François Langlois

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in replying to questions from my colleague, the member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster suggested that I had acted inconsistently and without due consideration on the committee. I wish to point out that, throughout study of Bill C-69, I supported the proposals made, offering my critical analysis.

It was not until report stage, in the House, that an amendment was proposed to guarantee Quebec 25 per cent of the seats. It was from that point on that I decided I could no longer support Bill C-69, not because it had been badly drafted, but because the issue of the 25 per cent guarantee for Quebec was not accepted by the majority of members in this House. I therefore voted against it at third reading.

I wish to point out the facts, so as not to give rise to a debate as indicated in Beauchesne.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, June 14th, 1995]

No, Mr. Speaker, I am not rising to move that the House do now adjourn but to speak to the substantive motion addressed by the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

First of all, I may say it is rather ironic that a House whose members are appointed by the governor in council, by cabinet, to all intents and purposes, to sit until the age of 75 tries to teach us a thing or two about democracy in connection with such basic issues as electoral boundaries readjustment.

I am very pleased to see that the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands is listening carefully to my speech, as is the hon. member for Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine. We have worked very hard without a hint of partisanship. I would also like to mention the hon. member for Cochrane-Superior who showed a great interest in this bill. The hon. member was instrumental in having the bill drafted in its present form, especially one specific point that I will discuss later on, and I am referring to the 25 per cent deviation from the electoral quota.

I said earlier that the non-elected House, the Canadian Senate, wants to teach us a lesson about democracy, and I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this Parliament. It should be up to us to say that the other House should either cease to exist and be abolished or its members should be elected, one or the other.

In any case, the process started a long time ago with Bill C-18 which suspended for a certain period of time the work of commissions which had already been appointed until June this year so we are getting close to the deadline, and the Committee of the House on Procedure and House Affairs was subsequently instructed to draft a bill.

Strictly speaking, it is not a government bill, although it was tabled on behalf of the Government House Leader. This is a bill that was drafted in committee, before the Standing Committee of the House on Procedure and House Affairs, as I said before.

There was a very broad consensus among committee members on most clauses. In fact, there were far more items on which we agreed than on which we disagreed.

Unfortunately, there was one item on which we could not agree and since it was a fundamental rule, the crux of the whole debate, this meant that the official opposition, the Bloc Quebecois, could not vote for Bill C-69 on third reading. This item was the subject of a motion that I tabled in this House and that was defeated, a motion that guaranteed Quebec a minimum representation rate of 25 per cent, irrespective of its population at the time of the census.

We hope we will never have to apply this minimum guarantee, because in the next federal election, I assume or in any case I hope we will then be living within a new Quebec-Canada partnership so that this legislation would not apply to Quebec, which will have its own legislation that will apply to Quebec's 125 ridings.

This basic characteristic of holding 25 per cent of the seats was, and still is, related to the fundamental notion that Canada has two founding peoples, not equal in numbers but equal in rights. A pact, an agreement, was made in 1867 between two nations: the anglophone nation and the francophone nation.

They decided to pool certain things to be managed by this Parliament and they decided to grant the legislatures of the founding provinces, and those which subsequently joined confederation, specific jurisdictions which made them autonomous and sovereign states, when it came to their spheres of jurisdiction. Did they ever fool us in 1867. And I use the polite term, because I cannot use any other in this House.

Today, the interpretation of events given by our Reform colleagues, in particular the hon. members for Calgary West and Kindersley-Lloydminster, has made us realize that the Canada of today is no longer a bicultural and biethnic country, but a multicultural and multiethnic one: this is not the Canada of 1867, the one in which our fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers and ancestors so strongly believed.

In 1965, the premier, Daniel Johnson Sr., said that Canada will be made up of two nations and two cultures or it will cease to exist. We have already seen this in practice, the proof. Just look at what is happening today. This is what Mr. Johnson said in 1965, Sir George-Étienne Cartier said in 1867, Louis Riel said after him, and Franco-Ontarians were saying at the time that they were making demands-remember Regulation 17 in Ontario- at the time that they were pursuing the issue of having to fund public schools and fund their own private schools, because public funding for their schools was dropped altogether. These are the kinds of things that tend to be forgotten in this country.

There is a tendency to forget the heroic battles led not only by francophones in Quebec, but by francophones outside it and by Acadians to protect their rights. These were major battles. The fight against the Greenway laws in Manitoba. From 1889 on, the rights of francophones were suspended in Manitoba and they were only restored by the Supreme Court almost 100 years later.

Over the past 100 years in Manitoba, the percentage of francophones has gone from 50 per cent, one in every two Manitobans was francophone, to 4 per cent. That is the result of having no constitutional guarantees.

If only we had known. We had no way of knowing or those who should have seen it coming did not. And now we are faced with a situation where the survival of francophone communities, in particular outside Quebec, is a daily struggle. Even the survival of the francophone community in Quebec is a weighty issue, and we have to deal with it every day because each new day brings with it new menaces.

Do not forget that we only represent two per cent of the population on the North American continent. Therefore, we should be equipped with some legal protection in our battle as North American francophones. Where were those who, in the Senate, claimed to have promoted a guarantee of 25 per cent for Quebec?

Where was the senator for Stadacona, the one who claimed to have promoted protection of 25 per cent of seats for Quebec? Where was the senator for Lasalle, the one who claimed that Trudeau had made an offer that Quebec had rejected?

There is nothing in the Senate's report about a guarantee of 25 per cent. The Senate's greatest omission is to have failed to consider the issue of representation for Quebec and probably francophone communities as well, to ensure a guaranteed minimum in this House.

We must not forget that other provinces such as Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick have, because of the senatorial provision of 1915, a constitutional guarantee of never having fewer members in this House than they have senators in the Senate.

Quebec does not have this guarantee. The national home of the francophone people in Canada has no guaranteed representation in this House.

Some passages in Canada's history have been forgotten. Oddly enough, the forgotten bits almost always have to do with one party. I think that we are at the point where, to solve this puzzle, we are going to have to cut our losses and define what should have been defined in 1867, go back to the real spirit of the founding fathers, which was to see the two nations work together, as equals, neighbours and partners.

The Senate's motions in amendment are totally unacceptable, except for one, which merely corrects a technical error we made. The first amendment proposes reducing the allowable variation from the provincial quota from 25 per cent to 15 per cent. For Quebec, which, like Ontario by the way, has no constitutional guarantee as I mentioned earlier-we think about franco-Ontarians who are scattered across a large area and have no more protection than Quebecers at that level-reducing the allowable variation from the quota from 25 per cent to 15 per cent directly imperils the ridings in the Gaspé Peninsula and the Lower St. Lawrence.

I can hear behind me my colleague, the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, who represents a riding that would be directly affected if the allowable variation from the quota were reduced to 15 per cent from 25 per cent. The only way it would be possible to guarantee adequate representation would be to eat into the metropolitan region of Montreal, to ask ridings in that area, Montérégie and the Laurentides to have 125 per cent representation everywhere. Given the territory, given the uniqueness of the people there, given the fact that the Magdalen Islands are stranded out in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, there is no way we will be able to maintain adequate representation in these regions if we have to accept that the allowable variation from the quota will be reduced from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.

It would also be impossible to keep the riding of Manicouagan, which stretches far to the north and we would be putting at risk ridings like Abitibi, at least in the future-not with the current figures but in coming censuses, if this law were to apply in Quebec.

The same reasoning would certainly apply regarding the boundaries which would be imposed in Ontario's north.

I believe that by maintaining the 25 per cent variation which has been the standard for the past 30 years, ever since the first legislation on electoral boundaries readjustment, we have kept a very sensible provision on the books that allows for making adjustments where necessary.

The 25 per cent variation reflects the situation in rural Canada. The fact is that in Quebec and Canada we have a number of cities with a high population density because of developments that have taken place during the past fifty years. However, rural Canada, which in the process lost some of its population, must maintain a strong and powerful voice in this House.

In the past few days, and I do not have to elaborate, we have seen the effects of reduced rural representation in this House. Some votes would probably have been different if rural areas had been represented as they were 30 years ago in the House of Commons, when the regions were far better represented.

Obviously, we cannot support the first amendment proposed by the Senate. Therefore I suggest retention of the variation of up to 25 per cent from the electoral quota of the province when establishing electoral boundaries.

The Senate also suggests deleting provisions that would allow 20 members of this House to challenge appointments made by the Speaker of the House to provincial commissions instructed to establish electoral boundaries.

I believe this provision is a guarantee that will simply encourage the Speaker to conduct consultations prior to these appointments with the various political parties recognized in this House.

I would be very surprised if appointments made by the Speaker of the House following consultations with the recognized parties were subsequently criticized by members. I think it is quite simply a precaution to ensure that the process follows normal procedure.

So the Senate is asking us to remove this provision. The non-elected House is saying: "You who have been elected by the people do not even have the right to discuss who will sit on provincial commissions and who will be appointed by your Speaker". Let them get on with their own rules, but they better not meddle with ours.

If they want to discuss, we will discuss. We will not, however, be told how to behave by the non-elected House, by the honourable senators, who do not have to put their head on the chopping block every five years, like the members of this House, and who are not accountable for their actions to the public, who are accountable to no one. We will also not support the Senate's proposal with respect to allowing this House to overturn an appointment made by its Speaker.

The Senate is also proposing that the provisions providing exceptions to the establishment of a commission after a decennial census be removed. The best example in this regard is the Province of Newfoundland and the region of Labrador. The latest census reported a change of fewer than 1,000 persons over the previous one, if memory serves me, in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, a provincial commission was set up and it turned the whole electoral map upside down.

We had provided, in Bill C-69, that no commission would be set up in such a situation. We can see that the population did not change and that the population did not shift from one region to another, and so no commission is set up. Taxpayers' money is saved, and people continue to feel they belong to their region. The people of St. John's, Newfoundland, know that they are going to vote in St. John's East or St. John's West or some other riding- Bonavista, for example-it does not matter, the feeling of belonging remains. So, why set something in motion when

there is no need to? We will also oppose the motion the Senate is sending us to this amendment.

We are also asked to eliminate the discretionary power of the provincial commissions to reject changes to the electoral map if these changes are not significant enough. Excessive change must be avoided. Many, I would say, even, almost all, members appearing before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs in June and July of last year, made the same complaint, regardless of their political affiliation, with a few exceptions among Reform Party members, who wanted to muddle things even more.

But the Liberal and Bloc members who appeared before us all shared the same concern. They wanted to retain this sense of belonging, so that someone who lives in Lachine, for instance, will not be in one riding for one election, in another riding for the following election, and goodness only knows where for the provincial election in between. This was one of the concerns expressed by all the members who appeared before the committee.

Therefore, the provincial commissions should, of course, have discretion to correct certain small problems that may arise because there is a realization that, at a given time, a municipality has closer ties with a nearby town or, economically, leans in a particular direction. The commissions should be able to make these small changes, but not to turn everything upside down if there is no need to. Here, as well, moderation is preferable.

The Senate is also proposing that the notion of community of interest be redefined. In clause 19(5) of the bill we set out the criterion of community of interest as follows:

-"community of interest" includes such factors as the economy, existing or traditional boundaries of electoral districts, the urban or rural characteristics of a territory, the boundaries of municipalities and Indian reserves, natural boundaries and access to means of communication and transport.

The amendment proposed by the Senate would make community of interest the basic criterion from which all subsequent changes would flow.

Let us remember that the amendment which the Senate is proposing and on the basis of which we would have to decide electoral boundaries must be read with the other amendment being proposed by the Senate, which is to reduce the variation from the quota from 25 per cent to 15 per cent, in other words a minimum variation, with community of interest as the basic criterion. The criterion of community of interest is extremely important, except that it comes up against the mathematical wall of the 15 per cent deviation. They cannot seriously be telling us that the boundaries will be defined on the basis of community of interest, having just said that the variation is only 15 per cent, because the criterion of community of interest is subordinate to the 15 per cent variation which the Senate is also proposing.

Therefore, not only am I of the opinion that we must not change our definition of the criterion of the community of interest, but that we also have to retain a variation of 25 per cent from the electoral quota of each province in order for the two criteria to have a real impact in practice. The constituents of Bellechasse, my riding, should know what to expect from one election to the next, which parish could become part of the riding and which one could cease to be, what minor or major adjustments could be made to take demographics into consideration, but still take into consideration the community of interest.

This community of interest is not an abstract notion, it is a notion that can be seen in action. And the people in the best position to define communities of interest, all partisan politics aside, are probably the hon. members of this House who, each day, each week or each month, depending on the distance they have to go, travel the roads of their ridings. And when there are no roads, they take the plane, or use a helicopter, sometimes even a snowmobile or a dog sled-whatever means of transportation is available.

Therefore, who is in the best position to define a community of interest? I will not pass judgment on my own case, but, take the hon. member for Cochrane-Superior, whose riding is huge, for example. Is it he who is in the best position to talk about the community of interest in Cochrane-Superior and to tell us that the town of Kapuskasing is the community of interest for such and such a region or is it a senator from Ontario representing this region who is in the best position to talk to us about it? There can be only one answer: the representatives elected by the public, whose basic mandate is to defend the interests of all of their voters, of everyone who voted for them, of course, but also the interests of everyone, of everyone who voted against them, of everyone who did not vote or have the right to vote, because MPs basically are the representatives of everyone who lives in the territory they represent. What an important role! A role which must not be subordinate to the interests of a minority appointed to the other place, most of whom are there for purely political reasons and were either defeated or were never successful in getting elected in general elections.

It takes some nerve to come and propose amendments on behalf of people who were defeated, people who, with a few notable exceptions, just cannot get elected.

It is high time we slashed government spending, and one of our first decisions should be to suspend the other House for a time, perhaps five years, to find out whether we really miss it. This could be in the form of a constitutional amendment or we could agree to get rid of the Senate for five years. If we really need it, nature, like Parliament, abhors a vacuum. We will create a new Senate and make new appointments according to a system

to be determined by the Canadian people, by the members of the other House.

But for the time being, we should get rid of the surplus. Let us have a garage sale but keep the main House, the House of Commons. We represent the people, and we are elected by universal suffrage. The rule should be that from the president of the largest mining company down to the worker doing the simplest tasks, everyone has the same right to vote so everyone should have the same access to his member of Parliament. The House is what counts.

In Canada there is a consensus on at least one thing: there is one House too many at the federal level, and it is certainly not the House of Commons where people's elected representatives speak on behalf of the people, but the Senate. The problem is to decide whether we should reform the Senate or get rid of it. I suggest getting rid of it for five years.

The Senate does have its uses, however. It pointed out that we had overlooked a clause that would provide that commissioners should reside in the province for which they were appointed. That is what the Senate pointed out to us. This from parliamentarians who in most cases do not even have an office in the senatorial district they happen to represent.

A legal adviser earning a modest salary could have done this. Our employees are not overpaid, and members of the House are not overpaid either for the work they do. If they are, it will be up to the voters to determine whether the member who represents them is getting too much money for the kind of work he does. That is up to the electorate in a general election.

One or two legal advisers could have pointed out that the clause was missing. We do not need a House with 104 individuals and their staff, their operating budgets and all the expense and waste of time that entails. How many bills are languishing before the other House right now?

The bill concerning Pearson Airport has been lying around for quite some time. It was passed in this House when the government first came to power, by a House of Commons that had just been elected, and then put on hold by the other House.

The same thing happened to Bill C-69. In this case, it is even worse because Bill C-69, which concerns electoral boundaries readjustment, is not a case of gerrymandering and is not intended to give special privileges to parliamentarians. Bill C-69 met with a very broad consensus on its wording, with the notable exception of the request for a minimum of 25 per cent of the seats for Quebec. We will have a chance to get back to this issue in the debate that will take place this fall in Quebec. In our proposal for partnership to be extended to Canada, we will suggest a number of institutions where we will have a representation rate of 25 per cent.

That being said, as the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands indicated when he spoke for the government, we will only support the Senate motion that would make it mandatory for a commissioner appointed for the purpose of electoral boundaries adjustment to reside in the province for which he or she is appointed.

I hope that when it comes to a vote, the Senate will sit up and take notice and stop these delaying tactics that are useless, futile and cost money. They prevent us from allowing electoral boundaries readjustment to take its course and, I also hope that these commissions can be set up again so that hon. members and the public will be able to resume the process under the rules established by Bill C-69, and we will have a balanced electoral map for the next general election, in which I do not hope to participate.

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, on a further point of clarification, just to be perfectly clear, before the hon. member for Ontario resumes his speech, which I will listen to with great interest.

My understanding was that the vote on the motion put forward by the hon. member for Saint-Hubert was deferred till the end. I can understand that. But if the motion put forward by our colleague, the hon. member for Crowfoot, is defeated, we will have to vote on Motion No. 4 in the name of the hon. member for Saint-Hubert in any case, will we not?

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

He would do well to hold her from time to time, if I may be permitted a little humour. I am sure the hon. parliamentary secretary will agree that the magic of the French language and one of its beauties as well would enable us to bring the English and the French closer together. This is why I invite the hon. parliamentary secretary to see if this error cannot simply be corrected.

Excuse me for having taken my seat before I had finished speaking.

[Criminal Code, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief and will probably succeed in this endeavour.

In response to the motion introduced earlier by my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Hubert, the hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys did not appear convinced of the need to amend section 717. Therefore, I took the liberty of consulting a dictionary while I was waiting for my turn to speak.

In fact, subsection 717.2(1) of the French version says the following:

717.2(1) Le dossier relatif à une infraction imputée à une personne et comportant, notamment, l'original ou une reproduction des empreintes digitales ou de toute photographie de la personne peut être tenu par le corps de police qui a mené l'enquête à ce sujet ou qui a participé à cette enquête.

The controversy centres on the meaning of the word "tenu". On page 849 of the general Larousse English-French dictionary, the verb "to hold" is translated by "contrôler et avoir la responsabilité de". The hon. member for Saint-Hubert in fact proposes translating the English word "hold" by the most correct French equivalent. I can very well hold the bill in my hands; but that does not necessarily mean that I will keep it for 10 years.

The aim of clause 717.2 is to enable police officials to keep records on offences. If they are to be kept, there must be some control. So, if I take the bill and put it in my desk, I am controlling it. It is archived, and I control it. I do not have it in my hands.

I understand that the English verb "hold" can include a number of things, but there is a specific term, which does not have a negative effect on other legislation. In using the French verb "tenir" in its strictest sense, we talk about holding something in our hands and having immediate and brief control, but we will hold on to it.

The hon. member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys may very well hold his wife in his arms, but that does not mean he controls her. There is a difference between the two.

[Criminal Code, June 6th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I wish to commend the hon. member for Québec for putting forward this bill and convincing the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to make it a votable item. This issue speaks to our fundamental values. I also wish to thank the hon. member for providing me with extensive documentation on the subject.

This issue concerns me as a citizen and a parliamentarian, of course, but also as the father of a 16-year old daughter. I shudder at the thought that, had she been born in a different country, in a different culture, she could have been subjected to the same treatment.

It is surprising and even astounding that the Canadian Criminal Code criminalizes cockfights but contains no specific provisions against female genital mutilation, because it is indeed a form of mutilation. We should not fool ourselves or try to hide behind euphemisms. Female circumcision is simply a euphemism designed to take the edge off a cruel reality. There is no comparison between male circumcision, which can even be a religious rite in some regards, and female genital mutilation. We talked earlier about the full or partial excision of the clitoris. We talked about infibulation, in which healthy organs are mutilated on purpose.

There is something absolutely outrageous about this procedure, and I was surprised to hear my colleague, the hon. member for London West, say earlier that the current provisions of the Criminal Code may be adequate, since they cover bodily harm and assaults causing bodily harm. The problem is that these provisions have been in the Criminal Code for a long time. They have been there for so long that people from other cultures who come to Canada and engage in female genital mutilation do not feel at all that they are guilty of causing bodily harm or of assault causing bodily harm.

These people feel, rightly or wrongly, that they are acting in accordance with their culture. The time has come to send them a clear message. We certainly have no mandate to become cultural imperialists, but we can say: "From the moment you cross the Canadian border, here is what the Parliament of Canada has to say. As long as you are on Canadian territory, you must adopt the following value, which we have adopted as our own-if you mutilate the genital organs of a woman, you are guilty of an indictable offence". I will come back later to the penalty which could be imposed.

This is the message that we should first and above all send, a clear, cultural message that, although we accept certain multicultural values, and many are acceptable, we have to draw the line somewhere, and we draw it here. We must say: We do not want any of this going on in our country. All the better if others follow our example and take the same legislative approach as we have. But we must send the message loud and clear that we have zero tolerance when it comes to the mutilation of female genital organs. We must make sure that everybody gets the message, because we are not only targeting people from other cultures; we are also targeting people on the inside, people who are culturally already Canadians and who, for one reason or another, are looking for excuses for shirking their responsibilities.

The criminalization of genital mutilation of female persons would involve the application of section 21 of the Criminal Code under which everyone is party to an offence who actually commits it, which includes conspiring to commit the offence, being an accessory and attempting to commit the offence. This

would cover far more people, in fact all those who willingly observe the so-called omerta, the law of silence, which is unacceptable in this context, and they will realize that as soon as Bill C-277 is passed. They ought to know that now, and in fact they do. There is an element of wishful blindness on the part of members of the medical profession who agree to engage in the genital mutilation of female persons because they say that if it is done by lay people there would be a risk of infection.

This does not make sense. It is like people who say that at least if we do the excision or infibulation, it is under anaesthetic. There is something very wrong with that type of reasoning. Whether it hurts or not is not the point. The point is whether we are prepared to tolerate such a brutal, I would even say bestial act.

The hon. member for Québec said earlier that 6,000 young girls or young women undergo this horrifying operation every day. I saw it on television once. It was very painful to watch, and it turned my stomach to see a girl of ten or not even that, tied up with a piece of wood in her mouth to keep her from screaming or to stifle her screams. It was awful. These images were horrible. And I think no Canadian who would see this violation of the integrity of the human body could remain unmoved.

I have no problem supporting the bill sponsored by the hon. member for Québec, for the reasons I just mentioned. We must put an end to this because, by tolerating or claiming to tolerate genital mutilation, we are merely giving further credit to a status that for a long time was and in some respects still is the lot of women in Canada and in the western world, to be a second class person.

Remember that female suffrage in Canada only came after the First World War. The first woman to sit in this House, Agnes Macphail, was elected in 1921. For a long time, members of the female sex were considered mere subordinates. It has not always been easy. It is still not easy in this country to take one's womanhood and assert it right to the top.

The reason you are in the chair today is not because you were given the position, but because you and your parents and your grandparents fought to put you there. What a vibrant symbol to have a woman in the chair. We could set an example in various ways, but the point should be made in another respect that, in terms of the status of women, major changes are still required in areas where this still applies.

Equal treatment for women, obviously not only equal under the law-we already have this pretty well everywhere now-, but equal in fact. Equal in fact means having people understand, from the earliest age, that men and women are born, live and die equally-not only in law but in fact. When we accept these principles, we will then be able to advance the status of women in Canada.

One comment on the proposal by my colleague for Québec: the punishment for the offence she proposes to make of the mutilation of genital organs is, in my opinion, not nearly severe enough.

Since a charge of assault causing bodily harm can result in a maximum term of 14 years' imprisonment, I will suggest in committee, because I am sure the House will refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, that the maximum sentence be at least 14 years as well.

The maximum sentence must be the sentence given the worst criminal in the worst situation. In the case of a repeat offence or multiple offences, the five year sentence seems inadequate. This can easily be done in committee. On the principle of the matter, I will support Bill C-277 when the vote is taken.

[Air-India Disaster, May 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleague from Bonaventure-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, I listened to the hon. member for York South-Weston present his motion M-293 regarding the Air India tragedy of June 23, 1985, with great interest.

To demonstrate just how lightly the government of the time took this tragedy, in which 329 travellers, 280 of which were Canadians, most of them of Indian origin, I would mention that the Mulroney government's first gesture was to send its condolences to the Republic of India. That is indicative of how the case was handled. It also helps to understand how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carried out its investigation or, more exactly, did not carry out the investigation.

It is clear, and the hon. member for York South-Weston mentioned this during his representation, that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's approach to the investigation is questionable. The attitude of the RCMP, which apparently put a lid on its own investigation and only assigned staff to the effort part-time, is as questionable as that of CSIS.

Given the scope of this tragedy, 329 deaths as was mentioned earlier-the biggest mass slaughter in the air ever to have been executed at that time-it is obvious that we should go back and take a better look at this case.

Is the royal commission of inquiry requested by the hon. member for York South-Weston the ideal solution? Maybe not. Obviously, ten years after the fact, we will not be able to interview the victims of the tragedy. Obviously, parallel investigations were carried out by organizations in other countries. It may be wise to pool all of the knowledge collected. Nevertheless, the very serious allegations made about CSIS, while not meriting a royal commission of inquiry, certainly should be looked into by the sub-committee on national security.

It would appear that this sub-committee, which is comprised of parliamentarians and would cost taxpayers nothing, contrary to a royal commission of inquiry, is the appropriate body to study the way the Canadian Security Intelligence Service handled this and other cases, where its work has left to be desired. I think it is high time we cleaned up the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

That is why, given all of the investigations that have already been done, since it is highly improbable that the exact causes of the tragedy will ever be found and since almost all avenues of inquiry have already been exhausted, I am of the opinion that creating a royal commission of inquiry would be a waste of money. However, I am in favour of a parliamentary review of the way in which the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carried out its investigation into the matter.

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, May 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the RCMP building comes under the government's responsibility.

Can the Solicitor General tell us if the RCMP's intolerance toward Mr. Laberge reflects the policy that the federal government intends to apply to all federal employees who side with Quebec in the upcoming referendum campaign?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police, May 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General.

After testifying before the commission on Quebec's future, Pierre Laberge, a retired member of the RCMP and CSIS, has now been barred from their Montreal headquarters, where the association of former RCMP and CSIS members holds its meetings. This ban was imposed by, among others, Normand Chamberland, the current director of CSIS for the Quebec region.

How can the Solicitor General justify such retaliatory measures against a retired employee simply because he took part in the proceedings of the commission on Quebec's future?

[Divorce Act, May 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to make a few comments on Bill C-232 tabled by our hon. colleague, the hon. member for Mission-Coquitlam.

Since the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell spoke about the health of the hon. member for Nepean, allow me to point out that we think about her often, especially when we are dealing with issues such as this one which affect the most vulnerable in our society.

The bill before us today is no magic solution. I believe, however, that it is a step in the right direction. Indeed, Quebec, which is concerned about its areas of jurisdiction, has always looked with a very critical eye at amendments to the Divorce Act and to family law, because it knows that we must still live in a federal system for a certain time and tries to balance federal and provincial jurisdictions.

Are we dealing with a filiation problem or a divorce problem? What is the situation? We could debate this for a long time.

In any case, we have before us a provision which would allow grandparents to avoid the additional step required of any third party in divorce proceedings. A neighbour is not treated any differently from a child's grandparent in being granted access or custody rights in divorce proceedings.

That obstacle would be eliminated. In the eyes of the law, grandparents would, for all practical purposes, be reintegrated into the slightly extended family unit. So this provision may be a step forward.

As I said at the outset, we should not see this amendment to the 1985 Divorce Act as a magic solution. A similar provision, which covers all children, whether they were born to married couples or common law partners, has been in effect in Quebec since 1981. Having practised family law since 1981, I can tell you that grandparents are not rushing to make applications to the courts. Since 1981, few grandparents have applied for access in Quebec.

Today, grandparents applying to the courts in Quebec do so only when the conflict is quite serious. Grandparents, the grandfather or grandmother-who should have reached a point in their lives when they could start relaxing a little-often must go against their wishes and say: "Well, I must retain the services of a lawyer, I am going to take my own son or my own daughter, or my son- or daughter-in-law, to court and I am going to take this to the limit, with all of the emotions that go with it". Not many grandparents insist on an all-out battle: their lives already have been one, they have had their children, raised them and worked all of their lives. So, we must not think that this clause will be the magic solution.

However, the fact that such a disposition is even included in the bill could make many divorce lawyers strongly advise their clients to do the following: "Give the grandparents the right to visit their grandchildren. Otherwise, they could take you to court in the future to fight for it".

This kind of provision could prevent a great number of legal disputes and is better than using court cases to settle them.

I also think that we could use our vote on a bill like this one to send a very clear signal to the courts which must interpret these laws, and that is to listen very carefully to the petitions of grandparents before declining their requests for the right to pick up their grandchildren to take them out from noon to four for a pop and a Big Mac and to bring them to a park to play before being forced to take them back home. The courts should perhaps also give them a little more time together, because it takes time to bond. In the era of broken families, we are all aware of how difficult it is to rebuild the ties between our children and their parents and grandparents.

Thus, all of the aspects that have been raised during this debate show that we have the opportunity to help remedy a rampant and very serious social ill. And, although this bill is not perfect, I think it should be passed at second reading and sent for consideration to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.