Shaughnessy Cohen

[Committees Of The House, April 2nd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present in both official languages the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights. Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 11, 1998 your committee has considered Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canada Evidence Act and the Criminal Code in respect of persons with disabilities, to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act in respect of persons with disabilities and other matters and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Your committee has agreed to report it with amendments. In doing so I would like to thank witnesses who appeared before the committee, my colleagues on the committee and of course our clerical and research staff who were very helpful.

[Petitions, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition calls upon the government to provide a settlement to existing human rights complaints based on pay equity and to cease treating workers differently based on gender.

[Petitions, March 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am tabling today two petitions, both on behalf of the member for Windsor West and myself.

The first petition calls upon Parliament to enact legislation making it illegal for persons under the age 19 to possess tobacco or tobacco products.

[Points Of Order, March 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, there are three things that are very important here.

One is that the justice committee, and in particular the chair of the justice committee to whom some of this seems to be addressed in the person of myself, has every intention of following the order of the House that we received in our committee through our clerk.

Number two, we take very seriously the issue of impaired driving in this country. I have confirmed to at least one justice critic in the last 24 hours the significance of that review and the fact that I am looking forward to undertaking it.

Number three, had the Reform House leader referred to the proceedings of the committee in preparing for today, and he may have, I do not know, he would have found that we even talked at some point about how extensive this review would be.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, it is important for you to know that when we received the order of reference from Journals branch the order of reference was not time dated. There was no reference in that order to May 15.

As a result of that, apparently the member who is interested in this motion in the first place wrote to me. We have heard part of the letter. The rest of the letter indicates an undertaking, as I recall from writing the letter which I do not have here, that we would deal with this issue as soon as we possibly could.

It is important however for the House to know that this schedule is not drawn up in a vacuum. This schedule is drawn up after consultation not just with a steering committee but with all members of the committee who represent all parties. I point out that the Reform Party has three members on that committee, none of whom has ever suggested that this is of the highest priority to them.

There is a problem here and that is assuming the order we received from the House was not time dated, and I believe that to be the case, then what do we put aside in order to accommodate the interest of a member of Parliament who is not a member of the committee and who does not attend our committee proceedings? Do we tell victims of crime on whose work we are operating that their work is less important than the work of this member? Do we tell persons with disabilities that we are sorry, we cannot work on the amendments to the human rights code right now because we have to do work that has come to us from outside our committee? Do we tell the victims of crime, the police community and others that we are sorry that we cannot do our work to establish a DNA data bank because one member of the Reform Party has another agenda?

This is a terrible situation in which our committee is put. I see you signalling me, Mr. Speaker, but there is a lot more at operation here than would be suggested.

Let me say this, Sir. We have never sought to defy, directly or indirectly or inadvertently, an order of this House. The order we have does not—

[Points Of Order, March 24th, 1998]

You should not have walked out.

[The Late Yves Landry, March 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, this morning Canadians learned with great sadness of the sudden passing of Yves Landry, chair, president and CEO of Chrysler Canada.

Mr. Landry, a constituent of Windsor—St. Clair, was truly a great Canadian: a federalist, a leading industrialist, an officer of the Order of Canada, chair of Canada's millennium scholarship fund, a leader in our Windsor community and in the nation.

Yves Landry made a personal commitment to many causes. More important, he brought the Chrysler corporation to the table with him. The environment, the education and training of Canadian youth, and health care were among the causes he championed.

To the families and friends of Yves Landry we offer our condolences. His was a vision of Canada which we must work to keep alive.

[Petitions, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the third is also from the riding of Windsor West and requests that Parliament adopt an official pledge of allegiance to the Canadian flag after consulting with Canadians on its wording.

[Petitions, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is primarily from the riding of Windsor West and asks Parliament to ensure that a gentleman by the name of Mr. Suresh not be deported and requests his immediate release.

[Petitions, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege to table three petitions today.

One is from the riding of Windsor—St. Clair and asks the Government of Canada to review the mandate of the CRTC with respect to the licensing of religious broadcasters.

[The Late Mark Macguigan, February 4th, 1998]

Mr Speaker, earlier this month Canadians lost a wonderful judge and former parliamentarian, the Hon. Mark MacGuigan of the Federal Court of Appeal.

Mark MacGuigan represented Windsor—St. Clair which was known then as Windsor—Walkerville in this House for 16 years. Others will speak of him later today. Some spoke of him yesterday at a memorial service. On February 14 there will be a memorial service in Windsor at which others, including his constituents, will speak.

Let me say this to those of us who are here and particularly those of my colleagues who did not know Mark MacGuigan. For those of us on the backbench who sometimes wonder what kind of an effect we are having, I suggest that you measure your progress by that of the late Hon. Mark MacGuigan. As a member of this House, he was the father of our Constitution. He led those debates and he led those committee discussions prior to 1982. As a civil libertarian and as a backbencher, he also became the father of our great charter.