Steve Mahoney

[Supply, September 25th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague very eloquently put forward some very valid points. She was about to refer to a comment by the member from whatever that organization is, the coalition. I am having trouble keeping track. I think she was about to refer to a comment attributed to the leader of the fifth party in the House, in 1990, which I will paraphrase. He said, during a debate in this place on a decision with regard to the gulf war, that we cannot wait for deliberative bodies to deliberate and act before taking action.

The hon. member made numerous references to the responsibility of the government of the day to act within the constitution to either deploy troops or make substantive decisions that were in the best interests of national security. That was then and this is now. I appreciate the fact that the person I am quoting was at the time under a different understanding of what his responsibilities were.

Let me say first of all that I have been saddened somewhat, as we all have been, by the events of the past two weeks, but particularly saddened, in addition to viewing the tragedy that we have all seen, by some of the reactions of people both in this place and in the media. There is one group in this place that I think has acted responsibly. I have criticized those members in the past for some of their policies and actions but I will not at this time. In fact I congratulate them today because I believe they are acting in the best interests of all Canadians when they use their use their role as members of an opposition party. They are the members of the Bloc Quebecois. It is perhaps a surprise to many of us that this has happened. We might have expected it from other sectors or other people in this place, but in reality their responsibility has been shown by questions in question period, by speeches in debate that focus on the real issues here, the issues that Canadians are concerned and frightened about. They have not all been lobs by any stretch. They have not simply issued a blank cheque supporting the Prime Minister or the government to do as he or it pleases and it is appropriate that they do not.

We all know that the image Canadians have of parliamentarians standing and voting on whether or not to send troops into war is an image that we hoped would never happen, even if we were to agree with it. This is indeed an unusual time in our history, a time when calm resolution is being displayed by our leader and by the leadership of the entire government. What is interesting is that there is now a sense in this debate that the government might act too hastily.

Up until now we have heard particularly from the official opposition that the government is not acting hastily enough, that somehow we should be doing what the Pakistanis and the Afghanis are doing and mustering our troops on the border of perhaps the United States, packed and ready to go. This sense that the government is not taking action is purely partisan politics. What is sad about it is that we are losing the benefit of celebrating what Canadians have done by focusing on debates such as the one today and on comments made by people in this place and in the media. Members should think back to what happened. We closed our skies and our airports virtually immediately.

On the day it happened, after I witnessed the tragedy on CNN and was as dumbfounded as everyone about what I saw, I had a meeting at the Credit Valley Hospital at 11 o'clock that morning and I thought that I might as well go because I had to do something.

I was absolutely astounded to see that the hospital was in full emergency planning mode. So was Etobicoke General Hospital. The reason is that there was a rumour, white hot, at 11 a.m. on September 11 that at least one of the planes being diverted to Pearson international was a hijacked aircraft that could turn into a bomb or a missile. What did they do? These people reacted instinctively, calmly and professionally to ensure that all of their staff were aware of the problem and were capable and ready to take action in case of an emergency, in case injured people showed up at the emergency department of Credit Valley Hospital or Etobicoke General. That is a responsible way to act. That was not led by a government. It was under the leadership of Wayne Fysse and his entire team at Credit Valley Hospital.

We should be celebrating that instead of all the sniping and political posturing that is going on in what I can only say is an unfortunate attempt to hold somebody on this side of the House, aka the Prime Minister, responsible for all of this.

A member opposite accused someone over here of blaming the United States. I have heard members on all sides and I have heard and read media reports that actually blame Canada, actually blame our immigration policies. Our immigration system is not perfect. In fact there are members of the House who sit, or did sit on the immigration committee when we brought in Bill C-11. I recall the complaints from the official opposition critic that the bill was too tough, that we were violating civil libertarian rights and that we were taking away the rights of people to appeal a deportation order just because they were found to be criminals. I heard members from all parties. I expect the former opposition critic for immigration had moved on to another committee, but I am sure these were orders coming out of central party command on what they should be doing in relation to the immigration bill.

If members have heard the latest media report, that bill has been delayed. Why? We held hearings right across Canada on the immigration bill to tell people that it was time we toughened up our immigration laws to ensure that people who are criminals and people who are under deportation orders are actually deported.

The hue and cry from the Canadian Bar Association, propagated in many cases by members opposite doing their jobs as critics which I respect, was quite remarkable. Now those same critics sit here and somehow say, as they do every day, that it is awful that our immigration system is the cause of all this. That is the implication. Do we really mean that when we look all of the immigrants in the eye? Some of them are in this very place. Do we not recognize that immigration is indeed what has built Canada?

Should we be shocked that there are terrorist cells within our borders? Could someone please name one country where that is not the case? I doubt that they can. From what I have seen, Osama bin Laden's network is in some 30 to 40 different countries, and that is only one terrorist group. Of course there will be people within such an open, democratic, welcoming country as Canada who are not here for the benefit of you and me, Madam Speaker, and who are not here to try to build a nation. They are here to further their own interests whatever they may be. Whether they are based on religious fanaticism or political fanaticism, the bottom line is that we know it is fanatical.

The sad thing here is that we are missing the point. There will be debates in this place throughout the entire process. It will be a long, drawn out process to eliminate terrorism and attack terrorism around the world.

I am confident that our government will do what is right. I just wish that we could, like the Americans have done, pull together as one great nation, as one great political entity so that we know where the enemy is. The enemy is terrorism. It is not over there, it is not over here. It is in fact terrorism and we are committed to stand with the Americans to eliminate it from the world.

[Terrorism, September 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it has been eight days since the horrific terrorist attack against the United States and I have a question for the solicitor general.

There is a question on the minds of many citizens in Canada as to whether or not there was a Canadian connection with regard to this act. We have all seen media reports on the subject. Most recently, in fact today, in the National Post , there is a report that the FBI is investigating an individual who recently lived in Canada.

Could the minister provide any information to Canadian citizens concerning this?

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the hon. member and just leave members with one brief thought if I may. The organization that we are dealing with has bases throughout the world. Just to give an example of how complex it is, it is a conglomerate of groups spread throughout the world, operating as a network with global reach, with a presence in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Jordan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tianjin in China, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The list goes on and on. There are 30 or 40 countries involved. It is a very complex issue. I know that my government will attack it, along with the American government, as best as possible.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is a really important question. I think every one of us in this place needs to address what we can do individually in our own community, such as talking to the young people in our schools and to community groups.

However, what we need to do is not make knee-jerk decisions. We need to know if we will make commitments and we have said that we will commit. In fact I wonder at times what people do not understand about the word yes. We have said we will support the Americans and that we will be shoulder to shoulder with them. Our Prime Minister made an extremely eloquent speech on Friday in this place to 100,000 Canadians. The message is clear: Canada will be there.

What we do not know as parliamentarians in this place is where there is. We do not yet know how we are to attack it because the investigations are not complete. All I am saying, which needs to be said to Canadians, is that we need to find ways where we do not have to put your sons and daughters in harm's way, because I do not believe that this is a traditional war like the wars in which we have had to take part in the past.

This is a very complex situation that requires some very strategic planning on how we can attack the root causes and get rid of terrorism throughout the entire world. Canadians will understand that.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin my remarks, on behalf of my family and all the people I represent in Mississauga, to say how sad we all are and how we share the feelings that have been expressed in this place, throughout this great land and all around the world about the tragedy we witnessed. One of the most incredible aspects, aside from the magnitude of what happened, was the fact that most of us actually witnessed it, if not instantly while it was happening, certainly shortly thereafter. We have seen it replayed numerous times over the past six days.

I was in my office waiting to go into a meeting. CNN was on the television. One building was burning and we were all listening to reports that a plane crash had occurred. Then literally out of the blue another one came along and slammed into the south tower. It did not seem real. It had to be a stunt. It had to be a movie or some kind of a trick. It just did not seem possible that an attack of that magnitude could take place.

I agree with many who have spoken about the significance and infamy of it. As my wife said when she called me, it is another one of those incidents that everyone will know exactly where they were and what they were doing when someone asks them 10, 15 and 20 years from now. It is like the assassination of President Kennedy and many other instances. It is an astounding human tragedy beyond description, beyond comprehension, beyond belief, but it is also reality.

I wish I could embrace some of the members' ideas because we do need to look at change and we do need to learn from the incident in every aspect of our lives. However we must also recognize, as our Prime Minister has said, that we will not live in fear. The president of the United States has said it as well. For us to live in fear, for us to cloak ourselves in security that is beyond the imagination of Canadians is to say to the terrorists “Okay, you win”. We cannot let them win. We must find solutions.

I have heard members today describe the War Measures Act as a solution that should somehow be reactivated, not necessarily in the same way that it was. However while they were talking about the experience under then Prime Minister Trudeau, and some members I realize did not and would not agree with what happened then while others would, they seemed to imply that that should be a template with which we fix this. I am sorry to disagree because I want to find a solution as much as anyone. I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with our American cousins and friends. I want to bring an end, just like everyone in this place, to terrorism in the world. But the FLQ crisis, as tragic as it was, was isolated. Certainly they had difficulty finding the cells; they had difficulty finding the place where Mr. Cross was being held, but it was achievable.

What bothers me about this situation is we are dealing with a monster with tentacles that reach into dozens of countries. It has money that is beyond the financial capability of most countries in the world. It has the ability to inflict terror and damage around the world.

On a local level in Mississauga, I would like to tell the House what I did on Thursday. I was awake most of the night thinking about and replaying what I had seen. I was trying to think what I could do as an individual, as an MP, as a citizen of Mississauga and Canada. There is a place in our community just outside of my riding in the city of Mississauga called Palestine House. Some months ago there was an act of vandalism against the building and the people in it. Some people spray painted swastikas and hate slogans on the building.

At that time there was press coverage about it. There was a lot of discussion. Politicians and I, the mayor and others, were coming around trying to console and trying to understand. Something incredible happened that I will never forget. Rabbi Larry Englander, the rabbi from the Solel Synagogue in my riding, showed up with a cheque from the synagogue to present to the leaders of Palestine House to help them clean up the graffiti on their building. The message from that was that we would not allow that kind of terrorism and that kind of fanaticism to infiltrate the quality of our life here in Canada.

When I arrived at Palestine House on Thursday there was a lot of excitement that an MP was coming to see them. They were pretty upset. There is a school there and people work there. Those people were pretty upset and pretty tense. They escorted me into the back room and I was quite surprised to walk into the middle of a meeting between the leaders of that community and two members of Peel regional police. I asked why the police were there and was told they had had complaints from their children at the school that they were being intimidated and they refused to go school. There apparently had been an incident of some form of violence, of shoving, all related to the tragedy that we all watched on CNN.

That is not Canadian. That is not my Canada. I do not think it is the Canada of any person in this place. That is exactly the kind of incident that we have to strive to stop from taking over the debate in this particular issue.

My good friend, the member for Davenport, made a suggestion that I indeed intended to make and I will repeat it in the hope that this will perhaps add some weight to it, that is, we should be fighting fire with fire and attacking their financial capability. They must have money in bank accounts throughout the world, money that gets funnelled into weapons. Who paid for the $30,000 in flight instruction, in cash? Who paid for the one way airline tickets? Somebody is transferring money around.

We heard questioners in the House today asking if we were prepared to commit military action. What we are talking about there is soldiers on the ground. We were being questioned as to whether we are prepared to send our men and women into harm's way to fight an enemy that is so different from anything any of us have ever experienced before.

I have heard members talk about watching Pearl Harbor and about the trauma of living through World War II. I was born in 1947 so I can only go by what I learned in history, but this is nothing like the experience of World War II, where we could identify an enemy. We knew where they were coming from. It was a terrible, cataclysmic period in our world history but at least we could get a handle on who we were fighting.

I fear that if we stand up in this place and talk the talk we had better be prepared to walk the walk, and walking the walk means sending people walking right into the heart of Taliban country, right into Afghanistan, and two nations, Great Britain and Russia, will testify about what a mistake they made by going into what turned out to be their very own Vietnam.

In my view what we need to do is somehow answer the questions of who we are we fighting and how we can fight them. What are the techniques that we can use? We need to do it united. It does not mean that we are any less committed to fighting and ending terrorism. It just means that we have to recognize that the capabilities these people have are so incredible that they go beyond sending a platoon of soldiers to certain death in a faraway land.

I believe that the leaders in the United States understand that. They have been through it. I believe that our government understands it. It is my sincere hope that we will continue to join with the United States to put an end to terrorism throughout the world, but to do it in a way that will be effective and make sense.

[Attack on the United States, September 17th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the member focused his presentation this evening on issues surrounding immigration. They all dealt pretty much with cases that he has worked on in his job as an MP at the constituency level and he detailed some of the information. Does he have any information that any one of those cases or any other case is directly related to the issue we are debating tonight which is the tragedy of the terrorist attack in New York?

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I can see that colleagues opposite are not going to allow my colleague to speak. I am sorry to see that because we will be out of time. With her indulgence I will respond to the accusations.

Clearly what Canadians hear when they listen to the former Reform Party and the current Canadian Alliance Party is a kind of fearmongering and castigation of people with absolute impunity. The members of that party have the ability to stand up and say whatever they want against people who do not have the ability to defend themselves. It is the most despicable game of politics that one could engage in and we have seen it over and over again.

I have met at least one person over there who has some integrity, and that is the critic for the Canadian Alliance. While I may not share his views, I will defend the member's right to put his views forward forcefully and honestly in committee and to debate them as he did clause by clause. His integrity has been impugned in this place by the leader of that party today in the speech that was delivered. It was the most shameful and disgusting display of politics I have ever seen. Having looked at this, there is only one solution, in my view, that the critic could accept and that is an apology from the leader or his resignation.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I said I wanted to share my time with the member for Laval West. While I would love to debate the member opposite, frankly my preference would be that we close the debate by hearing the fine words of the member for Laval West who has extensive credibility and experience in the area of immigration.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, another option is that the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition should resign his seat and his job in this place.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the passion I feel and evoke over the issue is because of the stunning reversal of the leader of Her Majesty's opposition to the position for which the critic has consistently put forward and fought. These people can call that whatever they want. I will call it at the very least a reversal, an admonition, a bailing out, whatever members want me to call it in acceptable parliamentary language, and I am happy to live by that. The fact still remains that what we saw today was unfair to the critic on that side of the House. It was really quite remarkable.

I also heard in that same speech the need to define a refugee. How in the world can someone who purports to want to be prime minister of this land not know that that was done by the Geneva Convention in 1949 and that the United Nations has long recognized worldwide refugees.

We do not need to define a refugee. We need to define some kind of leadership who understands how important it is that we reform the immigration system and the refugee system. We need to ensure that we can close the back door and boot out the criminals who are a danger to our society. We need to open our arms wide to both refugees and immigrants in all classes, family classes and economic classes from around the world.

What we need to do is some serious education within the confines of these walls to understand that the work a committee does is so vital to forming the final document which will come before this place for a vote. For someone to stand up having done obviously no research and with no knowledge, understanding or empathy for his own critic and the work he has done is absolutely shameful.

I have some possible options. One option is that the critic should resign his post as critic within the Canadian Alliance or the leader should remove him because they obviously are divergent in their views on this matter.

Another option is for the leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition to apologize, not to me or Canadians but to the member for Dauphin—Swan River.