John Bryden

[Supply, March 23rd, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Calgary Southeast made allusion to the disbanding of the airborne regiment which I would like to comment on. The member connected the disbanding with the hazing videos and suggested the videos were the reason the regiment was dismantled.

I cannot speak for the Minister of National Defence or his parliamentary secretary on this issue but it was not the hazing videos that led to the disbanding of airborne regiment. It was the killings in Somalia.

When we look at this issue we have to remember, just as the member for Calgary Southeast said, that Canada's military has a role in sustaining peace worldwide. The image of our peacekeepers abroad is vital. What happened in Somalia led to a situation in which the airborne regiment will be forever haunted by that incident and would never get away from it and that incidents such as the hazing videos would turn up time and time again and bring back the memory of what happened in Somalia.

I do not think the government had much choice with respect to the airborne, tragic as it was. What happened in Somalia involving the airborne is like losing a major land battle as far as our national image is concerned. I do not think we had much choice on that.

[Charitable And Non-Profit Organization Director Remuneration Disclosure Act, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I wish from the bottom of my heart to thank my colleagues on all sides of the House who spoke in favour of the bill.

All things aside I believe the bill is important and will have a profound effect on Canadian society in what it proposes to do. For me as a member of Parliament the experience of presenting the bill to the House and having the support of my colleagues on all sides fills me with great pride in this 35th Parliament.

[Jeremy Freiburger, March 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week a young man in my riding, while driving at night, was in collision with a trailer portion of a tractor trailer which had turned across the highway. He had no chance to apply the brakes and hit the trailer squarely in front of the rear wheels. The crash impact squashed the roof of the car flat and it took a crane to free it from underneath the trailer.

Firemen who arrived at the scene did not believe that anyone could have survived. Inside the wreckage, jammed beneath an air bag and squeezed on all sides by twisted metal, 18 year old Jeremy Freiburger still lived. Not only did he still live, but when at last he was cut out of the vehicle by the jaws of life, he was uninjured, save for a few cuts and bruises.

His parents were ecstatic with joy. Let this story remind us that life is precious and miracles do happen.

[Supply, March 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, far be it for me to instruct the hon. member in the history of Quebec. There is no doubt that in the fifties and sixties there was a great reaching out by the federal government under Prime Ministers Louis St. Laurent and Pearson. The history of the federal government did tend to be a history of anglophones prior to the arrival of Mr. Louis St. Laurent and Mr. Pearson and then we had Mr. Trudeau and so on.

We had an attempt, a very successful attempt, to involve Quebec in the life of the nation at large. Quebec has contributed enormously to Canada. I am surprised that my hon. colleague does not appreciate this.

[Supply, March 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her remarks. I would like to follow her lead and take the debate in a slightly different direction. I ask her to remember that Quebec society of say 50 years ago was quite a different society than it is now.

It was a society that was very much oriented toward the church and the family. Indeed, during the second world war the francophone population of Quebec opted for the motto of the Vichy French, that the family and home were the important things rather than the traditional French motto of liberty and equality.

After the second world war we moved into a period in which there was the great liberation of Quebec socially. There have been wonderful advances in Quebec in freeing up the contribution of Quebec's women to the economy and culture of the country-not only francophone but anglophone as well.

Does the member not feel this change-it is a profound change that occurred in Quebec in the fifties and the sixties-owes much not just to the forces within Quebec society but also to Canada itself? I remind her that some very positive initiatives were coming from the federal government, particularly under Mr. Pearson and Mr. Louis St. Laurent which led to the kind of society that she wishes to see in Quebec.

[The Budget, March 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Southeast for her remarks but she left me wondering. In the early part of her discourse she reported a 20 per cent increase to the status of women.

I do not know to what organization she refers. I would like very much if she could elaborate on that, what her information is, what details she has and what her sources are, if she would not mind.

[The Budget, March 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. They were spoken with such passion they left me almost breathless.

I would like to put a question to my colleague which will take him a little beyond his remarks. It is probably well known to him as it is to many members in this House that I have an interest in special interest groups.

The budget did introduce for the first time the concept that new guidelines would be brought in for the funding of these special interest groups which receive direct grants from government with very little accountability for what are often advocacy groups.

Does he feel this is an area of reform for the government applicable to Quebec? Should groups which have these special agendas see their funding cut as we hope to see elsewhere in the country?

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleague from Yukon will agree that the budget is doing something unusual by proposing cuts to special interest groups.

One such special interest group that may be subject to cuts is the Canadian Labour Congress, which we learned this past week is supporting the Quebec Federation of Labour in its campaign to support the separatist cause in Quebec. Some of the money the Quebec Federation of Labour is using is money that comes from the Canadian Labour Congress. It was about $500,000 and in turn came from Ottawa and the labour education program that pays the CLC $3 million a year.

In the past the CLC has spent $1.5 million on supporting the NDP's election campaign, the biggest donor of any political party in the country.

Does my colleague from Yukon feel that cutting special interest groups with a political agenda not in keeping with the majority of the Canadian public is a good thing or a bad thing?

[Supply, February 21st, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the remarks of my colleague from Québec-Est. I would like to ask him a question in the context of his remarks that Canada as an entity always trades north-south and that a lot of the east-west trade we have is arbitrary, expensive and not profitable.

Do I take it he would recommend the Quebec dairy producers trade only north-south, that milk marketing arrangements between Quebec and the rest of Canada, particularly Ontario, should be dismantled forthwith and Quebec would be better off if it traded only north-south in that context?

[Petitions, February 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, the second petition from the constituents of Hamilton-Wentworth calls upon Parliament to put an end to the discriminatory treatment of gay and lesbian citizens and their familial relationships by amending federal legislation that currently allows unequal treatment, including an amendment to the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Madam Speaker, the third petition calls for Parliament to not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the charter of rights and freedoms in any way which would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or of homosexuality, including amending the human rights code to include in the prohibited grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase sexual orientation.