Herb Gray

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I assure the hon. member and the House that the Prime Minister and his advisers are following the law to the letter.

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not accept the premise of my hon. friend's question that there is some deliberate attempt not to respond to the act.

The report said that the government received 20,000 access requests last year. Out of some 1,300 complaints investigated by the commissioner, only two were not resolved to his satisfaction and are now before the courts. I think that is a pretty good record.

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that will be up to the ethics counsellor.

However, now that the Alliance has misspent its research budget on this opinion about this document, I presume it will next be turning to other issues of importance to it, like whether the sasquatch exists, the Loch Ness monster exists or where exactly the Bermuda Triangle is located.

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been very open. He tabled a copy of the document in the House. He stood in this place and said that the copy was a copy of the real document, and did so even though this related to a time when he was not Prime Minister and related to a private business transaction, not to his work or responsibility as Prime Minister. That is openness, true openness.

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we will certainly study seriously and carefully the information commissioner's report. However I think we also want to take responsibility for the conclusion of the information commissioner that overall the act, and I quote, “is working remarkably well”.

[Access To Information, June 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, if there are changes to be considered to the act, the changes will need to be brought before the House by the government. The changes will be brought before the House in the form of legislation. They will be debated in the House and studied by a parliamentary committee. What is more open and democratic than that?

[Nelson Mandela, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to second my colleague's motion to grant honorary Canadian citizenship to an extraordinary figure in the history of the 20th century, Nelson Mandela.

Yes, it is a true honour to rise in this House today to second the motion of my colleague to make Nelson Mandela, an historical figure of the 20th century, an honorary citizen of Canada.

Why are we taking this extraordinary step to honour this great man, a step taken only once before to honour Raoul Wallenberg? This is because Canada has stood with Nelson Mandela and the causes of freedom, justice and equality to which he has devoted his life. In return, South Africa, Canada and the entire world have been given something very special through that life.

When he visited Ottawa in 1990, Nelson Mandela had just been released from 27 years of unjustified imprisonment by a system that oppressed its people because of their colour, because of their origin, and denied them justice, equality and freedom.

He accepted an invitation to speak to a joint session of the House and the Senate, seeking our support as Canadians in his struggle against apartheid and for the ending of the odious apartheid regime in his country.

In that year I was the leader of the opposition and I had the honour of meeting and talking with Mr. Mandela privately. On that occasion, in his presence I could sense his determination to build a country based on freedom and equality for all its people, regardless of colour or origin, in the spirit not of revenge but of reconciliation and forgiveness. That was in 1990.

In 1998 we again had the pleasure of welcoming Nelson Mandela, then president of a fully democratic South Africa, to Ottawa. It was during this visit that we again bestowed upon him the honour of a rare joint address to both of our Houses of Parliament. At that time he was hopeful for the future yet cautious and very grateful for the support given to his nation by Canada. He stated:

We are all too aware of the great deal that remains to be done. What is important is that we are united as a nation as never before and determined to succeed, and that we have friends like Canada who are working with us as partners.

I also heard Mr. Mandela in Pretoria on the occasion of the inauguration of his successor, Thabo Mbeki. What struck me during that visit was the gratitude of South Africans of all walks of life and origins toward Mr. Mandela as father of their new South African state based on freedom and equality for all.

I would like to think that Canada is also grateful to Nelson Mandela for his role in history, for opposing injustice and for striving to right an enormous wrong and thus setting an example for the rest of the world.

As he said at his own trial by the apartheid regime for opposing its prejudiced laws in 1964:

I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination, I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and achieve. But if needs be, it is an idea for which I am prepared to die.

Fortunately for us and for the world and South Africa, it was and is an ideal which he lived for and achieved.

I want to conclude by quoting our Prime Minister, who said about Nelson Mandela:

...he is a living symbol of the two historic movements that have defined the 20th century: equality and democracy..few people in our time—or any century—have so symbolized the spirit of freedom that lives within every human being.

It is for these reasons that at the start of the 21st century the House should honour Nelson Mandela unanimously by voting in favour of the motion now before us. In doing so we confirm the values that we as Canadians hold dear: values of inclusiveness, equality, justice and freedom, values which provide the foundations for the fabric of our great country.

In doing this we show this parliament is worthy of honour by honouring a great man of this 21st century and every century, Nelson Mandela.

[National Defence, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from a lot of companies, as I think has the hon. member. I want to say that I am not supervising the procurement process. It is being carried out according to the established procedures by the Minister of National Defence and the Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

Yes, we looked in the past at how this process might operate. The work that we did in the past resulted in an open and transparent process. At this stage no request for proposals has yet been made. No bids have been received except the bid of the hon. member to head the Alliance Party.

[National Defence, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence and I made no such admission. There is no secret committee presently overseeing the procurement of the new shipboard helicopter.

The hon. member is so off base he is even thinking of trying to become leader of the Alliance Party.

[Grants And Contributions, June 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I again point out that we are dealing with something that does not pertain to the activities of the government or the Prime Minister as Prime Minister.

I really think we should refrain from further comment until we have heard the outcome of the Alliance's consultations with their fortune teller, palm reader and psychic hotline.