act, September 21st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Elk Island for his indirect compliment that he was not completely offended by what I had to say.

I do wish to add that I would be very disappointed if as a result of my remarks I were to be painted as somebody who sympathizes with criminals and will give the benefit of the doubt to criminals before the victims. We always must remember that no one is a criminal until he or she is convicted.

One of the difficulties with this debate in the whole pursuit to try to bring people to justice and to spare victims injury from the acts of criminals is that we must always bear in mind that people are innocent until proven guilty before the courts. There is no question if somebody is convicted that all the DNA sampling in the world ought to be available to the police authorities.

My reservation is before a conviction. This is where I have difficulties with the position taken by some members of the opposition. This is something we have to give second thought to.

The member for Elk Island drew the analogy with blood samples in drunk driving cases, when there is a possibility of charges being laid in the case of drunk driving. I suggest to him that in the very analogy he brings forth there is still some doubt about whether or not this is an infringement of a person's individual rights. We do believe in this country, or we used to believe, as far as I know, that we were not to be required to testify against ourselves. There always has been a problem even with respect to the breathalyzer and whether the breathalyzer takes it too far when it comes to getting the evidence from a person as a result of charges being laid.

I will make one final comment. DNA sampling is a far more invasive and intrusive process than a blood sample or a breathalyzer in that it actually gets genetic information. This is big brother. This is the new world order. We have to be cautious as a government and a parliament when we debate these issues.

[Dna Identification Act, September 21st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the remarks of the member for Elk Island. He suggested that members on this side of the House are not sufficiently concerned about this debate to participate as actively as perhaps we should.

I did intend to make some remarks at a later time but I want members to know that I have difficulties with this question of allowing DNA sampling upon charge or immediately after a person has been charged.

I am afraid it will be an invitation to the police to arrest people and to charge them in order to get this type of DNA sample in order to pursue criminals and to hopefully lead to further convictions.

We have to remember that DNA sampling is an invasive technique and that one superior element with respect to how we treat other human beings is to remember the dignity of the human person and to remember that even in the pursuit of crime and apprehension of criminals, we must remember we are dealing with human beings first.

In my riding which is rural the holstein industry is very active. There is a lot of genetic research, samples taken of various animals, not only cattle, and it is all part of today's modern animal husbandry. I would not want to see a situation where we forget that human beings are human beings. They are not to be treated like cattle even when they are capable of committing the worst possible crimes.

I do support the government's reluctance to move too fast on this issue despite the fact that we are coming under all kinds of pressure from the police associations to agree that crime prevention should be uppermost in our minds.

There is something more than crime prevention here. We must not rush into the new age of technology when human beings are reduced to ciphers in the sense of the communication technology or on the Internet or reduced to animals in the sense of how we pursue issues of justice. To the member opposite I plead with him to give us time to examine the implications of DNA sampling which is an invasive technique. Let us think about it. Let us pass the legislation as it is, see what happens and give time for a meaningful public debate. Let us not be stampeded into doing something because the police are putting pressure on us.

I have serious reservations about the police actually lobbying and threatening politicians with political action in order to get their way on this issue. This is something that I hope to address in my own remarks. We on this side are seriously concerned about this issue. We welcome the debate.

[Special Interest Groups Funding Accountability Act, September 21st, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Souris—Moose Mountain for putting forward Bill C-310 because he has given credit to some work I did in the past. The parliamentary secretary also gave credit to the work I did in the past on bringing transparency and accountability to special interest groups. I appreciate the support the member is giving to that issue by Bill C-310.

In my view the government did respond excellently to the report I presented in 1994. It did do the things that the parliamentary secretary said. It did bring greater transparency, greater accountability to those groups involved in contributions. It also cut back drastically on many groups that were abusing the public trust by taking money from government and spending it in ways that were not necessarily beneficial to the public interest but more beneficial to themselves and beneficial to the lobbying that many of these groups undertook.

However, Bill C-310 addresses one gap that still exists in the matter of public accountability of funds to special interest groups. That is the question of grants. I cannot speak for the government, and I rarely do, but I think one of the reasons why the government is a little reluctant to bring the same level of transparency and accountability as suggested by Bill C-310 to grant receiving organizations may have something to do with what the member for Rimouski—Mitis brought up. That is the whole question of options Canada and the suggestion that perhaps an organization like options Canada or any other organization may have been using some of the money it receives from the federal government in order to promote national unity. In the climate of the referendum the province of Quebec was looking for just that kind of opportunity to attack the federal government to suggest the federal government was interfering with the unity debate.

Bill C-310 should be supported. There is never an instance when a group should not be prepared to account for itself on how it spends money to parliament or to the ministry. If the federal government wishes to support national unity then it has my endorsement to use as much money as it wants. I am sure that everyone who is interested in national unity would want to see the government use the money. There is no reason to hide behind any special interest group.

I support and endorse this bill one hundred per cent. I also wish to acknowledge that the government did act with alacrity and efficiency on the report I presented in 1994.

[Access To Information Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise as a private member on a point of order to seek unanimous consent. I feel very awkward after what just occurred two seconds ago.

Last October I submitted a private member's bill dealing with the access to information bill which proposed a great number of amendments to the legislation. I received support from all parties. There were representations from the Bloc, the Reform Party, the Conservatives and the NDP. I received seconders from all opposition parties and seconders to a total of 113 on the government backbenches.

Unfortunately in the time since then I have had many representations on my bill. A lot of people looked at it and made suggestions. They have noticed some flaws and some technical difficulties in a few areas which maybe I did not think out very clearly.

I emphasize here it is still at first reading; it has not been picked. If it ever does get to be read in second reading I would not want debate to be deflected on the flaws. I would hope the debate would deal with the good points of the bill.

Therefore I would request unanimous consent of the House to substitute the text, which I will forthwith table, for the text submitted last October and that the said bill keep its number, which is Bill C-264, and standing on the order paper as there is no change in title.

I point out that the other option would have been to simply submit it under a new title, but I would much rather keep it under the old designation of Bill C-264.

[Judges Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I asked a question of an earlier speaker with respect to the growing trend in legislation to limit the discretion of judges. The member who just spoke was in the Chamber at that time and heard my question. I wonder if he would like to share with us some of his thoughts on this whole question of limiting the discretion of judges.

[Judges Act, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent remarks.

When a bill comes before parliament that deals with the remuneration of public figures it serves the very useful purpose of giving us the opportunity to examine the roles of those public figures. It is very much in the public interest that we do so.

The member alluded to some of the earlier debates on the bill and mentioned that the Reform Party had made some disparaging remarks about the behaviour of judges and their quality.

I draw to his attention that this attitude of questioning the discretion of judges is not something that is exclusive to the Reform Party. It is a very worrisome trend that exists generally in society today, on this side of the House and in the justice department.

The issue is how far we go in giving discretion to judges. As the member mentioned, the law and the interpretation of the law and the issues it deals with are very human issues. Traditionally in common law we have relied on the judges to use their good judgment, their experience of life and their compassion to interpret the law.

Unfortunately there seems to have been a very alarming trend over recent years to withdraw some of the discretionary powers of judges. A perfect example is the whole concept of minimum sentences.

This is question and comment period. I was hoping to offer the member some comments which I think are very important and directly arise from his remarks. A number of private members' bills were before the House in the previous sitting that dealt with minimum sentences for drunk driving. We had quite a sharp debate here and I spoke on that occasion.

My concern is that while we want to protect victims rights and that kind of thing we must allow the judges compassion to deal with cases in which perhaps even no sentence at all or no jail term at all is appropriate because sometimes there are rare instances like that.

For the member's benefit I refer to another bill that passed through the House in the last parliament, Bill C-46, the access to records legislation. It is now before the supreme court on a challenge. I do not want to refer to the charter challenge that Bill C-46 is now encountering.

What was relevant in that bill was that it limited the discretion of judges to request the records of therapists in sexual assault cases. Judges already had the power to hear from the accused, to look at the records and to determine whether the records were relevant.

Bill C-46 seriously curtailed the judge's discretion to seek records by citing certain conditions the judge would have to take into account before he could request those records from therapists on behalf of the accused.

This type of restriction on a judge's ability to interpret the law and to act equally on the side of the person making the accusation and more important the defendant causes some concern. We must never hobble a judge's discretion to use his discretion. I feel there is an alarming trend particularly in victims rights cases and cases involving sexual assault, drunk driving and alimony. These are areas in which the opportunities for judges to exercise discretion were limited by bills in the last parliament.

Could the member comment on that? I believe it is a very serious problem to restrict the opportunity of judges to do their job. One reason we want to pay judges well is to get the most talented individuals possible who will exercise the best discretion possible. We must give those judges that discretion.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have to make a comment because the member just said that in essence what was wrong with the government's position of this excellent bill was that we were not trying to earn votes. This was precisely what killed the Conservative Party. It was always introducing legislation and establishing policy that would gain it votes.

The government introduces legislation that is responsible, legislation that is right and legislation that is good for all Canadians. That is what democracy is all about.

[Information Commissioner, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I want to express my appreciation for the remarks of the member for Elk Island because, as it happens, from the last parliament I remember the interest he expressed in the Access to Information Act and the initiatives he made.

He touches on a point that I do not think we can emphasize enough in this House and that is for opposition MPs, for backbench MPs, for MPs to do their jobs well, which is to question government whether on this side or on that side. But to question the operation of government we must have legitimate access to the documents of government.

We cannot have accountability without transparency. We are all agreed on this side of the House that we are about to make the correct move in the person we are putting forward as the new access to information commissioner.

I know the member for Elk Island will agree with me that surely the next step is to seriously review the current Access to Information Act because it has become old. It has become obsolete. There are too many ways to get around it.

I suggest to the member for Elk Island that the problems he has cited as examples in his remarks on his experiences with the Access to Information Act had nothing to do with the current commissioner or the past commissioner. They had to do with inadequacies in the act. The bureaucracy in interpreting the act interpreted the act honestly and correctly, we presume. Nevertheless the member opposite did not get the information he needed to have to ask questions in the House which I presume were relevant to all Canadians.

Does the member not agree that it is in the interest of everyone in the House, on the government benches, the front benches, the backbenches and in every opposition seat, to move now to review, to correct and to renew the Access to Information Act?

[Information Commissioner, June 10th, 1998]

I am pleased to have an opportunity to make a few comments.

One of the reasons Mr. Reid's name moved forward so quickly—and I do not know this through any inside knowledge—is that it was very obvious to many of us on this side that he is a very good candidate. It is not surprising that in informal conversation when his name came up, leadership on this side immediately latched on to it.

In speaking of Mr. Reid and the role that stands before him, it is not just a matter of the media and the public versus the bureaucracy. We must appreciate that the government has to keep some secrets very necessarily itself.

What we are looking at in this new access commissioner is somebody who will gain the confidence of both parties. It is not just a matter of acting for the media and acting for MPs, backbench MPs like myself or opposition MPs, it is also a matter of gaining the confidence of the bureaucrats who are charged with looking after the interests of the nation. It is not a matter of advocacy or of confrontation; what we really want is someone in that position who can win the confidence of both sides and make the necessary decisions that are ultimately in the national interest. In Mr. Reid we have just such a person.

I would also like to comment on Mr. Grace. Mr. Grace has been a superb access commissioner. The reports over the past few years have been superlative looks at the operation of government and the need for openness. As Mr. Grace steps down, we are on the threshold of a new era of access to information.

I hope, as with my colleague opposite, there will be new legislation or amended legislation coming before the House.

I hope my colleague will support that legislation. I ask him whether he or his party is prepared to support some of the private members' initiatives that are currently before the House on access to information.

[Supply, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I hope I was not out of order but the member for York South—Weston keeps alluding to the fact that the rest of us do not work. My role is not just in the House of Commons. My role is also to work in the standing committees, to listen to witnesses and to discuss issues like the estimates and the justice issues the member is talking about.

Could the member for York South—Weston give us a sense of his involvement in this type of activity of parliament? Does he concede that it is an important activity?