John Bryden

[Petitions, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I rise in the House today to present two petitions from the constituents of Hamilton-Wentworth riding calling on Parliament to oppose any amendments to the federal Criminal Code which would provide for the inclusion of the phrase sexual orientation. There are about 300 names on these two petitions.

[Canada Elections Act, May 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the member for Edmonton Southwest on Bill C-319. It is very obvious the debate has started members thinking about a very important issue.

I will approach it in a slightly different way. One of the issues it raises which is so important in our electoral process is appearances. I remember my own election campaign, which was a first experience for me since I had never run for election before, going to all candidates meetings in which there were the five major parties represented as well as another four candidates from very minor parties.

I do not reject the right of groups to try to run as national parties; I think it is fine. However, we have to draw the line somewhere. At these candidates meetings I found myself with the candidates from the other major parties speaking on issues, then having to waste my turn while these very minor parties spoke. In the case of the Natural Law Party-its members will forgive me for saying this-their platform which had to do with levitation did not really seem to fit seriously into the issues of the day.

While I agree they had the right to speak and the right to run as parties in the election, they did dilute the debate when we had our candidates meetings. They also diluted the debates when they appeared in the media. It has a responsibility to provide equal space to all candidates in an election. Perhaps the debate was not as good or as serious as it could have been. I agree we can do nothing about that.

On the other hand, I find myself supporting the member's bill on this point. If the public were to perceive, as it does, that anyone is eligible for compensation in running for election regardless of any limit in the number of votes they garner, it trivializes for them the exercise of candidacy, the exercise of running in a national election.

If the Natural Law Party wants to run for election, that is fine. If it wants to field candidates, that is fine. If it wants to use an election as a platform for promoting its particular agenda of metaphysicalism or whatever it is, that is fine too. It becomes a problem when the public perceives it is funding that type of group. This is the difficulty.

It is the same with all the other parties as well. If the public perceives a group is out promoting itself in a national election and does not have much support or has trivial support, and the government funds its election expenses because it can afford to put the money out there, then we erode our political system and the faith people have in the process.

I do support the principle of Bill C-319. We have to draw the line somewhere. Whether it should be 1 per cent, 2 per cent or 5 per cent, I cannot say. I actually rather like 2 per cent. Nine of the 14 parties that ran in the last election had less than 2 per cent of the vote.

It is interesting to run down the percentages of those nine. Beginning with the Abolitionist Party of Canada at 0.1 per cent, the next was 0.2 per cent, 0.1 per cent, 0.1 per cent, 0.2 per cent, 0.1 per cent, .01 per cent for the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. It is not doing well. Then we go on to 0.6 per cent and 1.4 per cent, which was the National Party of Canada which I happen to agree had a message.

I agree with the intention of Bill C-319. The line has to be drawn somewhere. I do not know if this bill is the answer. As the member for Dartmouth and others mentioned, we should bring this to committee for further debate. In the final analysis I do not think it will affect regional parties. We will still be able to go forward with certain amendments to the bill which will make the process more efficient.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the remarks of my colleague with great interest.

I come from a rural Ontario riding that has an excellent dairy industry. Speaking on behalf of the farmers, the dairy producers in the immediate area where I live, I am perplexed by the remarks that separation would not hurt Quebec producers.

The dairy farmers in my area feel very strongly that Quebec dairy farmers are enjoying a singular advantage right now and would look forward to an opportunity to compete face to face with Quebec as would be the case in the event of separation. There are farmers in my riding who are very expert in the dairy industry.

Does my colleague feel in the event of Quebec's separation that Ontario dairy producers would lose or gain? Would they produce more milk and get more money?

[Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, May 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

Most of the documentation I used for my studies on the subject came from the archives here in Canada but only by chance. The majority of the original documents had been deliberately destroyed around 1970 or thereabouts by persons unknown. I was fortunate, however, to find microfilm taken of these documents and hidden away in a dusty corner of the archives by a civil servant we will never know. That led me to do the study.

Unfortunately even the documents I had were incomplete and consequently I could not determine for sure whether in the post-war period Canada did dispose of its considerable stockpiles of chemical weapons. We had a mustard gas plant at Cornwall, Ontario, which at the end of the war had 2,800 tonnes of mustard gas. Most of it was dumped at sea, which raises some very serious environmental questions.

A few years ago the Department of National Defence made a concerted effort to get rid of any stockpiles we had. I am confident we no longer have them in Canada.

One of the problems is verifying what countries have in terms of their compliance with legislation. With a chemical warfare convention such as this one we rely very heavily on the sincerity and the good motivation of countries. There are ways of hiding these things. That was why I was saying in my remarks that the symbolic part of the chemical warfare convention is just as important as its actual practical measures.

[Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act, May 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-87, an act to implement the chemical weapons convention. It is appropriate at this time to remind the House and all Canadians that Canada has much at stake in this piece of legislation. It touches the very heart of our military history.

I remind the House that on August 15, 1915 Canadian soldiers were the first soldiers to be subjected to a systematic gas attack. Inexperienced Canadian troops occupied the trenches at Ypres in Belgium. At that point in the war there had been a stalemate on the western front. It was very difficult for either side to move forward using conventional weapons.

On that day the Germans released chlorine gas from their trenches. The Canadians held the line immediately in front and on their right were French colonial troops. What the Canadians saw first on that early morning was a white cloud advancing slowly toward them. They were filled with curiosity, wondering what it was. It was like a low lying mist. As it approached and reached their trenches they were suddenly seized at the throat. When they breathed they breathed fire and they fell gasping to the ground and into the trenches, writhing and suffering.

The Canadian troops very quickly realized it was poison gas. The French colonial troops on their right broke and ran in a panic, but the Canadian troops, those who survived, climbed out of the trenches and lay on the parapets while the gas passed. Actually, it is a great moment in the annals of Canadian military history. Even though many of those young Canadian troops died, they held the line and resisted the gas attack.

After that first attack, gas became very popular on the western front. The French discovered it was chlorine and responded with their own gas. Then there was an arms race of various types of noxious substances. They went to phosgene gas, hydrogen cyanide and other variations.

One of the most effective gases that was discovered during the first world war came to be known as mustard gas. This gas has been used in very recent times such as on the Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war. When the vapour touches the skin it immediately causes huge blisters. It also causes blindness. When it is breathed in, it blisters the lung and causes death.

As the war progressed it became very common to hear the sound of artillery firing gas shells. Instead of the explosion afterward, there was a popping and hissing noise. Along the western front because both the German troops and our allies were using gas, troops on all sides had rattles. When they heard the gas attack, they spun the rattles.

I would like to read a few lines from a famous poem by British poet Wilfred Owen called "Dulce et Decorum Est". He captures what it was like during these gas attacks in the first world war. He begins:

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime-. Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

It was that kind of horrific experience which captured the imaginations of all nations during the war and after its conclusion.

One of the results was the 1925 Geneva protocol which outlawed the use of gas. It was a recognition by states worldwide that the use of this weapon actually took the very minimum essence of humanity out of warfare. It reduced warfare to a matter of exterminating the enemy like vermin. This was felt to be, and we still feel it today, unacceptable behaviour on the part of people who would be regarded as human beings.

Therefore the Geneva protocol in 1925 was passed. Like the current chemical warfares convention, it was not ratified by all nations. In fact the United States did not ratify it until 1970. It had an impact. That impact was to give all nations of the world the sense that chemical weapons were an illegal weapon, a weapon that was wrong to use.

Nevertheless by the time we got into the late 1930s, it became very clear that chemical weapons were going to be used again. When the Italians occupied Abyssinia, the former Ethiopia, they attempted to colonize it by conquest. They used poison gas on the helpless civilians as a way of experimenting with chemical weapons in the event of another world war. That had an immediate impact in Canada.

It was at about that time a former chief of staff, General Andrew McNaughton, became the head of the National Research Council, that lovely stone building at 100 Sussex Drive. He felt that as a result of what the Italians were doing there was a good chance that gas would be used again in any outbreak of hostilities.

He initiated research in Canada on protection against the use of gas. We started with the development of gas masks and charcoal containers. That work went forward at the National Research Council.

Then when the war broke out in 1939 we stepped up our activities and research on poison gas, particularly defensive research which is a very Canadian thing to do.

In 1940 with the fall of France, Britain was suddenly desperate. When France collapsed Canadian troops were the only troops who still had their equipment. The British immediately mobilized all their available gas weapons with the expectation of soaking the Germans with gas should they invade. The weapon the British had at the time was principally mustard gas contained in collapsible drums. It was very primitive. They expected to fly over the beaches if the Germans invaded and dump this out of the aircraft and hope it would injure enough troops to deter the attack. The attack did not come, however.

The initiative to develop gas weapons went forward very rapidly. The British were very concerned the Germans were developing the weapons and felt they should as well. Britain is a small country and so the United Kingdom turned to Canada for assistance in the development of poison gas weapons. This led to the opening of the proving grounds at Suffield, very large proving grounds near Medicine Hat, where Canada undertook experiments with various types of poison gas. Canada expanded from mustard gas into research developing out toxins such as ricin. During World War II thousands and thousands of animals were killed at Suffield during tests on various types of poison gas.

One direction of the research was to find a poison gas that was heavy. During the second world war many of the poison gasses were too light and consequently would rise and dissipate. The direction of the research was to find a gas that was very heavy and would flow along the ground and flow into the trenches and would be very deadly.

The United States also accelerated its production of poison gas. Even before the war with Japan, before the end of World War II, the Americans were conscious that gas could be a factor. In typical American style they concentrated on mass production. By about 1942 the Americans had tens of thousands of tonnes of liquid mustard gas and other types of gas and had developed bomb casings to deliver these.

The Canadians tended to specialize in actual research. We did experiments on humans. It was felt that one had to be sure the gas was effective. Many Canadian soldiers volunteered to be subjects for tests of poison gas. Sometimes these tests were very elaborate and I am sorry to say there were injuries to Canadian troops from the poison gas tests at Suffield.

At McGill University Canadians made the biggest breakthrough among the allies in developing poison gas. A team at McGill discovered a nerve gas. It had been doing research on pesticides and made a connection with between pesticides which had caused accidental deaths and developed a nerve gas.

The scientists in Britain and the United States rejected the Canadian development and it never proceeded to production. It is ironic because the Germans were developing gas weapons of their own. They had made a major breakthrough by developing several types of nerve gas, sarin and tabun, which were many times more toxic than the traditional gasses used in the first world war, the mustard gasses. Hitler had an enormous stockpile of these weapons.

Hitler was influenced by the 1925 Geneva protocol. Although he was essentially a mad man in charge of a country who led to hundreds of millions of injuries and deaths across the continent, for some reason he was affected by the 1925 Geneva protocol and did not order the use of gas. Research in German archives discloses that Hitler was very much opposed to the use of gas. That probably has racial overtones. He probably thought it was improper to use it on the British and that kind of thing. We cannot get into Hitler's mind but the Geneva protocol did prevent this dictator from resorting to this ghastly weapon.

The irony is that on the Allied side there was a desire to use the weapons; Winston Churchill wanted to use poison gas on the Germans. Even as we approached Normandy Churchill was very conscious of the fact there would be casualties and he pressed his chiefs of staff to do a study to determine whether it would be effective to use poison gas during the invasion of Normandy.

I will quote from a document of the time. It was written by Churchill to his chiefs of staff on July 6, 1944:

I want you to think very seriously over this question of using poison gas. I would not use it unless it be shown that (a) it was life or death for us, or (b) that it would shorten the war by a year. It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the church. On the other hand, the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everyone does that as a matter of course. This is simply a question of fashion, changing as she does between long and short skirts for women. I want a cold blooded calculation made as to how it would pay us to use poison gas, by which I mean principally mustard.

The chiefs of staff circumvented Churchill and made sure no order was ever put forward. Churchill's desire was never implemented. They deliberately out foxed the old fox himself. At that time the Germans had enormous stockpiles of nerve gas and if the British had used mustard gas there would have been an incredible retaliation on London and the British would have lost more civilians than the Germans.

Again we return to the 1925 Geneva protocol by which the British chiefs of staff recognized how inappropriate, how wrong and how against civilization it would have been to use poison gas even when the head of state was pressing for its use.

The Americans had an enormous stockpile of mustard gas. They had tens of thousands of tonnes of mustard gas. In 1943 when they attacked the Island of Tarawa in the Pacific, the Japanese resisted so fiercely the Americans marines lost 3,000 and 1,000 were wounded, as against about 4,000 Japanese killed. The lesson the Americans took from that was it was to be very costly to fight the Japanese in an island hopping war.

Therefore the American chemical warfare service proposed to secretly use poison gas to suppress the islands in Japan. However, the Americans felt they needed the concurrence of their allies. They approached Canada, which by that time was in a state of co-operation with the Americans in the development of these terrible weapons. They approached Canadian scientists at the National Research Council and in the military and asked them to do a report confirming that poison gas would be an effective way to suppress the Japanese islands.

What happened is very interesting. There was no doubt mustard gas, at no cost in American casualties, would have suppressed the garrisons on any island in the Pacific. Mustard gas is more effective in the tropics than in temperate climates.

The Canadian scientists, when they were asked for this report, fudged the figures. They put out a false report which actually claimed chemical weapons used in the Pacific theatre would not be any more effective than high explosive weapons. A chemical warfare service was knocked back a step in that it was trying to get the approval of the chiefs of staff and President Roosevelt to use gas. It lost the argument when the Canadians refused to get onside. That is another reason Canadians have a special place in the debate about chemical weapons. During the second world war we very positively prevented the use of those weapons by the Americans.

What is driving this sense of morality is the 1925 Geneva protocol. This brings me to the current chemical weapons convention. This convention is an enormous improvement over the 1925 protocol. It contains various sanctions and rules. No law passed by the United Nations can actually prevent the use of this terrible technology.

The chemical weapons convention is symbolic. It tells countries that if they use these weapons they are renegades and no longer part of civilized humanity. It causes nations to pause when they might be contemplating this action. It gives moral limitations to how nations will react to one another.

This type of moral sanction is vital in this age, when we move into the next century and when we do have wars in which terrible phrases like ethnic cleansing are used. The chemical warfare convention will not prevent terrorists like those in Japan from mixing their own chemical weapons and using them, but it will forever outlaw that type of behaviour and make sure at the very least the use of chemical weapons is not something resorted to by civilized states.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, members of Parliament in the House of Commons should be concentrating on helping Canadians like this child whose parents are in need rather then engaging in an acrimonious debate that as far as I can see from my colleagues opposite is basically an attempt to gain publicity.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will keep my remarks short. I echo the concern expressed by my colleague for Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke.

What concerns me most about the debate is it is denigrating all of us as members of Parliament. As did the member for Elk Island, I ran to become an MP because I wished to serve my country. I had idealism and a feeling I could contribute. The question of remuneration, be it salary or pensions, was not in my mind.

However, my colleagues opposite may be interested to know I have no pension whatsoever at this time. I would have to get re-elected to qualify for any pension.

I want to place the debate where I think it belongs. A letter was sent to me by a 16-year old from my riding. She comments on the debate and feels obviously MPs are basically cheating the system. They were all at the trough, to use the expression of the member for Medicine Hat, with respect to MPs like me.

I resent that because it is an inflammatory remark and gives the impression we are not qualified members of Parliament, that we are not dedicated to helping fellow Canadians. I will read a paragraph because this is where the debate really belongs. It reads:

I have five other sisters and a brother and my dad has no job. About three years ago he lost it. He worked at the company for 22 years and now my mom babysits an extra five kids to help pay for the groceries. My dad has written thousands of resumes and has done about four different jobs but nothing has really stuck.

The issue raised by that child should be the topic of debate today. This is what we should be talking about, not denigrating politicians, not denigrating members of Parliament. Members of Parliament should all be trying to help-

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was getting a little heated there anyway. I do want to make the point that it is terrible to read those letters from those children and to see they have lost faith in their members of Parliament, not just me but all members of Parliament and the institution. That is the price of attempting a political advantage by this debate. That is exactly what it is. The members who have initiated this debate should really think twice. I agree with my colleague that they are destroying the institution and they are destroying the faith of the children in this land.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Laugh if you will, members of the Reform Party.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to follow up on my colleague's remarks and comment on the extensive damage this debate is doing.

I ran as an MP solely because I wanted to serve my country. Many people on the other side of the House, certainly the Reform Party, would have us believe they did the same thing and I believe them. Bloc members also have run as members of Parliament because they have an idealism, they believe in a cause. I might not agree with that cause, but they have run for the very best of principles.

I have received 20 letters on this issue, 20 special letters. They are from a school in my riding and the children are only 12 years old. Those letters condemn me as a member of Parliament as a result of this debate. They accuse me of being at the trough. They ask: Why am I taking these inflated salaries? Why am I cheating the public? Obviously this group of school children

have a teacher who has the same view as the members of the Reform Party.

What is happening is this debate has destroyed the face of those children.