Herb Gray

[Questions On The Order Paper, June 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police does not collect statistics in relation to any particular ethnic groups.

[Extension Of Sitting Hours, June 9th, 1994]

I move, pursuant to Standing Order 27(1):

That, commencing on June 10 and concluding on June 23, 1994, on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays the House shall continue to sit until 10 p.m. for the purpose of considering Government Orders, provided that proceedings pursuant to Standing Order 38 shall, when applicable, be taken up between 10 p.m. and 10.30 p.m.

Mr. Speaker, in proposing this motion I would first like to thank the House for its generally co-operative approach to the legislation that has been put before it.

I must say I have been assisted greatly in my work by the Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs, the hon. member for Beauséjour, and my parliamentary secretary, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands. I should also like to thank the chief government whip, the hon. member for Saint-Léonard, and the deputy whip, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, for their similar efforts.

I have other thanks to offer. I want to say I would be quite remiss if I were to fail to indicate as well the important roles played by the House leaders of the opposition parties. I refer to the hon. member for Roberval and the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster. They have both demonstrated the important parliamentary skill of combining tough and vigorous partisan-

ship with a civil and courteous approach as well as an understanding of the public's expectation that the House carry out its business in a reasonable fashion.

Although we have had a number of significant philosophical and policy differences, we have been able, most of the time, to overcome these differences in order to work together to organize the business of the House in a more orderly manner than I have seen in much of my own career in Parliament.

I say this not to seek praise for myself as the leader of the government in the House, but to demonstrate that at least part of the message of the election of last October 25 has been heard and understood here in this House. Canadians, regardless of their political inclinations, want Parliament to function in a more civil and open manner and, at the same time, to be a place of vigorous debate and exchange of ideas.

It was with this in mind that the government has sought to restore the importance of this House of Commons as the central institution of Canadian government through its program of reform of the rules of the House. These were implemented with all party co-operation right after the throne speech debate earlier this year.

One objective of this was to give the House of Commons and its members a greater role in the initial stages of policy development.

For this reason major studies by committees of our foreign policy, our defence policy, our social policy and the goods and services tax are presently under way. In addition, the House has had a number of general debates, on the initiative of the government, using time set aside for government business, in order to give the government a sense of where members of Parliament stand on such matters as peacekeeping, cruise weapons testing and on agriculture before the cabinet makes decisions in these matters.

The results of many of these initiatives will be seen only some months later on. In many cases they will result in legislation and some of the resulting reports no doubt will be quite contentious.

The government has been criticized in some quarters for embarking on some of these studies, but they involve consulting the Canadian people on matters crucial to them before introducing legislation. I hope some of those who have voiced these criticisms will not succumb later on to what we would argue to be contradictory claims, when we bring forward the resulting legislation, by attacking us then for moving too quickly.

Even though this government is a new government I submit it has brought forward a considerable legislative program; some 38 bills to date with another half dozen to be introduced before we adjourn for the summer. We have already passed half of these measures. These include such matters as the federal-provincial fiscal arrangements bill, the budget implementation bill, a number of tax measures coming from the recent budget and from previous budgets and a wide range of other matters from fisheries to railway safety to government re-organization.

I want to thank the House and, I repeat, I want to thank my fellow House leaders for the great co-operation shown in this regard.

We face the crunch now, the run up to the long summer adjournment. Bills that were referred to committees earlier in the spring are beginning to pour back into the House and we must deal with most of them before starting the long summer break.

These bills include Bill C-28 regarding financial assistance to students, Bill C-30 regarding fisheries workers, and Bill C-12 revising and updating the Canada Business Corporations Act.

We must also conclude debate on the two bills pertaining to tobacco, C-11 and C-32. Bill C-32 is particularly important because it authorizes the making of rebates of tobacco excise tax, rebates that have been long awaited by small businesses across this country.

We also need to finish Bill C-22 regarding Pearson airport, Bill C-16 regarding the Sahtu Dene land claim, Bill C-25 concerning petroleum resources, the two environment bills C-23 and C-24, and Bill C-18, legislation which will enable us to update the process of revising electoral boundaries. There is also Bill C-35, the legislation to permit the reorganization of the new Department of Citizenship and Immigration.

We also have to deal with Bill C-33, the Yukon land claims legislation and Bill C-34 regarding native self-government in Yukon. I want to mention that I have been receiving many representations from not only native groups but from the premier of the Yukon saying that these bills represent a consensus in the Yukon territory after some 21 years of effort. They urge, therefore, that we consider and adopt these bills as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of other what you might call smaller items for which we will also seek passage.

In addition, before the House adjourns the government wants to have second reading of Bill C-37, the young offenders legislation. We also want to move into committee Bill C-38 respecting marine transportation security and the lobbyists legislation which will be introduced next week.

This is an extensive list. Of course our precise scheduling is dependent upon the timeliness with which our committees complete their work on the legislation before them. I think however that the proposal before us for additional hours will permit the House to complete all of this business. After all, three and one-half hours each day, Monday through Thursday over two weeks seems to me to be a comparatively easy means to add

what is the equivalent of an additional week of time for government business.

To conclude I again want to thank my colleagues, the Secretary of State for Parliamentary Affairs, my parliamentary secretary, the member for Kingston and the Islands, the chief government whip, the member for Saint Léonard, and the deputy whip, the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell and at the same time the opposition House leaders and their whips for their co-operative efforts. These have enabled this House to proceed in a manner reflecting the desire of the Canadian public for a more open and active House, one with a co-operative atmosphere, but which at the same time is a place, as I have said, for vigorous debate and exchange of ideas.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to a continued good atmosphere here in the House that will enable this House to complete its agenda. Therefore I ask for the support of members for this motion.

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has made another suggestion worthy of being looked into but I am not sure it requires legislation.

I have been working to have better administrative procedures leading to all necessary information going to the parole board before it makes decisions on these matters. I am going to try to get this accomplished through administrative change, but I will look into it in terms of what may be required by legislation.

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will take note of my hon. friend's suggestion. It is very much worth going into. I will work on it in connection with the updating and tightening up of the parole and correctional system that I am currently working on.

[Indian Affairs, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is wrong. I never refused to admit that large-scale arms smuggling existed. I said, as did the Prime Minister a few months ago, that one of the reasons for our national program against smuggling was the fact that arms smuggling was also a problem. That is why we set up the anti-smuggling program, which includes the smuggling of firearms, and we will continue our efforts with the Sûreté du Québec and other police forces.

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, there is currently a federal-provincial task force on high risk offenders which is expected to report to ministers in July. It is working on measures to deal with high risk offenders. We are anxiously awaiting the report so that we can take further action to deal with this type of difficult situation.

In the meantime, it is open to the premier of British Columbia to ask his crown attorneys to take more concrete action at the beginning to ask people to be declared dangerous offenders at the time they are first convicted.

However, we treat this at the federal level as a very serious situation. We intend to take action based on the federal-provincial task force because the solutions lie in a concerted effort at both the federal and provincial levels.

[Dangerous Offenders, June 7th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I find this a troubling situation. I have asked for a full review and a full report on how this case was handled. When I get the report on this troubling situation, I will be happy to share the information with my hon. friend.

[Government Appointments, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we made a commitment to appoint people on the basis of merit and on the basis of competence. The hon. member's suggestion that there are not any competent people in a particular political party flies in the face of common sense.

The government is committed to making appointments on the basis of merit and competence. Since close to 51 per cent of Canadians support the Liberal Party, I do not think that half the Canadian population should be excluded from consideration for appointments.

[Government Appointments, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister makes an announcement of his proposal on the commitment to have an ethics counsellor it will be open to the opposition parties to comment. In the meantime I would ask them to wait until the Prime Minister formally puts his proposal to the House and the public.

I think that would be the only fair and reasonable way to do it.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I said that the government would be carrying out its commitments to act on members' pensions.

In the meantime I would ask the hon. member if he can give us a report before the House adjourns about the double dipping, on the record, of all the Reform members.