Steve Mahoney

[Petitions, April 4th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am pleased to present two petitions. Both are the same. One has 715 signatures and the other has 220 signatures.

The petitioners, many of whom are from my riding and elsewhere, call upon parliament to establish a multi-year budgetary strategy to eliminate child poverty by the end of the year 2000.

[Reform Party Of Canada, March 29th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, the words former and Reform are spelled with exactly the same letters but in a different order. Let us look at them. F stands for fool which is what the Reform Party is trying to do to Canadians. O stands for zero which is the sum total of its policies. R is for rich who is exactly who its flat tax will benefit. M is for the leader's name which is still the same, even if it changes. E is for extreme, which is what Reform members are when their true colours come out. R is for regressive, which represents their policies on gun control, education, health care, agriculture and any other program that benefits Canadians.

Yes, F-O-R-M-E-R spells reform and reform spells hypocrisy, no matter what name they go by.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member putting forward the amendment understands the word premature. It seems to me that the word simply means something that came early, as in a premature baby. How about that? Something came before it was ready. The fact that the report was released by the hon. member when it was only 50% completed might, although it is a stretch, qualify it as being premature.

How can the member justify putting what is almost a comical amendment—even though it is in order, as you have ruled, Mr. Speaker—to delete the word premature, which obviously is the crux of the matter? If the report was not prematurely released, then perhaps the member would not have been found guilty of releasing it prematurely by the Speaker.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, in one sense I was outraged and in another sense I was highly amused. The meetings are recorded anyway. Everything we do and say in committee is recorded. It is made available in the record.

We had agreed that the transcript of the meeting held in camera would be released to the public. I said to myself “Let me understand this. The hon. member will be tape recording what is already being tape recorded”. Boy, that is pretty scary.

Scary is not the right word. The thing that was so offensive—and the member was right to bring it up—was that a member could come in and actually threaten that kind of silliness, that kind of nonsense, show that lack of respect for members of the committee, for the committee process and indeed for this place. That is just not appropriate behaviour on the part of any member of any party in this place. It is shameful and it is to be hoped that this member would realize the error of his ways and stop this kind of nonsense.

I would add that if the member had put as much energy into helping us write the report as he did in playing all of these silly games, he might have had an opportunity for some input of his own. As it was, he was no help at all.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, really, this is almost silly. If there had been a request by the committee to review somehow the behaviour of the chair and the Speaker had come in and made some kind of ruling, I suppose maybe we would be dealing with it.

I do not know if I am hearing a plea for mercy, an act of contrition or the launching of some new defence. These guys launch new things every day, so who knows, maybe the hon. member has come up with a new way to try to defend being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I guess being one out of two is not bad. It would be nice to have at least a 50% success rate. I will take talent.

I can be as accurate as the member wants.

Let me respond. The member is saying that the staff of the committee and the clerk were doing something improper because they brought forward the document. They said it was a discussion of the draft report. If the member wants to hang his defence on whether we were dealing with the notes from the researcher that would lead us to draft a report or whether we were dealing with a draft report, if that is his defence, I would suggest that he not step on to the gallows. It is a bit flimsy.

Mr. Speaker, do not worry about my memory because I am going back about three weeks. The member should think about his own memory and go back about 30 minutes or so. He would find if he checked that the Speaker's ruling was not to refer the matter back to committee but to refer it to the procedure and House affairs committee, which is the hangman. It will pull the lever and kick the sandbag out as the body drops to the ground.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

No, that is not uncommon. However, I must say that I waited until I had the opportunity to have the floor. I can assure the House that this member will agree with very little that I am about to put on the record. If he wants to jump up every time he disagrees with me, hopefully, Mr. Speaker, you will rule that those are not points of order.

If the member wants us to read Hansard , I would invite him to do exactly the same when Hansard is printed wherein he said that he thought his decision to hold a public press conference was a good decision, in spite of the fact that you, Mr. Speaker, have found him guilty of violating the privileges of members of the committee. I do not know how that can be interpreted in any other way than to say that he does not like, agree with or respect your decision. He thinks what he did was right.

There are a couple of basic principles here. One is that when you are trying to get out of a hole you should stop digging. The other one is the axiom that when a lawyer represents himself, he is often said to have a fool for a client. When I hear the defence that has been put forward by this member, it is incomprehensible.

Prior to this unfortunate incident, I thought the member was making good contributions to the committee. This obviously was not the first issue we have dealt with. He was dedicated and worked hard. I very seldom agreed with his position, the one which the Reform Party said, through him, that it considered anyone who arrived in this country as a refugee as an illegal. We had a long debate over the use of the term illegal. This member considers all refugees to be illegal. I certainly do not agree with that but I respect his right to hold that opinion as long as he does not mind me telling everybody that is his opinion so they can judge for themselves the attitude the Reform Party and this particular member have in relation to new Canadians, refugees and immigrants.

You, Mr. Speaker, read from the rules which state that a committee report is considered to be confidential even if it is discussed in public at committee. Whether or not the committee is in camera is totally irrelevant to the fact that this member decided to make the document public on his own volition.

I could accept it if he was willing to stand and say “Mr. Speaker, I made a mistake”. Instead, he stands and says “What I did was good. What I did was right”. It is black and white, Mr. Speaker, as you have obviously found out.

If we want to talk about denigrating the democratic process, what does it do? I will take members back to the meeting on March 2 which was held at the Promenade. It was to be an in camera session. Why? As you, Mr. Speaker, and all members would know, committees represent the 301 members of this House. The reason for that is that we are unable to sit on all the committees. While everyone might want to be on the finance committee or on the citizenship and immigration committee, not all members can be. We have to share the workloads and spread the responsibility.

As a result, the committee does its work when it writes a draft report and brings it into this place to show our colleagues, the members of parliament, those who are duly elected to represent the people of this country. We do that before we go public with it. We do not release committee reports in draft or in final form until we have completed our responsibility which is to deliver it to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House of Commons. The member knows that but he continues to try to defend the indefensible.

It says on the document “Confidential until reported to the House”. I ask the member: What word in there does he not understand? Confidential means it is confidential. It cannot be reported to the public until it has been reported to the House. It is a very difficult concept. This means that after the report is brought to this place, laid on the table and reported as a public document the member is then not only entitled to but probably obligated, as a critic, to hold a press conference and to say everything he is saying. I do not have a problem with him accusing the committee of not listening to witnesses. I do not agree with that but if I were in opposition I would probably say the same thing. I do not believe it is true, but he has every right and indeed as a member of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition he has a responsibility to do that. I respect that.

In that meeting of March 2 at the Promenade, the member spoke up and said that he did not want the meeting to continue in camera. The Chair, quite appropriately, told him that the reason the meeting was in camera was because it was dealing with a draft report and that it must stay in camera and confidential until the report was presented to the House of Commons.

This member then said that he had a tape recorder. He showed it to us and said that he was going to tape record the proceedings of the committee if we refused to pass a motion to move out of in camera. Can anyone imagine the audacity? He used the word nerve; how the committee has the nerve to ask you, Mr. Speaker, to decide on whether or not he has violated our privileges. Imagine the nerve of a member of parliament in this great democracy, called Canada, to come into a committee room and, for whatever reason, actually threaten members opposite and even members on his own side that he was going to tape record the in camera proceedings and then selectively release the information as he saw fit.

In my 20 years in public office, I have never felt so insulted by a member who would come in and say that. If he wanted to fight the good fight he should have put a motion to move out of in camera. I would not have had a problem with that. The committee could have voted on it. He did not do that. The Chair, in a conciliatory way, the same Chair who this member is now castigating and asking to be removed from the committee, said that he would agree to a suggestion by the member for Hamilton—Wentworth that the minutes of the committee would be made public once the report was completed. The member agreed not to tape record the proceedings and agreed with that suggestion. All of this was agreed to before any press conference was held.

You can imagine, Mr. Speaker, how surprised members of the committee were when we heard there was actually going to be a press conference the next day.

I will now deal with that issue. The member said that he got a copy of the draft legislation that was put out by the ministry and had apparently been circulated to provincial legislatures, ministers or stakeholders. Why would that happen? The member said that it was for approval. In reality it was for input. If the government were to change the Immigration Act or any act without getting the input of the stakeholders that are directly involved, we would be accused of the most dastardly things by the opposition members, of not listening, of not seeking other opinions and of not caring what their beloved provinces might have to say about an issue that could have a tremendous impact on the future of those provinces.

It is absurd to suggest that sending a draft-for-comment piece of legislation to other interested stakeholders is wrong. That is not wrong. That is consultation. It only makes sense to do that.

Instead of just perhaps questioning that at committee and saying “I have a concern”, what does the member do? He decides to take the document that all of us have been working so hard on, that people have had input on, that is stamped draft and is not even 50% complete, an issue that became rather embarrassingly obvious at the press conference, and he calls a press conference with it.

Let me tell the House why it was embarrassingly obvious that it was incomplete. One of the reporters apparently asked the hon. member what it was that he objected to. He said that he did not like certain words, such as the word “should” where the recommendations said “this should happen” or “that should happen”.

While he was busy getting his notes ready for his press conference the rest of us were going through the document. I put a motion at committee—and members who were there will remember this—that we should delete the word “should” and we should send a strong recommendation to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration that would not say “this should happen” but “this shall happen”.

The entire report, at the direction of the committee, was rewritten by the clerk to eliminate that somewhat soft approach of saying “this should happen” and it changed the whole nature of the report. That one change took that document from being a very thorough but somewhat soft document to becoming a firm report with clear cut directions.

The hon. member did not even have the sense to release the final report. It is incredible. He released a report that was 50% done in the oven because he got all upset that, my goodness, there was a draft piece of legislation that had been sent to the provinces. It is truly hard to understand.

I would invite anyone to research the minutes of the committee or the committee evidence or anything else concerning the committee. It is standard practice for a committee agenda to be sent out to all of our offices, saying that the committee on whatever will meet tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock in Room 308 West Block to consider the following items. Then it will say the draft report of whatever the report happens to be. Then it will have stamped on it “in camera”.

If a member objects to that, the member can say so. That member can put a motion. That member can call for a recorded vote. In no instance did this member do that at the meetings which he attended. He did complain, I give him credit for that, but he did not follow through. He accepted the recommendation and the concept, which did not need to be formalized in some kind of a motion with which the chair agreed.

The real issue here is that this member could do an awful lot for his party, the Reform Party, as I will continue to call it if members do not mind, and he could do an awful lot for his own integrity if he would simply rise in this place and say “Thank you for your ruling, sir. I appreciate the diligence and the time. I am sorry that you had to come to that conclusion, but I would respectfully ask for the House to forgive me for making the error which I made”. If he would not like to use that term, he could just stand and say “I am sorry. I made a mistake”.

It would be absolutely brilliant to hear that from that member. I highly doubt that we will. Instead he rose to argue his case. Guess what? When this motion goes to committee, this member has just given us all the prosecution we need. We will just get Hansard and say “Here is what he said”. He said it was a good idea, that it was a good thing and that he was pleased he did it. He does not care what the Speaker said. He does not care what committee members said. He does not care about the opposition. Mr. Speaker, he just does not care.

It is absolutely unforgivable, unless the member was to accept responsibility for his actions, rise and say to the members of the committee “I apologize for my mistake. I still do not like the report. I still do not think you did the right job. I still do not like the minister”—whatever. I do not care. I understand and respect all of that. But to actually stand here and try to defend something which the Speaker has ruled on, when it is so clear, when it is so black and white, I can only conclude by telling you, Mr. Speaker, as one parliamentarian to another, that I find it embarrassing.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I sat here with my blood pressure boiling up as I listened to the hon. member.

[Privilege, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, I should tell you that I happen to be vice-chair of the committee and have found it necessary on occasion, when our chair was tied up with other committee business, to run some of the meetings. I have been very actively involved in the writing of this report, as have most members and certainly most government members in having input.

I am surprised that you, Mr. Speaker, did not rise to your feet when the member opposite finished saying that he thought his decision even today was a good decision. I would interpret that as being a statement that he does not particularly agree with the findings that you, Mr. Speaker, brought forward before this place where you found in favour of the Chair that there was a prima facie case of violating the privilege of the committee members. Mr. Speaker, I heard you say that.

[Dr. Frank Plummer, March 28th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, during a recent visit to Nairobi, Kenya I had the pleasure to meet Dr. Frank Plummer. He is an internationally respected Canadian physician specializing in HIV infection.

In sub-Saharan Africa, 10% of the world's population live on 1% of the global income and bear the burden of 68% of all patients with HIV infection in the world, most of whom lack access to the most basic drug treatments. In Nairobi alone, 500 people per day die from AIDS.

Through Dr. Plummer's research he has identified a group of African women whose immune systems are resistant to the HIV virus. He is conducting clinical trials on the transmission of HIV and possible vaccines which this government is proud to support.

On behalf of all Canadians I want to offer Dr. Plummer our continued support. I wish to thank him for his selfless dedication and tireless efforts.