Lee Morrison

[Criminal Code, October 3rd, 1996]

What about Statistics Canada?

[Criminal Code, October 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I hope we can interpret the hon. member's statement as saying that there may be an amendment to this bill to make it equally applicable to all sectors of society.

My specific question deals with the hon. member's reference to statistics. I do not know how much he knows about the subject. I know a considerable amount because it is part of my background. It is very easy to pull a short section out of a statistical trend and say look, it is rising, it is dropping. If we are going to study a trend we have to study it over a reasonable period of time. I will grant that over the last couple of years there has been a very minor drop in the rate of violent crime in the country. But if we look at the statistics from about 1962 onward we can see many positive and negative blips. There is no such thing as a flat statistic trend.

Then the hard fact of the matter is that the rate of violent crime in Canada since 1962 has increased by almost 400 per cent. I suspect the hon. member knows that. I wish that when he uses statistics he would use them a little more broadly and generously.

[Criminal Code, October 3rd, 1996]

Then there would be less work for lawyers.

[Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, September 27th, 1996]

Things will change now.

[Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, September 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Just as in the case of Bill S-9, the alternative fuels act, we have 295 members of Parliament, most of whom are technological illiterates, attempting to referee between two powerful corporate lobbies. The cabinet is divided, but the government, for whatever reason, is going to persist in ploughing ahead with this legislation.

The red herring of health effects keeps being mentioned. It was brought up during questions and comments after the last speaker.

I would like to quote from the health protection branch of Health and Welfare Canada, which in 1992 issued a paper on the health impact of MMT. It concluded that based on current evidence, experts at Health and Welfare Canada are confident that the risk to human health from MMT derived manganese is extremely small. There is clearly a wide margin of safety between the current intake of manganese from MMT and the lowest concentrations of airborne manganese known to cause any health effects.

Let us be clear. We are not here debating a health issue, we are here debating a dispute between two industrial sectors, the automotive manufacturers on one hand and the petroleum producers on the other. It has absolutely nothing to do with health.

I understand that the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association came to the government requesting that legislation be introduced to ban MMT. It claims it causes problems to its onboard diagnostic systems, which I will hereafter refer to as OBDs.

The government claims it has attempted to negotiate some sort of a settlement between the automobile and petroleum industries. However, the former environment minister, who happened to represent an industrial area in southern Ontario, promised a ban on MMT before any fruitful talks could even take place. Clearly this has prejudiced any negotiations from the outset.

To encourage the government to move forward with legislation the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association informed the government that if MMT is not removed from gasoline its members will void warranties for new model cars, thereby inconveniencing thousands of Canadians who become car owners. And to ensure its point is appreciated and to exert a little bit of blackmail pressure, the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association has threatened to charge Canadian consumers an additional $3,000 per car to offset the costs associated with OBD warranty claims.

The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association claims that it can validate its allegation that MMT causes malfunctions of its OBD systems. However, it will not make its research publicly available for review. It is worth noting that a U.S. court of appeals has stated that the automakers evidence, whatever it is, has not come close to refuting the Environmental Protection Agency's claim that MMT does not contribute to or cause the failure of OBD systems.

The claim that MMT negatively affects the functioning of OBDs in Canada has to be questioned given that the automakers have long been experiencing similar problems in the United States where until last year MMT was banned. So in the absence of MMT the car companies in the United States have fingered a very wide and diverse range of culprits for their problems. And these include sulphur in the fuel, which I suspect is probably the major one, cold weather, high altitude and road conditions.

Are we going to have the government taking action on these fronts as well? We could get our national highway system fixed up a bit, and a lot of Canadians would really appreciate a federal ban on cold winter weather.

The Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association has also succeeded in creating the impression with some of our hon. colleagues that the failure of OBD systems contributes to increased air pollution. That is false. OBDs are monitoring systems. They have nothing to do with the actual emissions of the automobile. So it has been necessary for the car makers, in order to cover their own failings in the design of their OBDs, to link this problem to the environment because otherwise they would not have got through the doors of the various Liberal ministers responsible. We had Liberal ministers of the environment introducing some very ill conceived legislation.

In theory one would expect that a minister of the environment would have very little in common with automobile manufacturers. After all, what is the leading cause of smog? It is the automobile. If we take MMT out of automobile fuels, we will have more smog. That, at least, is beyond scientific dispute.

On the other side of this issue there is the petroleum industry, which uses MMT to boost octane to make a cleaner burning gasoline, and there are the producers of MMT. They dispute the claims of the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association and point to scientific research done in the United States as part of one of the most extensive testing programs to date conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA test results demonstrated conclusively that MMT in gasoline does not cause or contribute to the failure of any emission control device or system.

The Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, which represents the majority of petroleum refining and marketing entities in Canada, has stated that it is strongly opposed to the proposed ban and has made efforts to have the Minister of the Environment see its perspective on this issue.

Here it is, two of the most powerful corporate lobbies in Canada both fighting for the attention of the minister on this issue, both presenting scientific data. We do not know really how much of the scientific data are valid because we have not properly addressed the issue.

The committee is where this should be dealt with. There should be a lot of witnesses coming in. We should not be jumping into this with both feet and playing favourites between these two groups of corporate giants.

The Canadian Petroleum Products Institute wants the Minister of the Environment to allow industry, both parties, to examine the effects of MMT through a facts based joint assessment conducted by impartial scientific observers. The minister has ignored calls for an independent testing program and is still forging ahead with this legislation.

I fail to understand how the Minister of the Environment and his colleagues can justify taking our time to review a situation when what obviously needs to happen is that the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute and the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association should solve their own problems between them. We do not need government intervention on this.

Why does the government, specifically the Minister of the Environment, feel so compelled to get involved in an industry dispute? If the government decided that it did have to intervene, one would at least have expected that it would do so based on scientific facts and not pander to either one political lobby or the other.

If we are going to restrict interprovincial trade, which is very deeply embedded in this legislation, one would have thought that the provinces would have been consulted. Seven provinces, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, are all resoundingly opposed to this bill. Rather than creating green grass, the environment minister

seems to be expanding his turf war with the provinces by pushing ahead with Bill C-29.

I would like to quote briefly from examples of some of the provincial opposition. A letter dated May 14 from Premier Klein of Alberta said: "I am deeply troubled about the unilateral manner in which this issue was decided and implemented. There is a need for strong federal-provincial agreement and co-operation on national environmental issues such as air quality".

On May 1, 1996 the Quebec National Assembly unanimously approved the following resolution: "That the national assembly request the postponement of federal Bill C-29 concerning the gasoline additive MMT as long as environmental studies have not been conducted in a conclusive manner". I might add, not conducted in a properly scientific manner.

About 10 days ago Manitoba and Newfoundland joined with the other provinces in requesting that this very ill thought out legislation be slowed down. It is the provinces that will bear the direct deleterious result of the removal of MMT from gasoline which is the significant increase in emissions of nitrogen oxide. It seems reasonable to think that they should therefore have a voice in this decision.

In fact, the ban of MMT will mean that the provinces will be required to forfeit the most cost effective method of reducing smog causing agents in gasoline, and they will be required to accommodate anywhere from a 16 per cent to a 20 per cent increase in nitrous oxide emissions.

Calls to the government to identify what will replace MMT are still unanswered. No scientific testing is planned and it is difficult to predict what is going to happen next. Surely the government has something in mind to replace MMT.

Clearly all Canadians hope the members opposite will not support this bill without putting forward a credible plan to deal with increased urban smog.

We have made good progress toward reducing our nitrous oxide content of emissions in this country, but with this legislation we run the risk of wiping out those gains and saddling ourselves with increased problems. We are clearly moving in the wrong direction.

Therefore rather than construct environmental policy on speculation and half baked voodoo science, what is needed is some leadership from the government. If we are to address the problem of worsening air quality in Canada the auto companies and the oil companies must work together. It is equally clear that there is a need to have the federal and provincial governments co-operate on environmental issues of this nature.

The way to accomplish this is obvious. Withdraw this bill, do some decent scientific work and come back to this House when you know what you are doing.

[Business Contracts, September 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Cooperation.

When Markham Electric bid on a Caribbean development contract in Belize it underbid its two main competitors by a very large amount. Markham has been arbitrarily excluded by this minister from bidding on a contract in Mali and guess what? Those two high priced competitors are on the minister's list.

Since the minister's policy is clearly to favour Quebec companies, my question is how much does his preferential treatment for his few hand picked buddy-buddy firms cost the Canadian taxpayer?

[Prisons And Reformatories Act, September 24th, 1996]

It is when you escape.

[Criminal Code, September 24th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc has proposed that Bill C-45 be hoisted for six months. I think that is a splendid idea. I would like to see the bill hoisted indefinitely, if not forever. Then maybe the justice committee would have time for a little sober second thought and could allow this House to pass judgment on the private member's bill of the member for York South-Weston. However, we know that is not going to happen because the juggernaut is rolling.

Bill C-45 is typical of our justice minister's philosophy which values the rights of criminals far more than the rights of law-abiding, taxpaying, decent citizens. This philosophy does not just show up in Bill C-45. There is a pattern. For example, look at Bill C-68 which my colleague from Lethbridge has already touched on. In his bill the justice minister has expressed a willingness, an eagerness to harass and persecute millions of honest people in order to promote his social agenda.

Now he has a new thing coming forward, Bill C-55. Ostensibly it is to apply more restraint to dangerous offenders and to have to some limited extent more control over people who society would not countenance. I will admit it is a faltering little step in the right direction. But in this same bill there is provision for the surveillance and control of people who have never been convicted or even openly accused of a crime. What in the name of heaven ever happened to due process?

Liberals are always great on due process. To be entitled to it a person first has to commit a serious crime, preferably a really vicious premeditated murder and then the Liberals will love them to death. Then our justice system will pull out all the stops to protect their rights. But if the person is an ordinary citizen who has never done anything to offend anybody, look out. Our justice minister will have something in store for him, something which flies in the face of all traditional concepts of British and later of Canadian jurisprudence.

Some people say that it does not help to keep people locked up. The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands probably has something to say about that. He has a lot to say about everything else. I just wonder how the people in his riding would feel about his views about just getting rid of the prisons and throwing the prisoners out on the street, that they are good folks and we have got to be nice to them and we should not be mean to criminals.

Does it help to keep people locked up? I will say one thing, it sure cuts down on recidivism. They do not commit a lot of crimes when they are already incarcerated.

The government calls section 745 the faint hope clause. The word on the street is that it is not the faint hope clause; it is the almost a sure thing clause. To date, although we have only been really using it for two years, 80 per cent of the people who have applied for the right to appeal for a reduced sentence have been granted that right. What kind of a faint hope are we talking about?

The other part of this bill which I find extraordinarily offensive and which many people have already mentioned is that it establishes a difference between good murderers and bad murderers. A person who kills only one person is a good person and is not really bad and therefore should not be terribly punished. If someone kills two, look out. What happens if three people kill two people? What do we do with someone who is guilty of one and a half murders?

With respect to good murderers and bad murderers, there is one Joseph Robinson who about 10 days ago was convicted of second degree murder. Perhaps the House will say I am digressing here by bringing forward a second degree murder but give me a little patience and I will explain where I am coming from.

Normally the penalty for second degree murder is life, ten. This gentleman was deemed to have been motivated by racism. It was a hate crime. His term for parole eligibility was increased by two and a half years. I have no trouble with the tougher sentence. As a matter of fact, in view of the crime that this gentleman was convicted of, I would not have trouble with a much tougher sentence. It was an extremely brutal crime and the extra time was probably warranted, but hardly the rationale.

However, if you shoot a police officer for sport, and there are two well documented cases of this that I am aware of, you have the right after 15 years to come forward and ask to have your parole eligibility reconsidered. As was mentioned in this House earlier today, one person who did just that had his parole period cut down to 18 years. He did shoot a policeman for sport.

Where in the name of common sense and rationale is the justice in that? We are making a mockery of our justice system. Nobody on this side, and I do not think anybody in Canada, is saying hang them high, hang them often, throw the key away. For heaven's sake, can we not reintroduce a bit of common sense into a system that has completely gone off the rails? This is where I come from, this is where my colleagues come from, this is where the general public of Canada is coming from. They are sick and tired of seeing

these miscarriages of justice perpetrated by our very own justice system.

[Criminal Code, September 24th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I could not let the last little bit of meandering go by.

We are talking about first degree murder. What does that have to do with a traffic accident, for heaven's sake? We are talking about the lower rung of human society going out and obliterating people for whatever reason. It has nothing to with traffic accidents. It is terrible that the member should even entertain that type of argument because it is specious.

The other thing that he mentioned-he mentioned it twice in his long and rambling speech-was that it costs money to keep these people in jail. It costs $50,000 a year. If $50,000 a year is too much, what value does the hon. member put on human life?

[Markham Electric, September 16th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in June I asked the Minister for International Cooperation why a successful Ontario company, Markham Electric, was denied the chance to compete for a CIDA contract. Only three companies, all from Quebec, were lucky enough to be picked by the minister to submit formal bids.

CIDA is obliged to use an independent appeal mechanism to resolve disputes, but despite petitions to CIDA, to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal and to Treasury Board, Markham Electric has found no venue in which to launch an appeal.

This summer the Minister for International Cooperation made a cross-Canada junket ostensibly to encourage more Canadian companies to bid on CIDA projects. This cynical, typically Liberal strategy will fool nobody. The shameful treatment of Markham Electric confirms that CIDA is closed to companies lacking a Quebec address, connections with the CIDA bureaucracy and a donor's receipt from the Liberal Party.