Mary Clancy

[The Late Arthur Andrew, June 13th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to pay tribute to a truly great Canadian, Ambassador Arthur Andrew.

The late Mr. Andrew was a resident of Halifax and I am proud to say my friend. He made a career out of promoting Canada and Canadian values. He described himself as a professional Canadian; a very accurate phrase indeed. He had a distinguished 32-year career with the Department of External Affairs serving in various high ranking diplomatic posts across the globe, including ambassador to Israel, Sweden and Greece. He was assistant undersecretary of state for External Affairs for three years.

After this major career with the Department of External Affairs, Mr. Andrew became a professor at the University of Kings College in Halifax. While teaching at Kings he continued to be involved in Canadian diplomacy and foreign policy publishing many articles on these issues. He also was one of three founders of the Ethiopian airlift out of Halifax along with our colleague the MP for Don Valley West and Peter Dalglish.

On behalf of the House of Commons I would like to extend my most sincere condolences to Arthur's wife, Joyce; his daughters, Stephanie and Victoria; and to the rest of the family. He was truly a great Canadian.

[Department Of Citizenship And Immigration Act, June 13th, 1994]

Oh no, they will not fall off. The hon. member for Edmonton knows very well that will not happen.

The figures and statistics quoted by the hon. member for Calgary were most puzzling, given in particular that I know he has received many of the briefings from the department. For example, the $30,000 to $50,000 for the processing of a refugee in Canada is far out of line. That is so incorrect as to almost be ludicrous except for the fact that when the hon. member stands in this House and makes this statement with his authority as a member of Parliament, people out there might believe that he was accurate if it was not corrected, if the facts were not brought forward.

It reminds me of the old joke I know what I believe in, don't confuse me with facts. The facts are that when a processing costs that much-oh, they are getting upset, calm down, take a Prozac-it occurs when all avenues of the system are being exhausted. In other words, that includes an appeal to the Federal Court of Canada. It includes all of the side venues that may be taken by a refugee in dealing with the Immigration and Refugee Board. It is not the average. It is not even close to the average. What is particularly offensive is that the hon. member knows that. If he does not know it, he should try and find out.

What we are talking about ostensibly today is the setting up of the immigration and citizenship department. This is long overdue. It is very important. What it does is streamline and modernize government to give government the tools needed to deal effectively with all of the complex citizenship and immigration issues.

On that note, it is necessary to remind hon. members opposite who sometimes look at the area of immigration with perhaps, forgive me, a less than generous attitude of mind that these are very complicated issues. We live in very complicated times.

In my travels around the country since I was honoured to be appointed the parliamentary secretary to the minister, I have talked to many, many people about the subject of immigration. I am absolutely edified every time I come away from town hall meetings, meetings with NGOs, meetings with people who live and work on the front lines of day to day Canadian society dealing with the settlement of new Canadians. I am edified at the generosity, at the open hearts of communities across the country, at the belief in the hearts of average Canadians that immigration is something that built this country, that immigration is good for this country and that continued and expanding immigration can only improve this country. Every one of us here is an immigrant. Whether we came here 50 years ago, 200 years ago or whether, like my hon. colleague the member for the Eastern Arctic, we came across the land bridge from Asia 5,000 years ago, we are all immigrants.

I look around on this side of the House right now. Just in front of me I can see four different ethnocultural backgrounds. Over here in this corner we have too many Irish people. However, that is the glory and the wonder of this country, that we come here together, that we represent all the aspects of Canada at its most diverse and that we continue to do so. Immigration is what made this country strong. Immigration is what made it diverse and immigration is what will keep it strong, diverse and unified.

I think it is a little sad that some of our colleagues are not prepared to understand just how important not just for Canada to thrive but the survival of Canada the continued inter-weaving of this mosaic is. We are not a white-red country. We are not a country that is homogenized and ever so slightly dull. Sometimes it can be a little too exciting living in this country, fortunately not dangerously so but sometimes stressfully so.

I do not think that any one of us, certainly on this side of the House, would change where we live. I do not think we really want to change the conditions under which we live our day to day lives in spite of some of the things we hear from day to day. In spite of some of the things that are said I think we as Canadians understand just how desperately important the peace and security of this country is to our continued success.

Part and parcel of that is the way the government deals with immigration. The government feels so strongly that on the day the government was sworn in the Prime Minister stated that the creation of a separate Department of Citizenship and Immigration under its own minister which would bring together all immigration policy and program activities currently in the Public Security and Human Resources portfolios plus the citizenship registration and promotion programs of the Canadian heritage department would be established. This is what this legislation is doing.

I might make a comment also on some remarks made by the critic from the Official Opposition when he talked about the fact that there was confusion because of overlap between immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism. With the greatest of respect to the hon. member, I beg to differ. I beg to differ with the hon. member on a number of things but I beg to differ, there is no confusion. Yes, there are overlapping areas. This is only sensible and only to be expected because clearly there are areas in all three that tend to come together.

I want to assure the hon. member that the Department of Citizenship and Immigration along with the Department of Multiculturalism are very clear where the complementary and where the overlapping policies lie. This government has a very strong commitment in each of the areas to ensure that policy and program go forward in the best interests of all Canadians from coast to coast.

The hon. member needs to be reassured that we on this side are not confused, just as the hon. member from Calgary needs to be reassured and perhaps to a degree re-educated on the benefits of immigration to Canada. I feel most strongly that the hon. member is missing out both as a member of Parliament and as a Canadian if he continues under this misapprehension with regard to the benefits that immigration brings to this country. I think he also misses out if he feels that somehow the number of people who come to this country-

[Department Of Citizenship And Immigration Act, June 13th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted to rise and take part in this debate today. Although this effectively is basically a piece of housekeeping legislation, it nonetheless has quite significant meaning.

The previous government had moved the Department of Immigration into the realm of public security as if perhaps there was some danger to the security of Canada to be feared from those who choose to come here or who come here to find refuge from countries where law and order and justice and those values that we treasure so dearly in Canada are not treasured quite as dearly.

We on this side of the House do not feel we have anything to fear from people who seek to come to this country for a variety of reasons. We on this side of the House are proud that Canada is one of only four countries in the world which receives people.

There is a certain amount of babbling going on across the way, but I shall endeavour to rise above it. The hon. member from Calgary tells me he is returning the favour. He should return it slightly more sharply. I might appreciate it more.

In any case, there are a number of points that were raised by the other hon. member from Calgary who is the third party critic for immigration and citizenship. A couple of those I would like to address because I was offended. I want to say that I was offended.

I am offended that the hon. member does not think that citizenship is important in this country. I am offended that here in this wonderful and historic Chamber, the Chamber of Laurier and Macdonald and Trudeau, that someone who represents the people of Canada could think that citizenship is not important, that someone could suggest that the people who have been requested to give their opinions on the review of the Citizenship Act are somehow not of importance.

I am surprised this would be the response. I am surprised given the very hard work that has been put in over the last number of weeks and the hard work that will be continued into this review on citizenship. I am surprised and a little bit disappointed. To be quite frank, I am a lot disappointed. However, in the words of a former great cabinet minister in this House, the late Angus L. Macdonald, when he was premier of Nova Scotia, perhaps one should just consider the source.

I have a few other things that I would like to say. First of all, I am absolutely astounded at the numbers that the hon. member suggests are legitimate refugees. We know that the displacements in the world, the horrors in the former Yugoslavia, the problems in numerous African countries, and the problems with totalitarian governments in other areas of this world have created an unprecedented number of refugees.

To hear the hon. member speak, you would think this was not even a ripple on the horizon. That is just not so. There are more refugees than that in one refugee camp. The hon. member should retract that statement. However, I leave that to his notable good judgement.

I am also absolutely astounded at his percentages. There are words that can be quoted, for example his very famous quotation that even the devil can quote Scripture. With regard to his statement that the percentages that we are allowing in are somehow at an unprecedented high, if the hon. member would like to look back just to two or three years ago, he would see that the number of refugees accepted in this country was higher by, I believe, 12 per cent than it is today. Where we are is definitely within the normal realm of acceptance of refugees.

He talked about the 14 per cent that is the world average. Of course that would be the world average if we add in all those myriad countries that do not accept any at all. Either the hon. member's logic or his mathematics tends to suffer. Of course it would be unkind of me to say that, so I will not.

I also want to talk about something the hon. member raised with regard to the fact that people coming into Canada are not tested for HIV and that the minister promised to do something about it four weeks ago. The hon. member should know-I thought he knew; maybe he does not know-that the enabling legislation and regulation on medical matters under this department's aegis has remained unchanged for 40 years.

Perhaps the hon. member advocates a screaming leap into the void by the government without a proper review before bringing in legislation and amendments, but I want to make perfectly clear that neither this minister nor the department has any intention of bringing legislation before this House until it is adequately prepared and until the situation is adequately covered. That is the way good government works, to make sure that when we bring in legislation to change things that definitely need to be changed in this country, that we have covered all the bases. In other words, going from A to B to C to D will probably

prevent grief as opposed to jumping from A to D and probably falling in a ditch, if I may mix my metaphors, on the way there.

[Immigration, June 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member. I guess I have to say that if we could change people's opinions with a mere $1 million, life would be a little easier for all of us in the country.

This is a very broad based consultation. It is going on in every major centre. One person that the hon. member has brought forward says that immigration levels are too high. Admittedly other people say that too, but many other people who are frontline dealers with immigration say differently.

Our promise in the red book was to keep it at 1 per cent. We are consulting with members of the public across the country.

We will continue to do so. When that consultation is finished, we will bring forward a 10-year plan.

[Immigration, June 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has been very clear on what his plan is.

The minister has put in place the largest immigration consultation in the history of Canada. That consultation will culminate in a national forum in September, at which time the plan will come forward. If the member has some patience she will find out in due course.

[Ymca, June 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, today the YMCA movement world-wide celebrates its 150th anniversary. It was 150 years ago today, on June 6, 1844, that George Williams and his colleagues founded the YMCA in London in an attempt to replace disorderly behaviour with constructive activities.

The YMCA's benevolent spirit soon caught the attention of Montreal, thus initiating its expansion throughout Canada and the U.S.

Since its inception the Y has been instrumental in addressing a multitude of social needs. To the implementation of such programs as health and recreation, child care, employment training, literacy and language training and international development aid, the YMCA movement exemplifies the Canadian spirit. This movement has not only helped to build stronger communities and goodwill but it can be said that the YMCA has been instrumental in building the mind, body and spirit of humankind.

Join us today in celebrating the spirit of George Williams' dream and the immeasurable contributions of the YMCA in Canada. It is fitting we should celebrate this on the 50th anniversary of D-Day.

[Supply, June 2nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, do something about him, will you. I did not think I was going to have to come here and give lessons in history but obviously the Reform Party needs it. If he wants to know about the history of this country and what Atlantic Canadians have given in dollars he might talk to his pal across the aisle who did have a history in Atlantic Canada.

He might want to know for example when I brought it up to his friend from the Kootenays earlier today that for over 20 years Atlantic Canadians paid an extra $5 over world price on every barrel of their oil to go directly, my learned friend, into the coffers of the Alberta government to build the oil industry in Alberta.

Nova Scotians, New Brunswickers, P.E. Islanders and Newfoundlanders after their entry into Confederation did it with joy because we are one country. We believe in transfer payments. We believe in equalization payments and we are going to do it whether the hon. member likes it or not.

[Supply, June 2nd, 1994]

There is no such word as granterpreneurship.

[Supply, June 2nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the hon. member's question. I would although ask him to use words that I am familiar with in either of the two official languages.

[Supply, June 2nd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, the member's comments are not causing me any problem; I accept them at face value.

I would like to say a couple of things. First, if the hon. member would like to have a debate on the principles and the reasons for the setting up of Hibernia I suggest that he bring it forward. I would be delighted to debate him on that topic at any time.

However, I came today to talk about regional development in general, and ACOA being the vehicle for that that was the reason that I decided to use ACOA. I understand that the hon. members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are not perhaps aware of what really happens in Atlantic Canada. As an Atlantic Canadian member of Parliament it is my duty to make them aware of it.

I believe that Atlantic Canada is a heaven on earth due to long time Liberal policies. To make it a true heaven on earth, it would perhaps be wise if some people would stop trying to rip the heart out of my country.

To get back to the point I made before to the hon. member, I am glad that he remembers his previous role in a government which pursued, I might add, a scorched earth policy in Atlantic Canada. Those days are over. It is unusual for members of le Bloc to remember that their birth came from the Progressive Conservative government that did such damage in Atlantic Canada. I think it is quite honest and shows a level of integrity in the hon. member that he admits his role in that pernicious government with its pernicious policies and that he is obviously prepared to seek some sort of absolution from those of us in Atlantic Canada.

He is not going to get it. He certainly is not going to get it from me. What he is going to get is good policy, job creation and a belief in every region of this Canada; Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the prairies, the west and the north. One country united, indivisible. As I have said the heart in the province of Quebec remains strong.