Steve Mahoney

[Supply, October 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I too will be sharing my time.

The American public and particularly the politicians must wonder what is in our water. A senator in the United States stood up at a press conference and held up a study that she purported proved that the Canadian border was a sieve and that our country was a haven for terrorists. When she was asked where she obtained her information and how she could justify her statements, she said “I got the information from Canadian press reports”. This is remarkable. They read the newspapers and hear people in this country making these allegations, so they say that if we in this country are saying it, it must be true.

I find it incredible that we have an official opposition that would actually make statements which would undermine the ability of this country to negotiate a fair and reasonable response to the tragedies that have befallen our complete world as that relates to trade between Canada and the United States. We know that 87% of our exports go south of the border. We also know that 25% of theirs come north. If American authorities are seeing and hearing Canadian authorities say that the sky is falling and we are a haven for terrorists and we are this and we are that, would it not seem reasonable that they would be loath to enter into new arrangements and new agreements?

Winston Churchill said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Never before have I seen it be more obvious. Let us take a look at what the motion calls for. It says that immigration officers and customs officers should be granted “full peace officer status” with the ability to arrest and detain criminals and terrorists. Would it come as a shock to the author of this motion that this is the fact today? Our people have the status of peace officers. They have the ability to arrest and detain.

It does not matter that this is the current situation. What matters is that there is an opportunity being seized upon by the official opposition to somehow fearmonger and, in its members' minds, enhance its political status within the Canadian system and within the country. I suggest that it is not going to work.

First, they know full well, or they should know, that previous critics from the Canadian Alliance and its predecessor, the Reform Party, refused to attend trips with the minister of immigration to actually investigate, on the ground at our foreign posts and in our embassies, what goes on. Their reason for refusing was that they insisted on being given the opportunity to attend every meeting the minister went to. When we went to Kenya, we did not have the critic from the official opposition with us because he wanted to attend a meeting that the minister was having with the president of that country.

I am a member of parliament in support of the government. I would not be so presumptuous as to insist that unless I am allowed to attend a meeting between a member of cabinet and the president of another country I will not go. It seems to me that is a bit of a cop-out. In not going, that critic failed to see what was there, and this has happened in Moscow, the Ukraine, London, Africa, the Middle East and the Far East, all over the world. They do not want to know because it takes away from the ability to stand up in the House, as members shamefully have done, and make wild accusations that the foreign service is subject to bribery.

I have heard statements made by members of the official opposition that visas are given out in return for favours and bribes. To make those kinds of allegations with no evidence whatsoever, except to have the opportunity to hear from someone like Diane Francis writing in the National Post with the most extraordinary accusations based on fantasy, is not becoming of a member of parliament.

The first point in this resolution is that our people already have that authority. It goes on to say that we should detain all spontaneous refugees. I would like to talk about that. A spontaneous refugee as defined by the official opposition is someone who shows up on our shores uninvited. Is it not astounding that a refugee would actually arrive somewhere uninvited? Let us imagine that.

We have millions of refugees in campsites. I have been there. The critic once again refused to go to the desert in Africa to meet the refugees and to talk to them about their plight and how they lost their families, homes and infrastructure.

Do members opposite think the people in the Sudan have the opportunity to go to a government office and apply for a passport? The Sudan does not have such an infrastructure.

There is no doubt that we have people who show up here without ID. In many cases they leave their homes in the middle of the night with the police coming in the front door. That is not an exaggeration. I have met and talked with them. I know it happens because I have seen it with my own eyes. They leave in the middle of the night with their children and the shirts on their backs. They do not have time to stop and ask where is their driver's licence, if they have one to begin with.

We have an international tragedy that was in existence before September 11. It is a tragedy to see refugee camps with hundreds of thousands of people, insufficient water and no infrastructure, not knowing what to do and wanting to go home, might I add. That is what they truly want to do. They want to go home.

What do we hear? The opposition wants us to detain everybody who comes here uninvited. What happens now if people show up who do not have proper ID? We interview them at length. We determine whether or not their story is true. We fingerprint and photograph them. We check them through international security services and computer links. We attempt to find out who they are and what they are doing here.

If we do not get satisfaction on those points, they are detained. It happens now. Does that matter to members of the official opposition? Would they rather perpetrate a fraud upon the public in this country that somehow or other we are simply releasing people willy-nilly into the community, even if it is not true?

The accusations that were in the media about 50 Afghani and Pakistani refugees arriving here less than 10 days ago and being released into the community without any security checks whatsoever were absolutely false. Does it matter, though, that they were false, or does it only matter that it was in the paper so it must be true? The opposition then has the ability to propagate that information even further.

I urge Canadians to remain calm and to recognize that the politics of hatred and fear being propagated by the official opposition is not the Canadian way. We need to be secure in our borders. We need to keep trade flowing between Canada and the United States. Telling the international community that we have all these problems when in fact we do not is the most irresponsible and reprehensible action that anyone can take, yet alone a member of this place.

That is not to say improvements do not need to be made. They should be made. There was a breakdown in immigration. Unfortunately it was in the United States and it led to that tragedy. We need to work with the Americans to secure our borders, keep our goods and services flowing both north and south, and keep Canadians safe. My government is committed to that.

[Mike Harris, October 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, public life is an honour bestowed on a very small percentage of our population. It can be very rewarding and yet very challenging. I would never suggest, even if I disagree with their politics, that I do not respect their intentions as they relate to their constituents, their province or their country.

It is in this light that I congratulate Premier Mike Harris for having the courage to make a very personal decision and retire. He wants to spend more time with his family.

I served with Mike at Queen's Park for eight years. He was my opponent, never my enemy. Our mutual enemies were complacency and anyone who wanted to harm our province.

The political ideology that developed as the common sense revolution was certainly not something that I shared in any way. However the ability to lead, the ability to fight for what one believes in and execute the ideology faithfully, is something that I respect. I extend congratulations to Mike. May he enjoy his retirement.

[Privilege, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the position of the minister and the government is that our main concern is the actual activity as opposed to the membership. However it is an issue that should be raised in committee and should be discussed. There could possibly be an amendment. I do not think it is an unreasonable suggestion. We should hear both sides of that argument

However I say to the hon. member that the primary purpose of the legislation is to identify, prosecute, convict and punish terrorists. The key word is identify. I think the hon. member would agree with me that we want to make sure we are identifying the proper people who are in fact engaging in terrorist activities and not make mistakes.

We should not go running off in the wrong direction that will cause hardship to people like the gentleman whose example I quoted, and others who are fearful and afraid to even speak up on this kind of issue because this is not the time to do anything but rattle the sabre and stand strong.

Members should make no mistake that any suggestion that people's rights must be protected within this great land is not a suggestion that we should in any way weaken our attack on terrorism. We must stand together with our allies. We will do so and the bill goes a long way toward helping out in that direction.

[Privilege, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not get my information from the Ottawa Sun , the research organ the individual member chooses to quote. The information is incorrect. I get my information from within the department and I have verified the facts.

If the member wants to make this into a partisan issue he picked the right guy to do it with. Not one of those people was from Afghanistan or Pakistan. They were all cleared. Again the face of the Canadian Alliance shows its true self in relying on false information from a newspaper document with no attribution and no proof, nothing but scurrilous accusations.

[Privilege, October 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, unlike many of the debates that we have in this place, this is an issue that Canadians are fairly seized with. The number one question that most Canadians would ask is: How will this affect me? Will this bill give broad sweeping police powers to the state and interfere in my everyday activity, or is this a bill that will provide safety and security for me and my family?

It is important that we discuss this bill in the context of both of those questions. Bill C-36 is in fact an anti-terrorist bill. It is not an anti-immigrant bill, anti-refugee bill, anti-Muslim bill, anti-Afghani bill, anti-Pakistani bill, or anti any of those things because if it were it would truly be anti-Canadian. Unfortunately the debate around this entire issue is in some quarters, mostly the media, focused on this aspect.

There have been many times in this place when my friends opposite and I have disagreed, sparred and had vociferous debates. However this is a time when parliamentarians an all sides of the House have shown that their number one concern is for the safety of Canada.

I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition and the other leaders of the opposition, even the leader of the NDP. Even though we may not agree with her particular position on this matter, there is a constituency within Canada that shares her viewpoint. This democratic place called parliament is the place where those kinds of countering viewpoints need to be put forward.

I am interested in some of the suggestions made by the previous speaker regarding sunsetting. There is a section of the bill that requires it to be revisited and redebated in three years time. Whether it is an automatic review in three years or a cancellation of certain policies, unless they are reaffirmed in this place they are all issues that can be fairly and effectively dealt with in committee. They are technical aspects as to whether or not certain search and seizure aspects of the law should be continued or discontinued.

Should there be a wiretap that lasts one year instead of 90 days? Should there be intrusive abilities to monitor situations within this country, abilities that we would probably not have supported on September 10 of this year?

Since September 11 we have had to look at life through a different prism. Canadians are frightened and justifiably so. However, what concerns me is some of the hysteria that has literally thrown gasoline on an open flame.

I refer to recent allegations in the media last week which said that 50 refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan had been allowed into the country without any security checks whatsoever. I can say that the switchboard, if we want to call it that, in my constituency office lit up. People were concerned and outraged as to how this could happen.

I too was concerned as to how we would allow someone in, particularly today but at any time in our history, without a reasonable security check and so I investigated. What did I find? I found that there was not one refugee from Afghanistan or Pakistan.

On that given day at Pearson airport there were indeed 29 people who applied for refugee status, which is not an unusual occurrence. The largest volume of refugees come through Pearson airport. Each and every one of those people was fingerprinted, photographed, checked through CSIS and cross-checked through the RCMP. No one was allowed to enter the country without a security check.

I will not be critical of anyone in particular in this case. However some members have said that when refugees come to this country and are a security risk or a flight risk, meaning they will not turn up for their hearing, then they should be detained. They are detained if those determinations are made.

I can take anyone who wants to go to a number of motels in the Brampton-Mississauga community that have been acquired as detention centres by the federal government to see families languishing. If there is a problem in our refugee system, and there is, it is in the length of time it takes to process the applications to provide a fair hearing.

We believe that Bill C-11, which will be before the House after it passes through the Senate, would help in that regard because it would allow single person panels instead of the three people needed to hold the hearings now. That should triple the number of hearings and should speed up the process dramatically. That is a case of human rights that need not interfere with this bill or any bill that targets anti-terrorism.

I wholeheartedly support Bill C-36. It is a response that our government has put forward in a timely, thoughtful and well researched way which says to Canadians that the government will fight terrorism with its friends in America, Great Britain and around the world. We will stand united as members of NATO as we have in other conflicts in the world.

A clause was invoked as part of our agreement with NATO known as article 5. Article 5 states that when a member of NATO is attacked all members are attacked. It is an all for one clause. If any Canadian falls through the cracks of discrimination in our zealous attempt to fight terrorism, the attack on that individual Canadian citizen is an attack on all of us. I caution that it can and does happen.

Let me share with the House the experience of a gentleman by the name of Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Attiah who was an engineer on contract with AECL at Chalk River. He was a Canadian citizen for 27 years. He is married to a Canadian citizen and has four children born in Canada. He moved from Mississauga to work at the Chalk River facility.

He was interviewed recently by CSIS and the RCMP for 90 minutes after which there were no charges, but because his name was Mohamed Abdel-Aziz Attiah they remained suspicious. They were concerned about security. There were no charges laid against the individual but after he went out for lunch and arrived back at the facility that he had worked at for some time, and at which he was being offered a permanent position, he found that his security card had been cancelled with no explanation and no reason. Today he languishes without a job, without an income and with a wife and four children, trying to understand.

Is it because of his name and heritage that he was fired? He asks what he did wrong. They trusted him before September 11. He wants to know why they do not trust him now. Is it because his name is Mohamed?

I know no one in this place would support that, yet it is a current case. It is an unjust case and in passing an anti-terrorism bill we must ensure that people like Mohamed and others are not discriminated against. This is not McCarthyism in the 1950s. It is clearly a united attack against terrorism that can come in any nationality, any skin colour and from anywhere in the world, even right here in Canada.

[Supply, October 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, that is a tall order.

First we have to recognize that while Canada is not a racist society, and I certainly would not want to suggest that, the spectre of the shadow of the dark side does exist in the country. At times it will come out in very unfortunate incidents but those incidents are in the minority.

I would say to my friend, who also was at Queen's Park with me for a time, that if there is anywhere that we must continue to support the nation by welcoming people from all over the world openly, freely and democratically, it is in the junior levels of our education system. We can go into any school in my riding in Mississauga and it is a united nations of faces that sits before us. These young people go home at night and talk to their moms and dads about the issues of the world.

I encourage all members to take the opportunity to go into their schools and talk to these young children. That is where we can begin to ensure for generations to come that the vision of tolerance, caring and inclusion of people from all over the world will continue to be what Canada is about.

[Supply, October 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, the first thing my constituents tell me is that we are not from the other side of Toronto. We are from the sixth largest city in the country. However, I appreciate the member's question.

People may assume that this was a setup, but I can assure everyone that I did not talk to the hon. member about this. I will share with the House a story told to me by my 26 year old son.

My son had been out for the evening and had occasion to take a taxi cab, being the good Irish lad that he is. He was sitting in the taxi cab on the way home from a party. The fellow that was driving the taxi cab was dark skinned. This was shortly after September 11. They started to talk about the attacks. It turned out that the cab driver was a Muslim. The cab driver complained to my son Chris about some of the abuse that he had been taking as a result of his skin colour and ultimately his religion. My son Chris had a very simple answer which to me is the vision of this country. This 26 year old young man said, “Just tell them to get lost. This country is as much yours as it is mine”.

[Supply, October 2nd, 2001]

Madam Speaker, there is a temptation which I will avoid, to get somewhat impatient with some of the statements that are being made, particularly by members of the official opposition. I assume they are expressing concerns on behalf of their constituents and that they are genuine in those concerns.

I cannot help but think that had the Prime Minister of this great country made the same response as the previous speaker did regarding an all out attack in Afghanistan he would be accused of being soft on terrorism. That is what we have heard. It is frustrating to sit and listen to what amounts to partisanship attacks instead of trying to resolve a problem.

I give some credit to members of the NDP for putting forward the motion. While it is not votable and while we may not agree with all of it, it raises some very valid points and good suggestions.

The first part of the motion deals with the fact that there should be some application of international law, perhaps at The Hague as we are currently seeing with former President Milosevic from Serbia. It is perhaps an option that should be considered under the auspices of the United Nations.

For anyone to suggest that what happened on September 11 was simply and purely an attack on the United States of America is to miss the obvious. It may have even been in the plans to expand the attack base to Canada. There was a rumour on September 11 at 11 o'clock, as we closed our skies, that there was a very strong concern one of the planes that was being diverted to Pearson airport was indeed a hijacked aircraft and could have been used as a missile or as a bomb to cause some problems.

As I have mentioned before in this place, the Credit Valley Hospital and the Etobicoke General Hospital were on emergency alert as a result of the information that was being funnelled directly down to their administration.

It had the potential to go well beyond the situation that we so tragically witnessed with the twin towers and at the Pentagon. The plane that wound up crashing into a field was rumoured to be targeted for the White House. There are stories that there were at least two or three other situations. It resulted in the closing of the skies throughout all of North America and, might I add, that included Canada.

People asked how we reacted. What did we do? We reacted very quickly to close Canadian skies to anyone leaving and to accept all the aircraft throughout North America, as many as 500 planes in the air, between the hours of 9 and 11 in the morning. We accepted them in the various airports across the country and, I might add, at some risk. I could hear the howls, and perhaps justifiably so, if an incident had occurred at any of our airports or in any of our cities as a result of that decision.

We saw the calamity, the seriousness of the attack that was going on, and we recognized that this was not a time for dithering. This was indeed a time to make a decision to open up our airports and subsequently, as many Canadians did across the land, to open up our homes to the travellers who were on those aircraft to assure their safety and at least a certain modicum of comfort.

We did act. Is it now reasonable to suggest that we should simply storm the barricades, if we knew where they were? That is what we hear. It is not just in this place. We hear it in the media all the time, that somehow and in some way Canada should be doing something. No one quite knows what it is. No one can quite put a handle on it except that maybe we should be marshalling our troops or maybe we should be gassing up our aircraft and our ground equipment.

We hear cries for more money for CSIS, more money for immigration, more money for deportees, more money for national defence, more money for the armed forces. All these cries are from the same people in this place who for many years have said to cut money here, to cut money there, to slash and burn. The result has been a substantial reduction in government expenditures in certain areas. Yet we could point to the fact that recognizing the depth of the cuts that took place, our armed forces have received an injection of $3 billion in extra funding over the past couple of budgets.

Before returning to the NDP motion, Madam Speaker, I am sharing my time.

Let us assume that President Bush is sharing the evidence the CIA and people around the world have compiled against Osama bin Laden, evidence that has been requested not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan but everywhere, and that evidence is being released and shown in diplomatic courier packages. In Pakistan I understand the briefings are one on one with the American ambassador and that the ambassador will be briefing the president of Pakistan on exactly what that evidence is. That is a reasonable, prudent, sound thing to do.

President Bush has impressed me on how calm and resolute he has remained throughout this incredible tragedy. It would be quite easy to knee-jerk react. It would be quite easy to simply push a button or pick up a phone and launch an attack as retribution for that horrendous act we all witnessed on the morning of September 11.

Let us make no mistake that it was extremely difficult for the Americans to tolerate seeing the twin towers of the World Trade Center crushed, seeing the Pentagon itself attacked. For a country as strong, as free and as proud as the United States of America to witness that kind of travesty, it is hard to imagine the level of emotion, the fever pitch that must have been gripping the White House and all the advisers. It is only natural, a human trait, to want to exact revenge, to want to get back at the perpetrators, but President Bush has been methodical. He is attacking the sources of funds. He is working with Great Britain, which has frozen some $88 billion in funds. He is working with Canada where any terrorist funds that are linked to Canadian bank accounts have also been frozen. Those are prudent actions on the part of the president. That is not to say there will not be some form of armed aggression. I would be shocked if we did not see something, perhaps imminently.

However, to actually expect us to pass a motion which suggests that within 90 days the government set out a report detailing the steps that we are about to take, let us just think about it. Should we send that by Purolator to Afghanistan? Should we let the Taliban know exactly what we are going to do, exactly what we are going to spend, exactly what we are going to commit in terms of manpower and weaponry? It is so naive that it tends to damage the good ideas that precede this motion, such as looking at international law and working with the United Nations.

This is not about defending the justice system of the United States. This is about a worldwide co-ordinated action against terrorism right around the globe. It is critically important to understand that.

Looking at the parade of foreign leaders that have come through the White House, it is very clear that President Bush understands the importance of bringing everybody together to fight and to eventually put an end to this scourge called terrorism.

[Supply, September 25th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, there are many things the government has done. The Prime Minister has remained focused. He has remained calm. He has remained in communication with the White House.

What he has not done is charged down the street with his bayonet fixed. He has not risen to the taunting and the political posturing that has been coming from the other side, and sadly, from some in the media. He is showing the kind of leadership that Canadians want. They want to know that he is calm and resolute. He has clearly said in this place and elsewhere in the media that he will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Americans to fight terrorism and we support that. I would have hoped that members opposite would have supported it as well.

[Supply, September 25th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, yes, I am a democrat. I actually think the member is correct, that I did not answer the question because, Madam Speaker, you started telling me I was out of time, much to my surprise.

The answer to the question is that I am not prepared to support the motion. That does not mean I am not a democrat. In fact it is the obligation of this government to govern. It is also the obligation, and there is clear precedent, to ensure that there are debates. If the hon. member is unhappy with my remarks, then that is his problem, not mine. It is my responsibility as an elected official, democratically elected in Mississauga West, to put my viewpoints forward on behalf of the people whom I represent, so that they understand what it is their representative is doing and saying in Ottawa. That is what I spoke about.

To suggest that at such a critical time we should turn the reins of power over to a vote in the House of Commons simply runs in the face of our Constitution which clearly vests the responsibility with the Prime Minister and the cabinet who indeed are the government. All of us can then decide whether or not we support the government. I can assure everyone that I will be supporting the government.