John Bryden

[Canada Labour Code, March 11th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to ask a relevant question of the hon. member for Vegreville if he would give me that opportunity.

[Privilege, March 11th, 1997]

I rise on a question of privilege. I feel my rights as a MP have been interfered with as a result of a misinterpretation and misapplication of Standing Order 108(2).

Bill C-46 has come before the House and is currently being debated. This legislation pertains to the production of records in sexual offence cases. I spoken to this bill at second reading and expressed grave reservations about it because I feel it would interfere with the fundamental rights of the accused to defend himself or herself.

The House will carry on consideration of this very bill this afternoon. It still has not finished second reading. Yet as I speak, the justice committee is considering this very legislation under Standing Order 108(2). That makes it very difficult for me because I want not only to hear the debate in the House but I want to put questions to the witnesses who are appearing before the justice committee. I cannot until the debate is concluded in this House.

The justice committee has given itself the mandate to deliberate the subject matter of Bill C-46 pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). When a bill is before the House, the subject matter and the bill are one and the same. If the House is going to consider Bill C-46 right now, it cannot consider it without considering the subject matter. Therefore, if the bill is before the House, the subject matter of Bill C-46 cannot be considered without considering Bill C-46 itself.

Standing Order 108(2) gives the following authorizations to the standing committee to consider the subject matter of a bill or to consider a bill. In fact, when I examine Standing Order 108(2), I do

not find that the standing committee has the right to consider a bill before it has completed second reading.

I draw members' attention very quickly to the points made in Standing Order 108(2). It says:

In general, the committees shall be severally empowered to review and report on:

(a) the statute law relating to the department assigned to them;

I submit that Bill C-46 is not law yet. It is still a bill, therefore the standing committee does not have the power to consider it at this stage. The points go on further and say that the standing committee is able to review:

(b) the program and policy objectives of the department

That does not apply in this case. It can review:

(c) the immediate, medium and long-term expenditure plans

of the department. That does not apply in this case. It can review:

(d) an analysis of the relative success of the department,

et cetera, et cetera. However, that does not apply in this case.

Finally, it says it can review:

(e) other matters, relating to the mandate, management, organization or operation of the department,

I submit that it does not fall within the mandate of the justice committee to deprive a member of Parliament of the opportunity to take part fully in the deliberations of a piece of legislation that is coming before the House.

I wish to hear and to be a part of the full debate of Bill C-46 as it appears in this House so that when the committee does deliberate it, I can go before the committee having all the issues aired so that I can be a part and ask the relevant questions of the witnesses who appear before the committee.

The committee, because of its interpretation of Standing Order 108(2) is denying me the right and privilege of appearing and taking part in the deliberations that are of importance and interest to all Canadians.

[Tobacco Act, March 6th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on something my hon. colleague said, which was that the key to stopping young people from smoking is education. One reason I support passage of the bill is that I believe we have to try whatever we can to stop young people from smoking.

However, one thing that it will accomplish is take government money way from the special interest groups, the lobbys that make so much money by propagandizing both sides of the issue, by fomenting conflict and by pretending to educate the public.

Millions of dollars are given to these organizations that say they are educating the public. If Health Canada really wants to educate young people, let it give those millions of dollars to the schools, to teachers in the schools whether in Quebec, Ontario or any other province, Let the schools teach the children the problems with smoking. Do not give the money to the lobbyists.

[Tobacco Act, March 6th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I have reservations about this bill but I support it strongly despite those reservations.

I am a former smoker and at one time I smoked 60 cigarettes a day, which is a lot of tobacco. I first began smoking at age 16 as a result of peer pressure and gradually I began smoking more and more. Tobacco is a very insidious drug. It tends to grow on you and the addiction develops both physically and psychologically over the years. It was very difficult to quit the habit but I did about 10 years ago. So I know something about the problems of tobacco.

I support the spirit of the bill because it is certainly true that young people tend to be the ones who get first hooked on tobacco products and become the addicted adults later in life. In reality cigarettes are a nasty product when you are first introduced to them. I am sure if people began as adults to try cigarettes they would reject them absolutely. It is something that really develops as a result of peer pressure. The idea behind the bill that we should address the problem of young people beginning to smoke is a very good one.

I am not entirely certain that creating more restrictions on young people who smoke will actually have the desired affect because when you prohibit something from young people they tend to want it that much more. On the other hand, given the importance of the intent of this legislation, it is worth trying these restrictions that the legislation proposes.

The second reservation I did have is sponsorship. I always regarded the sponsorship by tobacco companies, breweries and distilleries of arts and sporting events as something they did as good corporate citizens. In reality we need the tobacco companies, the distilleries and the breweries. If legitimate companies do not produce these products that are demanded by the consumers, even though these products have adverse health effects, then we know from past historical experience that organized crime will produce these products. It is a very necessary and good thing to have legitimate industry producing these products for the marketplace. The benefits flow to shareholders of those public companies, and that is as it should be.

I always thought the payback of companies engaged in producing products that have potentially adverse health effects would be that they would want to be especially good corporate citizens. I always regarded the sponsorship of tobacco companies of things like the Grand Prix, or the breweries and distilleries of things like the theatre, as something that they did as good corporate citizens in order to in a sense make up for the fact that they were producing products that did have adverse health effects.

I must say that in my own riding this theory that I have held for a very long time was eroded somewhat when I found that a local volunteer theatre, Theatre Aquarius, developed in the community, wanted to go into the big leagues and managed to obtain some government money and also some sponsorship from a tobacco company. When the new theatre was built as a result of this sponsorship they changed the name to the du Maurier Centre. That was about 10 years ago. I felt at the time that was a terribly tacky thing to do and that it eroded the whole sense of generosity from the tobacco company that it should want to rename the theatre with its own logo.

In the one sense I am not so sure that the sponsorship of these major events that has been the subject of so much debate here actually is going to have an effect in deterring young people from smoking. I am not sure that is going to be the case. However, again, like the other aspects of the bill, it is worth trying.

In the other sense I do not understand why the tobacco companies if their intention is not so much advertising as it is being good corporate citizens, I do not see why they take umbrage at the provisions in the bill which do not eliminate their logos but which merely put them in a less prominent position. I would have thought that this would not be something that they would reject so hotly, as appears to be the case.

That brings me to the third point. The reason why the tobacco companies react so aggressively to Bill C-71 is a tremendous climate of conflict has been created as a result of the lobby groups on both sides of the equation. Certainly the tobacco companies have been able to afford very strong lobbyists but what has actually fueled the acrimony and the conflict have been the government funded lobbies that exist on the other side, the anti-smoking lobbies like the Non-Smokers' Rights Association and the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health.

These groups have received tens of millions of dollars from Health Canada and provincial health ministries over the years in order to promote anti-smoking. I wish I could say that this was something that was prompted by altruism, but I am afraid that big bucks count in this instance and many of the principal players in these lobby groups, just like the lobby groups supported by the tobacco industry, are getting very big bucks indeed. In fact, if we try to find out how much money they are receiving it will enter into the range of $100,000 plus.

Indeed I believe a chief executive of one of the anti-smoking lobbies is around the range of about $180,000 a year. This is government money ultimately, government money coming from our Department of Health. I point out that the Department of Health has supplied $500,000 a year over the last two years to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, a lobby.

The lobbying extends beyond these named organizations. It also includes various health organizations that have very much something at stake. What is at stake ultimately is research dollars.

If we look at the public accounts for Health Canada what we find is a disproportionate amount of money from Health Canada which is spent on various types of studies on tobacco control. Some of these studies are nothing less than exercises in propaganda, attempts to propagandize members of the House of Commons.

I refer very quickly to a study that we all saw, a questionnaire that we were approached with last November from the faculty of medicine of York University, I believe it was. It was conducted by Mary Jane Ashley, M.D., faculty of medicine of the University of Toronto. This was a survey that asked us for our views on health promotion. It was a telephone survey. After one got into the survey by the person questioning one realized that these questions were directed toward tobacco control.

I submit that this survey was nothing more than an exercise to propagandize members of the House. When I called the authors of the survey they refused to give me copies of the survey. As a matter of fact, they hung up on me. When I called Health Canada to find out how much money was spent and whether I could get a copy, because Health Canada was sponsoring the survey, it said the survey was not available.

In other words, I could not get a copy of the survey that was phoned to all the MPs in this House of Commons from either Health Canada or the authors of the survey even though it was entirely financed by Health Canada. So it was simply a propaganda exercise.

I am happy to say that I do not believe that this Minister of Health or this government is bringing forward C-71 as a result of being driven by these propaganda exercises by these various lobby groups that stand to make so much money in government funds. I really do believe that the bill is being driven by a genuine desire to find a solution to young people smoking.

What I do hope is that when this bill finally passes, the health minister will turn to the Department of Health and do something about the $60 million in the last three years on tobacco control research. I hope he will turn back to the department and redirect that type of funding to health care, research, muscular dystrophy and cancer and even the creation of tobacco abuse clinics. However, let us stop funding lobby organizations. That is the third reason why I support this bill.

The fourth and final reason is the amendments moved by the member for Lambton-Middlesex, a backbencher, who moved I think the most important amendment and the most important element of this bill which is to require that any regulation to be set as a result of this legislation be referred first to this House of Commons and debated by a standing committee before the regulation can be passed. This means that when this legislation passes there will still be an opportunity for all the stakeholders to make sure that the regulations really do reflect the needs not only of the tobacco industry and the freedoms of the tobacco industry but also the needs of Canadians.

[Lobbyists, March 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, because I have been critical of government funding of special interest lobbies and because I have called for more transparency and accountability from charities, I have become the target of repeated smear campaigns and attack ads by one of those lobbies, the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, and its front charity, the Smoking and Health Foundation.

Yet these organizations which are really one and the same have been receiving $500,000 yearly from Health Canada. This is unacceptable. Health Canada should not be bankrolling an organization that is trying to crush an MP who is merely doing the job he was elected to do. This has to stop.

Health Canada should be using taxpayers' dollars to finance health care and not lobbyists.

[Nuclear Liability Act, February 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in support of Bill C-249 because it gives me an opportunity to share with you an historic anecdote pertaining to Canada and Canada's role in nuclear energy that I do not think is very well known.

During the second world war, Canada was very active in research in chemical and biological warfare weaponry at Suffield in Alberta near Medicine Hat. At that time the Canadians experimented with the dispersal of biological and chemical dust with the expectation that this would be the kind of weapon that would be used during the second world war by the Germans or possibly the Japanese. So the research was primarily directed at the developing countermeasures.

However, by the end of the second world war because this research took place out in the prairies Canada became the number one nation with an expertise in the dispersal of small particulate matter over very large areas.

What we are really talking about in Bill C-249, which is an act to amend the Nuclear Liability Act, is nuclear fallout. In the event of an accident occurring at a nuclear reactor there is the possibility of radioactive dust escaping into the atmosphere, polluting and irradiating large regions and causing serious consequences to the health of humans and animals.

This is the same problem that existed in the late 1940s when at the onset of the cold war it was realized that the Soviet Union had developed an atomic bomb. My historic anecdote is for those of that generation who remember the early years of the cold war and the nuclear fallout scare. I think people in their fifties and sixties will remember that their parents were installing fallout shelters in their basements. They will remember that there were all kinds of maps and diagrams showing the effects of nuclear fallout.

These maps and diagrams were produced mainly by the Americans and by the British showing the impact of a nuclear explosion on a city in the United States or in Europe were entirely the product of Canadian research in chemical and biological weapon dispersal.

It is an interesting anecdote because as Canada was the second country in the world to develop nuclear capability, we have always had a responsibility to lead the world in issues pertaining to nuclear energy and certainly issues pertaining to nuclear safety.

The Nuclear Liability Act addresses the possibility that a peacetime nuclear reactor will have a catastrophic accident and will pollute the atmosphere with down wind fallout in the same sense as a nuclear explosion. There is no doubt that in the event of such a catastrophe the provision for $75 million in damages is inadequate in every way for the kind of damage that would actually occur.

Canadians studies done during the second world war and the immediate post-war period indicated that in the event of a nuclear bombing or a nuclear accident at a reactor the fallout could go down wind for as much as 30 miles on a widening, fan shape that could be a couple of miles wide at the outset to very wide at the 30 mile limit.

Since then as a result of the accidents that have occurred, in particular at Chernobyl, we have come to appreciate that when there is a nuclear fallout emergency, it very long term and long range. In fact the radioactivity from the Chernobyl accident has been detected all away around the world, so the fallout has come down.

Therefore, it is high time, after 26 years, to upgrade Canada's nuclear liability legislation.

Of the G-7 nations, Canada has the lowest at $75 million of nuclear liability in the event of an accident. In Great Britain and Germany the liability in the event of an accident is $550 million. In other countries in Europe there is an unlimited liability. In the United States the liability runs up to $13 billion.

Therefore it seems clear that Canada needs at least to come up to the minimum level of liability as expressed by our European colleagues.

It is certainly true there is a different situation occurring in Europe in the sense that the countries are small and there has been a need for international conventions in the event of an accident in one country that contaminates the territory of another country. There are conventions that provide for compensation across borders.

Because of the vast spaces in Canada and the vast spaces in the United States, in the event of an accident of less than 1,000 kilotons only Canada and possibly the United States will be affected. It is not likely to affect other countries of the world. We do have an arrangement with the United States in the event of an accident in Canada or in the United States. Crossing the border there is a provision for liability payments if the lives and properties of citizens of our neighbouring country are affected.

In the final analysis Bill C-249 addresses only one aspect of the Nuclear Liability Act. Obviously the act has to be upgraded and modernized in many aspects. Other colleagues have suggested some ways in which this can be done.

By raising the liability threshold from $75 million to $500 million at the very least we say to the operators of nuclear facilities, who in some instances are private operators, that they have a very high responsibility to ensure every level of safeguard is implemented in the operation of their nuclear establishments. This is the very least we can expect of both nuclear institutions that are privately run and those that are publicly run.

It is with great pleasure that I support in principle and to the letter the intent of Bill C-249. The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce has done a great service to his country and to the House bringing the bill forward.

[Divorce Act, February 14th, 1997]

Does the member for Prince George-Peace River not agree that the current method of producing senators-

[Divorce Act, February 14th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Prince George-Peace River for his remarks which I found very thoughtful. I realize he considered

them very carefully. I would like to raise a point with my colleague that was raised several times in the House.

I think we have all agreed that this bill has come back from the Senate with improvements through the amendments that have been added. My Reform Party colleagues on several occasions mentioned that this was the Senate doing good work. They credited the fact that it was a Liberal senator who, because of the equal number of seats in the Senate, was able to answer the concerns about the bill and to pressure for changes which resulted in improvements. All in the House feel there have been improvements here.

I note that the member for North Vancouver used the occasion of this debate to suggest that while the Senate is doing its job in this instance, it would be better if the Senate were an elected Senate. I submit to my Reform Party colleagues that if the Senate were an elected Senate the even balance that has permitted this event to occur, a Liberal senator ensuring that amendments are made, would not exist. An elected Senate would be an unbalanced Senate. If it reflected the balance in the House of Commons the Liberals would be in great majority and there would be no opportunity for the kind of result we have here.

[Standing Orders Of The House, February 11th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to this motion which I think is a very good motion. I do support it in principle.

However, I am not sure that in addressing a very serious and important problem it actually has all the answers. So when I support the motion, when I vote for the motion, as I expect to do, it will be with some qualification.

I am a player in this debate in the sense that I also had a private member's bill that passed second reading and went to committee. It was Bill C-224. It was a bill that would require charitable organizations to disclose the salaries of their executive officers. That bill left this Chamber to go to committee with the unanimous consent of the House, so it had the full support of the House.

When it got to committee it caused a great deal of controversy. Many witnesses came before the committee, some for and quite a number, I am sorry to say, against it in principle. I was actually in the course of a private member's bill before a standing committee subject to attack ads in the Ottawa Citizen . It was a full page that read: ``Do you have no sense of decency, Mr. Bryden?''. It was perceived by some people that wanting charities to disclose the salaries of their executive officers would cause disclosures that some charities were not prepared to endure.

The original bill that I put through to the committee received a lot of support in committee but it was seriously flawed. Consequently I went back and with the committee's co-operation I made a number of very important amendments to the bill.

But such was the controversy that the bill raised that the government pre-empted the amendments that I was to bring forward for my bill and implemented the changes by regulation. I found myself in the situation where I had actually achieved my target. In fact, Revenue Canada stiffened up the procedures for the reporting by charities of their executive salaries. As a matter of fact, Revenue Canada improved the measures which were proposed in my bill.

Suddenly I was faced with the situation where the bill need not go any further than committee. I spoke at committee to this dilemma. I approved of what the government was doing. It did not provide the penalties which I proposed in the bill. My bill addressed only one fragment of the problem of the accountability of not for profit organizations. I could not see going forward with a bill that was incomplete in addressing a wide array of problems when 90 per cent of the bill, such as it was, was addressed by the government in its changes to regulations.

My colleagues on the committee, on all sides, concluded with my agreement that the bill would go no further.

We were left with a dilemma. How would we tell Parliament? How would we tell the world who saw the attack ads and who were aware of the news stories that I had brought in with this controversial private members' bill? How would we tell the world that the government had been very accommodating and that in fact my private members' bill had succeeded?

As it turned out, there was no way. We discussed in committee at some length the possibility of my submitting a member's statement; at the beginning of question period each member has an opportunity to speak for one minute on any subject. I still felt that I would not be returning to Parliament with the message that the committee had considered the bill and had come to some decision with respect to the bill.

The more we examined the issue, the more it became very clear that there was no easy way to take the message back. As a government MP, the irony was that there was no effective way for me to report to the people of Canada that my government had paid attention to a private member's bill.

So often we hear the criticism that private members' business does not go anywhere, yet my bill was an example of private members' business achieving something substantial. However, I could not in any way effectively tell Canadians that the government gives great weight to private members' business and in this instance acted in my mind very responsibly and very promptly to the initiative proposed in Bill C-224.

The reason I have reservations about the motion and why I support it in principle but not necessarily in content is that the parliamentary secretary raised the issue that if we report back to the House, then the House has an obligation to consider the report and there would be further debate. That raises the very real issue of House time. If we take up House time, then other members who may have similar private members' bills to put forward will not be able to do so. If I take up House time with debate that is no longer necessary, then I am depriving my colleagues of an opportunity to do exactly what I did and have the same success which I achieved.

This is a very serious problem. As I understand it, there is a committee of Parliament studying the whole issue of private members' business. I want to say that private members' business is very important in Parliament. Previous Parliaments have not given it the place which is its due. They did not exploit the contribution which private members can make to the legislation of this country by introducing bills which do not come from the bureaucracy, which do not come from government, but which come from individual members who reflect the interests of their constituents.

Private members' business does need to be reformed. This motion addresses an area of reform to which we should give due attention. While supporting this motion, I hope it will lead perhaps not to the implementation to the actual letter of the motion, but that it will lead to a furthering of the examination of the problem. Perhaps in the very near term we will come to a solution that will accommodate the concerns very legitimately raised by the member for Mission-Coquitlam.

[Criminal Code, February 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know how to answer that. I see what the member is getting at.

One problem of the trial judge being the sole arbitrator is that the judge himself can make a mistake. The problem is these records are being examined in camera. I would prefer if it was not just the trial judge, that there was another person in authority who could examine the records at the same time.

My difficulty is that the accused is fighting for his freedom. I even think it is appropriate for the accused to go on a fishing expedition if that is a way of trying to find evidence he believes exists that will either prove his innocence or discredit the complainant. On the other hand I am sensitive to the problem of the victims as well.

Where I think the line should be drawn is that the accused should have the option in this legislation of asking for whatever records he or she likes, so long as the records are reviewed in camera by the trial judge, and I accept the member's point, and one other person, one other official of the court or somebody else. We can then make sure that the records are being handled in a non-prejudicial fashion because it is possible for a trial judge to be prejudiced.

I think the bill can be corrected and still achieve its basic target, but only if we always allow the accused the opportunity to defend

himself absolutely by the production of records. It does not matter even if those records are held in camera, just so long as the accused and his counsel can see those records.