Ghislain Lebel

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

Yes, it is a good thing they only have two hands, but they do not seem to know what to do with their two ears. Even if they had no ears at all, it would not change anything, because as much as we try to make them understand and see the evidence for themselves, they do not understand anything. Give them more hands to replace their ears and they would be happy.

This is our tongue in cheek way of saying that this debate is pointless, because they have already made their beds, they already know where they are heading and they are not listening

to what we are saying here, even though it makes sense and even though the public's perception of the government is at stake.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

With a donation to the party, of course. Bill C-61 is awful. For a given violation or offence, a penalty of $2,000, $1,000 or $500 can be meted out, or it can be waived entirely, at the discretion of a public servant who will decide if we are guilty or not and who will assess the degree of guilt depending on whether we belong to the right party or have contributed or not to the election fund. What are we to understand? Where are those great values of openness which the Prime Minister and his colleagues advocated in 1993? Why invite criticism so blatantly? The government could have simply recognized that the amendment makes sense and realized that it was about to make a big mistake. Why not be open to openness? Why not demonstrate openly that they are what they pretend to be? No, that was not meant to be.

Liberals will fight tooth and nail and stop at nothing to reject the amendment moved by the opposition parties concerning the ethics counsellor. It is already bad enough that there is only one counsellor. But if he is going to advise us, it would be perfectly normal that we appoint the counsellor or at least suggest or refuse nominations. All those powers are taken from us, but we are told the ethics counsellor will be our counsellor. Do you not find all this very strange? I wonder where such an attitude is leading us.

When the Pearson airport issue was raised, I told the House that cancelling the contract would cost at least $250 million. The transport minister, in the House at the time, jumped from his seat and said: "That cannot be. It will cost $25, $30 or $35 million at the very most. It is unthinkable that it could cost more than that". Legal proceedings have already cost us $444 million and the matter is not settled yet.

No, they are always the only ones in step, like in the army, they are always the only ones to know the truth and to understand everything, especially the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell with all his phone numbers. They are the only ones who are right. Do you not find this frustrating in the long run?

We are simply asking them-since I do not want to call them hypocrites because apparently it is not a parliamentary expression-to stop burying their heads in the sand. They are all for women when we debate women's issues, but they are against women when we talk about the budget. It is always the same thing. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. While the right hand was saving money, the left hand was putting us $600 billion in the red. That is what the Liberal Party is all about. We talk about the old approach and a renewed approach, but it is one and the same.

[Lobbyists Registration Act, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there is a principle in law which says that one should always be presumed to be in good faith. I do not wish to use the tabling of Bill C-43 and its amendments as an excuse to go against that principle.

Yet, I find it somewhat strange that a government which used any means it could during the 1993 election, namely in the famous Toronto airport case, and swore left and right that once elected it would impose an ethics code and put some order in the scheming of lobbyists on Parliament Hill, I find it strange that this government now puts forward those concrete proposals. I also found that strange when the bill was introduced. I was among the privileged who received a short briefing the morning the bill was introduced. I was there with the leader of my party when counsellors from Justice, Industry or Commerce-I forget which-gave us a crash course on the bill.

I could already see that with the title of ethics counsellor the government had toned down those nice principles it defended in its red Bible, which was probably red with shame since the electoral campaign. The title ethics counsellor reminds me of a style of politics "à la" Pol Martin: you have recipes for favouritism and political influence. As the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell said earlier, the success of that law depends on all members and ministers. Therefore, why not acknowledge their wishes and appoint an ethics counsellor by means of a motion in this House?

You know, it is quite something to have judicial independence. This ethics counsellor will have to make rulings on quasi-judicial issues. He will have to make value judgments about the actions of members of Parliament. He will really perform a quasi-judicial function. The independence of the courts has always been recognized, whether they are judicial or administrative tribunals or, as we call them, quasi-judicial courts.

But the party that is now in office does not want to get involved in this sort of thing. It seems peculiar to me that the Prime Minister is the only one to whom the ethics counsellor is accountable, even if I do not want to assume that he would act in bad faith. The judicial courts judges who were supposed to be

charged higher parking fees in the Justice Department buildings, in Quebec, rose up against this practice, not long ago, giving as an excuse their need for independence, their need to cut all links with the administration or the executive, that is, the legislative power.

I did not really understand their reaction at that time, but in this case, it is crystal clear. The only one who will be entitled to appoint the ethics counsellor is the Prime Minister. The only one to be able to call him to account is also the Prime Minister. Again, he can only be dismissed by the Prime Minister. Now, I am told that this counsellor will be impartial, that he will not feel that the Prime Minister is trying to appeal to his emotions, depending on whether his opinions are negative or positive.

Really, all this is nothing more than a dog's dinner. Why not let Parliament, the House of Commons, all of us here make the decision through legislation about the appointment of this official. There is another side to these things. During the campaign, the Prime Minister talked about how this scheme would be nice, great, pure and neat. Now he comes up with a piece of legislation that is not clear and is stifled by its own interpretation. Bill C-43 and other bills, particularly Bills C-61 and C-62 with their infamous clauses opening the doors to lobbyists as never before, look like an invitation to lobbyists saying: "From now on the place is wide open, come and make your representations".

Let us consider clause 9 of Bill C-62: "The designated regulatory authority-" Now we have regulatory authorities. Who are they? They are public servants. "-must evaluate and decide whether to approve the proposed compliance plan-" Let us take, for example, the candy maker who decides to replace white sugar with brown sugar. He comes here and talks to the official who buys that idea, saying it is all right. Do you think that a provision like this one in clause 9 of Bill C-62 does not represent an invitation to abuse? With those compliance plans, one will be able to replace anything with anything, anytime, anywhere.

If that is not an invitation to lobbyists to come to the Hill and do their job, I do not know what it is. Bill C-61, now, is even worse.

[Readjustment Act, 1995, April 6th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening closely to the parliamentary assistant and I thought it was rather presumptuous of her to state without any doubt that Quebecers do not support the theory of Quebec's sovereigntists. Although it is true that Quebecers rejected the Charlottetown agreement which kind of guaranteed Quebec 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons, I want to point out to the hon. member that English-speaking Canadians and the residents of the rest of Canada also voted against the agreement.

So, she should not blame us for the failure of the Charlottetown agreement. I would also remind the hon. member that her leader, the current Prime Minister of Canada, warmly welcomed in his party the man who torpedoed the Meech Lake accord. I also want to take this opportunity to say to the hon. member that it is not because the sovereignty option is currently down in the polls that one must conclude that Quebecers support the federalist option.

I think that, for various reasons, but mostly because of everything that is going on, because of previous threats they have received, because of fear-mongering, Quebecers are reluctant to opt for this avenue, but remember that a marriage run by fear is not a happy one. The hon. member should remember this, because with the growing debt and the deficit they will never get rid of-although they will never admit to it-one day they will have to say to Quebecers: "Please, leave. We are no longer able to afford to be so big, so fat. We can no longer afford all this splendour".

This will quickly put an end to the member's rejoicing. So, I would ask her to be a little less presumptuous and to tell us what is wrong with giving Quebecers 25 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons, when they used to have, at the very beginning of Confederation, almost 50 per cent of them?

I want to remind the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell that Confucius said that the hen has no business ruling the farmyard.

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 1995]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me at this time. The firearms bill introduced by the Minister of Justice is motivated by the best of intentions. I am sure.

Who in this House is for violence? Who does not want control to be exercised over violence? I do not think anyone in this place or in the general public does. Polls show that 100 per cent of the population is against violence, and already 73 per cent of the population says it wants stricter firearms control.

In this regard, the views of my party are no different from those expressed by the public at large. It is just that, sometimes, debates such as this one lend themselves to extremes that need to be moderated. When I hear certain members opposite tell us that 73 per cent of the population is for the proposed firearms control measures, I cannot help but wonder if all these people who are for the control measures are aware of what implementing such a system entails and how much it will cost.

A study conducted by a British Columbia university professor indicates that there are between three and seven million firearms in circulation and, if all of these weapons now had to be registered, it would cost the Canadians taxpayers, the public purse, or the hunters at the very least $500 million. That is half a billion dollars.

Of course, these figures are just thrown at us. Can they be checked? It would be rather difficult. On the other hand, if we look up in the auditor general's 1993 report how much the present registration system or firearms acquisition certificate system has cost to operate-these figures are now available- we can see that an inefficient and counterproductive system costs at the very least $50 million.

I did not pressure in any way the Auditor General of Canada to say that the current system fell short of our requirements. There is therefore reason to believe that the proposed system may well

have a starting cost of $500 million. In the current economic context, I wonder if clear information regarding the costs involved would have made a difference in how the public answered the poll.

Needless to say, this kind of bill leaves the door wide open to sheer demagogy. It has been said that even if this bill saved only one life in Canada, it would deserve our support. I say this with all due respect for the opinion of my colleagues across the way who made that claim, including the hon. member for Ottawa West, who spoke to this bill yesterday, the hon. member for Lachine-Lac-Saint-Louis and the hon. member for Nickel Belt.

Of course, I would try to contribute to the $500 million needed to save a life. However, if we invested this amount in public awareness, in the fight against spousal abuse-if that is really the purpose of this bill-, I would not think it is too much. I am convinced that investing $500 in one of these areas could certainly save more than one life, at least two, as I am sure you will agree, Mr. Speaker. This bill would then be 100 per cent cost-effective in relation to the position of my friends across the way.

There is another aspect to this bill. In this regard, I tend to side with my friends here who say that this bill should be split in two. First of all, by giving the federal government the opportunity to create new crimes as it sees fit, this bill will-in Quebec and, I assume, in all Canadian provinces-encroach on areas of provincial jurisdiction, namely civil rights and freedoms as well as the sport of hunting.

In this regard, I am very reluctant to give my support, unless it is conclusively demonstrated that the bill cannot fail to achieve the goals established. As you know, hunting generates regional revenues of $300 million a year in Quebec at a specific time of year.

This is a windfall for most Quebec regions: the Eastern Townships, the Upper Laurentians, the Abitibi-Témiscamingue area, the Lac Saint-Jean region, the North Shore, the Gaspé Peninsula, you name it. In these regions, some small communities live off sport and recreational activities such as hunting in the fall and fishing in the spring and summer. They could lose all of that. I am not saying that I oppose this bill, but I wonder about its consequences, which may not be obvious at this stage.

However, I do think this is a prime example of federal interference in a field of provincial jurisdiction. The Quebec environment minister also had reservations about this legislation. Sure, the initial intent is laudable and everyone supports such a measure, the Bloc perhaps more than any other party. However, given the current economic context, we have to be careful before adding an extra $500 million to the deficit. Let us not forget that our deficit is the sum total of 20 years of good intentions in Quebec. It is thanks to all those who meant well and tabled various pieces of legislation if we are now struggling with this uncontrolled and uncontrollable deficit.

As regards this aspect, I hope that those who support this legislation, as well as those who oppose it, will come to present their respective views to a parliamentary committee. There is another aspect of this bill which concerns me. I said earlier that we should make sure that the goals sought are indeed reached. In addition to being able to afford all this, we should have some assurances that these objectives are reasonably attainable. When we consider the opportunities for smuggling, in his study Professor Mauser said he is not at all sure that smuggling will be stopped.

In fact, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police expressed some reservations in this respect. The Reform Party's brilliant representative said earlier that a single shipment of guns can generate incredible profits, as much as 400 or 500 per cent. That is quite a lot. We had a terrible time trying to stop cigarette smuggling last year. We never succeeded, so that the federal government finally abdicated its responsibility and reduced taxes, although it needed these to pay for its current operations. It is no secret that the government raises revenue through taxes. Since the government realized it could not stop cigarette smuggling otherwise, it preferred to forgo revenues that were legally acceptable and warranted.

So will it be the same in the case of firearms? Will the government abdicate its responsibility, will they still shoot at government helicopters about to land on a reserve straddling the border between Canada and the United States, the message being: "Get out of here, this is our business". At least, that is what happened with cigarettes. I would appreciate some certainty in this respect, some assurances that smuggling is a thing of the past.

You know, we have another problem with imports not necessarily connected with smuggling. Recently, I was working on the Customs Act and the notorious procedure I mentioned here in the House during Question Period, the so-called low value shipment, a term used in the customs sector. For instance, a truck comes in from the United States, a bonded carrier with a shipment of merchandise, and they do spot checks. They look at the manifest, they look at the list and they say: Okay, Mickey Mouse watches, straw hats, whatever. They do a spot check. They take items at random from the truck and check whether these items correspond with what is on the manifest.

Customs officers told me that in nine cases out of ten, if not ten out of ten, they might be carrying a handgun or a firearm that is not only restricted but prohibited in Canada. In nine cases out of ten this would go unnoticed.

So that is why I have a number of questions about this bill. I am not saying I am against the bill but I am not saying I support it either. I think we should all discuss this. That is why we are debating the bill here in the House, so that in the end, we can make an informed decision.

[War Measures Act, March 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my Reform colleague for his good judgment and honest approach. As for the hon. member for Nickel Belt, once more he did what the federalists have always wanted done when dealing with Quebec, that is getting a French Canadian to use strong arm tactics against other French Canadians.

I am pleased to rise on this motion, introduced by my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Mégantic-Compton-Stanstead. In 1970, I was 24, I was married and the father of a young child, therefore old enough to appreciate what was going on in Canada at the time.

Young Quebecers, troubled by inequalities, injustices and the lack of opportunities in Canadian businesses, had joined in the fight against the injustices suffered by the Quebec people. They used means which we still disapprove of and which were definitely wrong.

The Prime Minister of the time, Mr. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was in the third year of his mandate and he decided, after several cabinet meetings, to put Quebec back in its place. Several Quebec ministers sat in on those cabinet meetings, including, to name just a few, the present Prime Minister, then Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development; Mr. Jean-Luc Pepin, Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce; Mr. Gérard Pelletier, Secretary of State and Jean Marchand, people who used to be called, in Quebec, the three doves, but whose hearts were

blacker than the blackest raven to be found along Highway 417, coming into Ottawa.

This small group decided at cabinet level to invoke the War Measures Act, an act which, previously, had only been used in wartime. Invoking the War Measures Act was enough in itself to traumatize the people of Quebec which, at the time, was overwhelmingly federalist and solidly disapproved of the actions of the Front de libération du Québec.

The only other time this legislation was implemented was during the conscription riots, in Quebec, in 1918. What was different in the October crisis is that Canada was not at war. In those days, Canada had three guns; I will remind you that two of them were pointing at the crowd in Quebec City, while the third one had gone to war in Europe. This is the kind of attention that was paid to Quebecers in those days. And the great Canadian army in all this? October 16, 1970 marked the first instance of what was to become the army's trade-mark, namely action involving civilian populations.

We saw what it led to, last year, in Mogadishu, in Somalia. We saw the results of such involvement. The military trained in Quebec City and in Montreal, and had their finest moment in Somalia. I remember when the soldiers arrived in Montreal. I was 24, I remember well. They wore helmets and battle fatigues with locust tree branches stuck here and there. They carried a canteen, their pants were dragging on the ground, and they jammed their loaded M-1s in the ribs of secretaries and workers on their way to the bus. What a show our great beautiful military gave. During the Gulf War, it cost us $300 million to send our soldiers to keep watch over latrines and tanker-trucks. This was the same army which had practised on Quebec civilians. There is nothing to be proud of. At any rate, I am not.

The War Measures Act gave certain powers to the governor in council in case of war, invasion or insurrection. It stripped citizens of their democratic and civil rights. The executive reigned supreme and could act unchecked. The state of insurrection only existed in the mind of the then Prime Minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and of the members of his Cabinet, including the current Prime Minister who was there then.

Things had been on the move in Quebec from the early 1960s. Instruments of democracy were sprouting left and right. The Caisse de placement et de dépôt du Québec, the nationalization of electricity and the health insurance plan threatened the very existence of powerful economic interests owned by the English Canadian and British establishment. This situation had gone on for too long, and it was time to end any idea of Quebec autonomy.

The then prime minister attacked Quebec nationalism, just as the military commanders of ancient times tried to batter down the main gate of towns under siege, for once this gate was breached, the towns were sure to fall. On closer examination, this was not the first time the military machine had gone to the aid of the political arm when the latter had exhausted its means of persuasion.

In addition to the episode in 1918 that I mentioned earlier, there were also the incidents involving native peoples and Métis in western Canada between 1870 and 1884. A truly magnificent army.

In 1837-38, there were not only francophone Patriotes, there were also anglophone Reformers, and they were simply asking for the establishment of responsible government and the application in their jurisdiction of the principles of justice, fairness and freedom.

Terrorism, from whatever sector of society, is no less an attack on the basic principles of human existence, and Central Canada and several English-speaking provinces have resorted to it too often. I would remind the brilliant senator, who in his time, sympathized with the Parti national social chrétien-the famous blue shirts of Adrien Arcand-and who recently expressed his concerns about Quebec nationalism, that the Governor General drew a comparison between the deportation of the Acadians and an all-expenses-paid Club Med vacation.

Manitoba's language laws, which were declared ultra vires by the Supreme Court of Canada nearly 100 years after they produced their perverse effect; and the unilateral abolition of powers at the Privy Council in London, which deserves a closer look. It is a little like divorce. Both spouses would like to go before the court to settle their differences but the wife could say, for example: "No, my mother will decide which one of us is right". That is about what the abolition of powers at the Privy Council in London amounts to. Imagine the kind of justice that can come out of this. It was then the only body still able to look at both sides and to occasionally restore a semblance of justice for Canada's francophones.

There was also Ontario's famous Regulation 17 prohibiting French-language schools on its territory. That is an act of terrorism. The Indian Act-back when the legislation referred to them as savages-was aimed at confining this country's first inhabitants to well defined areas. I would remind this brilliant senator that his art would never have taken him to the pinnacle of his career in the other place where he now sits, if he had worked in Sault Ste. Marie or Queen's Park. The Minister of Canadian Heritage summed up my thoughts the other day in this House when he started talking about sheep; you can imagine the rest.

Do this brilliant senator and the Minister of Industry know that the first Jew to be elected to public office in Canada was Ezechiel Hart, who became the member for Trois-Rivières in Quebec's Legislative Assembly in 1908, and that he was dismissed by order of the British government? He did not have the right to sit in Parliament because he was Jewish. Catholics were only recognized by the government in London in 1828. Senator

Roux and the anglophones who claim that Quebec nationalism is unhealthy should be reminded of that.

Everyone agrees now that the War Measures Act denied the most fundamental rights to hundreds of Quebecers. Take for example the arbitrary arrest of these individuals by police bursting into their homes, arresting them without a warrant and detaining them for several days, and even weeks in some cases, without even allowing their families to be informed.

I am not denying that this was an extremely volatile situation, but the measures taken were far too extreme. Did our so-called civilized society not assume, for a short while, the likeness of a dictatorship? I would have so much to say, but I know that a strict count of time is kept. Let me just say that, for these 32,000 searches, Quebecers are entitled if not to financial compensation, at least to an apology. It is the least once can expect.

Apologies have been made to the Italians, the Japanese, the Chinese. It seems to me that apologies should also be made to every francophone in Canada, and more particularly to those in Quebec, for blunders such as the one made in 1970.

[Borrowing Authority Act, 1995-96, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to what the Reform member was saying, and I did not have much to add until she made her last point on the topic of the debt. Although the government is dealing with the debt, the way it is doing it is not to her liking. I agree with her. But, I have the impression that the Reform Party takes the following position: any person in debt will have to starve for the next three years.

That seems to be the case, and that is what I am having trouble understanding. Of course, we can cut year after year and try to reduce the debt, strive to reach the three per cent benchmark, but we cannot say, tomorrow, that we will stop eating. I would not be able to keep working, I would not earn very much and I would not be able to pay very much either. I would be interested in hearing how her draconian cuts would reduce over the next three years the some $30 billion deficit we have now and which is mostly caused by the debt, and I agree with her in principle that it must be done. But I would like to know more about her starvation ideology.

[Supply, March 23rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his brilliant speech. He raises a point which I noticed on a number of occasions. I live in the riding of Chambly which, as you know, is adjacent to the riding of Saint-Hubert, where the base of the same name is located, and where, each spring, some 75 to 100 members of the armed forces would be transferred from the base to another location, and vice versa.

There is one aspect of the costs which the member did not mention, but I essentially agree with his comments. In a given year, some 20 colonels and majors posted to Saint-Hubert would buy houses in Saint-Bruno, which is in the riding of Chambly, and borrow perhaps $100,000 from some bank for that purpose.

The following year, these same people would be transferred elsewhere in Canada. It would cost them some $5,000 in penalty to liquidate their mortgage. They also had to pay $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 and sometimes even $8,000 or $10,000 in commission, depending on the value of their house, to sell that house. Since these people would often not manage to sell their house, the

government relocation services would take the house back and support it for quite a while.

These people would then relocate in another Canadian city. I know that, in Ontario, members of the armed forces currently enjoy mutation rights on property transfers, for amounts of $1,000, $1,200 or $1,500 spent by the government as refunds. All these benefits were in addition to those related to the move and which the hon. member who spoke before me just mentioned.

Consequently, the transfer of military personnel from Saint-Hubert to Petawawa, and vice versa, involved huge amounts of money.

I would probably be stunned to hear the actual cost of this musical chair exercise within the armed forces. However, I will admit that this was not necessarily a bad thing for those who benefitted from it, including myself as a lawyer. Still, we could not help but wonder how a country that claims to be orderly and one of the best as a member of the G7 group-at least this is what we are told by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance-could manage in such a way.

I want to ask the hon. member if he had an opportunity to look at this aspect of military transfers in Canada.

[Supply, March 21st, 1995]

Madam Speaker, when the parliamentary secretary refers to her committee, I hope she is kidding. There are two distinct components in the CBC, the French network and the English network, but the committee which she is a part of comprises a majority of English-speaking people, who are Liberal on top of that. It is therefore pretty difficult to get parity.

It is like putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank. Would she please explain to us how she intends to be fair in this committee, where anglophones form the majority, so that the interests of the francophones in the CBC are defended?

[Supply, March 16th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for her remarkable speech. I have seldom had the opportunity to listen to such a long speech made by her and I want to congratulate her. Her speech is full of good intentions and I can tell she knows this issue thoroughly.

I am not rising to blame anyone. Unfortunately, in spite of all the policy statements and the good intentions expressed on both sides of this House, on the government side, there seems to be a distortion between what they say and what they do.

We have had many days like today where we discussed the status of women. I remember last December 6 was one of those. The women of the Liberal Party joined the Bloc Quebecois women to denounce the sometimes tragic situation of women.

However, in our daily lives, in our bills, we seem to forget all the promises, all the good intentions and we just brush honourable thoughts under the carpet. For example, the Liberal members and ministers, and perhaps even the minister who just spoke whom I regard and respect highly, are not opposed to measures like the one implemented in last year's budget, which takes into account a husband's salary to determine if a woman will be entitled to unemployment insurance benefits.

When we proposed other legislation, what did they do? Did they fight for child care? I know they are all good human beings and I respect them, but they are just not there when time comes to keep promises, turn words into deed and principles into actions. Unfortunately, they then often slip away.

I said at the beginning of my comments that I did not want to criticize. On the contrary, I hope that, like the health minister, women in the Liberal Party will be able to put pressure on their male colleagues, who are the majority, so that they take some actions in favour of women.

Do not be surprised if it is a man who is telling you this today. I have three beautiful daughters whom I love as much as my son, and I see that the future that we are preparing for them, the environment that they will have to work in, is not always to their advantage.

I am not asking for special privileges for women. I am simply asking that they be treated the same way as men and, often, as some minorities. In Canada, our women are not treated as well as some minorities, and I feel that this is not right.

I thank the minister for her fine speech. We can tell that she knows the subject and that her intentions are good. What I am asking her is, does she intend to promote her ideas within her own party?