Mac Harb

[Cuba, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there are two parts to this question.

One part deals with the Helms bill. The minister and the government are on the record as being opposed to this bill. We are encouraged that the U.S. administration so far has clearly indicated that they also have some concerns about that piece of legislation.

On the second part of the hon. member's question, which deals with action that might be taken against Canadian companies doing business in Cuba, we have not received anything officially on this matter. As soon as we receive anything we will take appropriate action in the interest of Canadians and Canadian businesses.

[Petitions, June 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have four petitions on different subjects, some of which are contradictory, and I would like to table the petitions pursuant to Standing Order 36.

[Police Officers, June 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, every day police officers across Canada face many tough challenges.

Perhaps the most delicate challenge is balancing what is politically correct and what needs to be done to maintain law and order. Police officers put their lives on the line. Often many of them perish in the line of duty while making our communities safer.

In my experience as a community representative for the past nine years I have dealt with our local police on a number of occasions. I am proud to say that we have one of the finest police organizations anywhere in North America and perhaps in the world.

I would like to congratulate the Ottawa-Carleton police on a job well done. It is our duty and our responsibility to work with our law enforcement officers and to support them so they can continue to provide their excellent services to our communities.

[Supply, June 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised to hear the hon. member attacking the public service of Canada when we know we have one of the finest public services in the world. I do not think taking a cheap shot at them was really called for in terms of what they are contributing or what they earn.

I will quickly move on to make the point that this government did something that was unprecedented when it opened up the process. It is the first time in the history of this country that a government has done a preconsultation on the budget.

I was elected on a set of promises that my party made during the last election. When I run I run as a member of the Liberal Party. To that extent, my responsibility is to vote with the party at least on the issues my party ran on during the election. For me to do otherwise is unfair.

At the same time, I have mixed feelings about having this open for every member of Parliament to vote the way he or she likes. If we are going to do that, then the government no matter which party it is in the future, will have to spend the vast majority of its time lobbying individual members of Parliament so they will vote for it. The reality is that the responsibility of a government is to carry through on what it promises the people during an election period.

How many times has the hon. member stood and voted against his party? During this past one and a half years we have seen the Reform Party day in and day out voting as a block. I am not saying that is wrong, but how often has the hon. member voted independently?

[Supply, June 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Mercier referred to the control of manpower training. She mentioned in her speech that she wants that control to be a provincial responsibility.

I have a question for the hon. member. Let us assume for a moment that the responsibility for manpower training is left to the provinces. Here, in the national capital region, over 30,000 people come from Quebec to work in Ontario, and vice versa. We often see the need for national standards on training provided to employees. Would the hon. member agree to the development of national standards by all the provinces working together?

Workers in Quebec could decide to work in Alberta, or vice versa, since they would all have received the same training. This would promote manpower mobility from province to province.

Would the hon. member agree to the implementation of such standards?

[Petitions, June 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have two more petitions I would like to table.

[Petitions, June 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand two petitions I would like to table, pursuant to Standing Order 36.

[Ontario Election, June 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, ten good reasons to vote Liberal in Ontario:

(1) With the Liberals you know you are always safe.

(2) Bob Rae and the NDP have done enough damage.

(3) The Liberals always care.

(4) Mike Harris is harmful to your health with his foolish tax proposals.

(5) In one way or another, if you are a single mom, youth, middle class, senior, or own a small business, you can be certain that Harris is after your pocketbook.

(6) You could not sleep at night knowing that there are Tories in Ontario.

(7) If you are injured, disabled, sick, or looking for your annual check up, Harris will be waiting for you to add salt to your wounds and do more damage to you.

(8) You have fooled with the Tories federally and with the jacuzzi socialists provincially and you were badly wounded.

(9) In the blink of a eye, Tories will suck the blood and money out of the most vulnerable in Ontario.

(10) With the Liberals, you will not take a chance. Your satisfaction will be guaranteed.

[Supply, June 1st, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by making a comment and then asking my colleague to answer a question.

First, I very much enjoyed the beginning of his speech where he spoke about the me and we mentality. Then for whatever reason, I do not know why, he derailed himself and took a different type of train. I counted in excess of 52 different negative connotations throughout his speech. He spoke at the beginning about public cynicism and public confidence, yet his speech dealt only with the negative but not really the positive things this government and this country have to offer its people.

My colleague surely knows it is not government that creates jobs; it is the private sector. Surely my colleague and the public would know that all the government can and should do is create a proper environment so the private sector can create jobs. Historically, it has always been the private sector that has created jobs.

I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues that interest rates since we took office have been stable; we have stability in interest rates. Our trade has hit an all-time high. Our economic growth is leading the G-7 countries. My colleague could testify to the fact that our growth is greater than any other country in the western hemisphere.

The government has taken a number of steps in order to streamline and reorganize the way we deliver services. In fact some of those bills deal specifically with reorganizing, with giving different levels of government different responsibilities so we can better do the job we are supposed to be doing.

I also wanted to bring to my colleague's attention that there is a myth that government should not be looking at taxes for generating revenue. The only way for government to get revenue is through taxes. How else can we support programs unless we are generating tax revenues? Economic growth means businesses are doing well, which means government is generating more taxes.

Telling the public we are no longer going to collect taxes gives the wrong signal; it is the wrong thing to say. We should be saying that we need economic growth so government revenue could increase through taxes. If businesses do well we will bring in more taxes.

I do not understand why my colleague would say we can no longer collect tax from the private domain. That is the only way governments here and anywhere in the world can do business unless they were to go into business themselves. We were in business in the past. This government is trying to get out of doing business itself by streamlining, by privatizing part of the crown corporations we have so they can do the kind of work done by them in the past through the government. They will be able to do it on their own.

On the issue of spending, this government has done a tremendous amount of work in the area of spending. I do not know what my colleague expects. In one year the government came down with a budget that slashed over 45,000 jobs from the public service itself, from the public domain.

If we were to look at the balance sheet, this government is now generating more revenues than we are spending. In a way we are already in a surplus position. The problem here is there are no more cuts to be done but we have to increase revenues.

I will submit to my colleague that we should turn the me and we mentality into a mentality of we collectively.

Finally, I wanted to ask him what specifically he would suggest the government do that it has not done, and give it to us in point form without any negatives.

[Immigration Enforcement Improvement Act, May 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to congratulate the hon. member on his initiative. I know how hard he has worked in order to introduce this private member's bill. His constituents are very fortunate to have him as their representative. He is hard working and I wish him well.

The bill relates to immigrants or refugees in Canada who have criminal records. On the surface the bill would help the government deport those refugees or immigrants immediately after sentencing provided a provision is made to pass the authority to the provinces to deal with this issue.

On the surface the bill makes a lot of sense. It is precise and to the point. However, it causes quite a bit of confusion when one goes a little deeper into it.

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has already indicated publicly that he supports the intent and the spirit of the bill but has raised a number of concerns which I will reiterate. On November 1, 1994 the minister tabled a document entitled "Into the 21st Century: A Strategy for Immigration and Citizenship". He made a number of comments but I will mention only a couple which I believe are relevant to the legislation before us.

The minister said: "A number of legislative changes will be considered to the control and enforcement provision of the act. For example, currently deportation orders can only be issued by an immigration official. Consideration is being given to authorizing judges to issue deportation orders at the time of sentencing rather than requiring a separate step".

He also said there may be other improvements we can usher into the system. One such recommendation coming from chiefs of police is to permit judges to not recommend deportation at the time of sentencing but to order deportation at the time of sentencing so that the system is leaner and the issues of individuals are all dealt with at the right time and that there is full due process for the individual, counsel and lawyer to react to the judge's ordering of a deportation rather than recommending and then having it go back to immigration and before an immigration appeal division and so on.

In other words, the minister is already trying to streamline the process and make it easier for the justice system to deport people with criminal records who are here as refugees or landed immigrants.

He further stated that as parliamentarians we should be interested in this issue and also be prepared to look at making the relevant amendments if we think the amendments will work, which is very important, and if we think those amendments are fair. The minister supports the spirit and the intent of bill C-316. However, I will outline some concerns of the Department of Justice as well as the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

Immigration falls under federal jurisdiction when it comes to deliberation and delivery of the justice system. If we were to pass on this jurisdiction to the provincial level there would be a number of problems. The department which deals with the issue of immigration is not the same department which deals with delivery of other relevant aspects of immigration.

If this were transferred to the provinces since this is where the issue would fall under Bill C-316, we would have to introduce training for judges and lawyers in some cases. That would cause more delays. Over and over we have seen cases tossed out of court because they were delayed for too long. It would mean more appeals. We already have an overloaded provincial court system.

When dealing with the provincial justice system we know attorneys can make recommendations to the court based on a number of factors which are not part of immigration agenda but are a part of other aspects of the justice system such as plea bargaining. Judges would then require proof beyond a reasonable doubt which would make the issue before the court difficult to prove.

This legislation contravenes the charter of rights when it comes to challenges. A number of sections could be challenged such as section 11(h) which deals with double punishment. It could be argued that deportation is a second form of punishment in addition to any other sentence; only a non-citizen would be subject to this punishment.

Section 12 deals with cruel and unusual punishment. It could be argued that removing the permanent resident from Canada would offend standards of decency by denying for life the person's right to be with family and friends.

Under section 15, equality under the law, it could be argued that permanent residents were being treated differently from Canadian citizens under the law. Two persons convicted of the same offence would be subject to different consequences based on their immigrant status.

Simply by looking at these recommendations from both the Department of Justice and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, while the intent of the bill is good I suggest my colleague might want to take it back and look at it with the view that if anything is put before the House it should be consistent with the charter of rights and freedoms and should meet the criteria set out by the Department of Justice and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.