Lee Morrison

[Foreign Affairs, November 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest the hon. minister request a briefing from his colleague, the Minister of National Revenue.

Foreign service officers have been nailed for declaring 200 to 300 bottles of wine when customs officers have found from 600 to 800 bottles, whole wine cellars. Unfortunately, there is no little form for customs officers to fill out to let DFAIT know what its employees have been up to. Other than having their shipments confiscated, these civil servants are not penalized in any way.

I ask the minister: Is a diplomatic passport a membership card to an elite in order to put themselves above the laws of Canada?

[Foreign Affairs, November 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

There appears to be yet another scandal growing in his department, namely, foreign service officers who believe that their shipping privileges entitle them to practise fraud and tax evasion. Over at Canada Customs it is well known that returning foreign service personnel often attempt to smuggle wine and spirits into Canada, not only tax free but with shipping costs paid for by the Canadian taxpayer.

Is the minister aware of this practice? If so, what does he propose to do about it?

[Employment, November 6th, 1995]

Order.

[``On To Ottawa'' Trek, November 2nd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, as a Saskatchewanian born and bred, I cut my teeth on stories of the Dominion Day riots and the much worse events that actually took place at about the same time at the coal mine strike in Estevan.

I do not think there is anyone of proper mind who would deny that the work camps are a blot on Canadian history. I do not think anyone of my acquaintance would deny that the decision of the government of the day to arrest the trek leaders was stupid and unjustified.

Unfortunately, history is a chronicle of violence and injustice. Historical revisionism notwithstanding, there is nothing you can do to change history. As the bard said, "what is done is done and cannot be undone".

I am very uncomfortable with the principle of apologizing to people who suffered in the past because of my ancestors, if you will. We are faced with a stream of people who want to be apologized to for things their ancestors have suffered. At the moment there are Canadians of Ukrainian descent asking for apologies for the internment of their grandfathers and great-grand-

fathers during the first world war. There are Canadians of Chinese descent asking us to apologize as a society for the head tax.

Where do we draw the line? Are we going to continue apologizing forever? I had ancestors who were dispossessed of their lands in Scotland in order to make room for sheep. Am I supposed to go out and ask for apologies from people who had nothing whatsoever to do with that? I do not believe so.

More important, besides the question of where to draw the line, what is the point? Nothing we say or do here can undo the evil that was done 60 years ago. To be meaningful, an apology requires a certain degree of contrition. Frankly, I do not feel any guilt for actions that took place in my province when I was just a little boy. I did not break any heads, and I am not acquainted personally with anybody who did.

If the hon. member for Regina-Qu'Appelle wants to assuage his personal conscience or wants to go on a guilt trip, I am not going to accompany him. I would respectfully suggest that if he really wants to do something he should take a few thousand dollars out of his bank account, track down each surviving protagonist and buy each one a bottle of the best. That would be a commendable and meaningful gesture, which I would applaud wildly.

What is being proposed here in the House today is meaningless; it is window dressing. We are not going to resurrect the dead. We are not going to heal the wounds of people who had their skulls cracked 60 years ago. Let us get on with our lives. We have more important things to worry about in the House.

I will not be supporting the motion made by the hon. member.

[Quebec Referendum, October 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, separatists and traditional federalists say that it will be either black or white with the referendum, that is independence or status quo.

By contrast, the Reform Party pledged to renovate the Canadian home. You do not burn down a nice house just to get rid of a few cockroaches. You simply clean it.

Millions of Canadians, including many outside Quebec, have felt frustrated and threatened by the centralizing governments which have dominated our confederation by taking advantage of regional splits and claim that they were acting in the national interest.

A no vote in the referendum will open the door to a new decentralized Canada, patterned on the model proposed by the Reform Party, which is designed to give greater autonomy to the provinces.

[Government Appointments, October 23rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, at least there is consistency here. A few months ago, Mr. Heinrich's campaign manager received her reward. She was appointed to the board of the Farm Credit Corporation.

My question is for anybody over there who feels competent to answer it. After all the defeated Liberal candidates and all of their campaign managers have received their lollies, what is going to be done for all of those hardworking Liberals who handed out-

[Government Appointments, October 23rd, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Robert Heinrich, the committee chair of federal affairs for the Liberal Association of Saskatchewan, was my opponent in the last federal election. Guess what? He has been appointed to the National Parole Board. On a daily basis, that is more lucrative work than being an MP. It pays to be a loser if you are a Liberal.

Can the solicitor general describe to the House the rigorous selection and screening process used to assess the qualifications of appointees to these plum positions?

[Senate, October 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, there is conventional wisdom among the people who sit at my right and certainly those who sit at my extreme left, no pun intended, that the best thing to do with the Senate would be to do away with it and save the people $40 million annually.

That could be done but it would be a very shortsighted move. We need a real Senate, not the old people's home that we have over there now, to protect the common people from the House of Commons or, to put it perhaps more succinctly, to protect the public from the PMO.

Every meaningful federal union on earth, save ours, has an elected upper house to protect the rights of the regions. If we look at what has happened in Canada in the last five years, we see there have been two instances where the existence of a real Senate would have permanently blocked some very unsavoury parliamentary legislation. The first instance was the infamous GST which passed because there was a Senate that could be easily manipulated by the Prime Minister.

The second one has already been alluded to by my colleague and that is Bill C-68, the people control bill. They call it the crime control bill but it is a masquerade. If we had a real Senate representing the regions that bill would be consigned to the darkest corner of hell where it belongs.

In the last 50 years there has been no greater public outcry than there has been over that specific piece of legislation. We have the spectacle of the governments of four provinces and two territories lining up together with the protesting citizenry, demanding that the particular bill be stopped. Yet, because the Prime Minister has the ability to manipulate the Senate, to stack it, nothing can be done. There will never be a real democratic system in the country that reflects the views of the regions or of individual citizens unless we have the opportunity to elect two Houses, and both Houses should have power.

This legislation will almost certainly be proclaimed into law. The only hope we have now would be to get a Reform government to repeal it.

I must confess that before I came to this place I was a bit of a Senate basher. I felt that the other place had no place. However I have attended some of the committee hearings that it holds and I must say that they compare very favourably with the ones we hold. The problem is that those committees represent an illegitimate body and therefore cannot make recommendations that have weight.

Even if we cannot get triple E, surely we should be electing our senators. I do not know how many people are aware that in the United States of America, which has triple E, there was a period of more than a century when all its senators were appointed. They were appointed by the state governors. The elected Senate in the United States devolved from an act by the Oregon legislature when it demanded that its senators in that one state be elected. It grew from there and eventually they changed the constitution of the country to accommodate the new realities.

Changes can be made. In the long term I agree with my colleague that we must have triple E. In the short term I would plead with the government to get off its high horse and start allowing the provinces to elect senators to be appointed subject to their election.

[Senate, October 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe it is proper for a member to use deliberately inaccurate data when he makes-

[Senate, October 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am wondering what the relevance of all of this is to the matter which is under debate.