Philippe Paré

[Reporter François Pouliot, December 4th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec and the Fondation du cercle des femmes journalistes awarded François Pouliot the Prix Judith-Jasmin in the short feature category.

I will remind you that this prize is given every year to a newspaper or television journalist based on the quality of investigation, the originality of the information and the relevancy of the topic.

François Pouliot conducted a very thorough investigation that eventually led him to American businessman Paul Morgan, who was involved in the cotton deal for which Tran Trieu Quan was unjustly sentenced to 20 years of forced labour in Vietnam.

I too want to recognize François Pouliot's outstanding job, as well as the tenacity and rigour he has shown in unearthing the important details of this sad story, which has already cost Canadian citizen Tran Trieu Quan two years of freedom.

[Excise Tax Act, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the remarks of our colleague across the way. I understood what he was trying to do. Unable to explain the difference between what the red book said and the government's record on the GST, he went into a defence of simplification and harmonization.

There is not a member in the House who has questioned the importance of harmonizing and simplifying taxes to make things easier for business. Our colleague across the way is not contributing to our understanding, because this is not what the debate is about. The Liberals are dragging it in that direction to avoid the real questions that should be asked, which the member for Chicoutimi brought out earlier.

In the red book, they said: "We hate this tax and we will scrap it". Now, instead of scrapping it, they are harmonizing it. This

way, things are so much nicer, it is less painful, and it brings in more money. They also said: "It should not be hidden". Now they are saying: "Magicians that we are, we have pulled it out of thin air, we have made it vanish, and now we are going to make it invisible".

But if simplification and harmonization are as wonderful as all that, why did the Atlantic provinces need to be paid $1 billion to go for the deal? The aim was to hide the tax in the price of food, medicine and books for educational purposes.

[Canadian International Development Agency, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in his report tabled last week, the auditor general devoted a chapter to the follow-up on his 1993 comments and recommendations regarding CIDA. After three years of restructuring, CIDA has yet to prove its capacity for renewal, as a number of grey areas still exist, according to the auditor general.

We are concerned to note that it continues to have difficulty explaining the contributions its projects make to the government's prime objectives as defined in Canada in the World . We deplore the agency's lack of transparency with its partners and the Canadian public and its delay in setting up a more effective accounting and management system.

In the opinion of the Bloc Quebecois, the progress is too slow. We think CIDA should have its own enabling legislation, which would provide it with a clear mandate and require it to be more transparent.

[Israeli Prime Minister, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, I would like to say we are profoundly disturbed by the intransigence of the Israeli Prime Minister. This week he again defied the Palestinians and the international community by going to the Jewish settlements on the West Bank to support their plans for expansion. Such plans are a real time bomb.

Instead of taking serious risks by pursuing a policy of confrontation, Prime Minister Netanyahu ought to speed up negotiations relating to the peace process and wind up the talks on the Israeli withdrawal from Hebron.

We hope that this new episode, which comes after the tunnel in Jerusalem, will not trigger a new wave of violence. The Canadian government should openly condemn this behaviour by the Israeli authorities.

[Tran Trieu Quan, November 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to my original question.

Officials are telling us that the department no longer knows what to do. We have also been told that the special adviser no longer works for the department. Is anyone in the department still working on behalf of Tran Trieu Quan?

[Tran Trieu Quan, November 27th, 1996]

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

Last week, during a meeting with government representatives, the group seeking the release of Tran Trieu Quan was informed by officials that the government no longer knew what to do in this case, and that the special adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs

who had been given responsibility for Tran Trieu Quan's case no longer worked for the minister.

Will the minister tell us whether this information is correct and, if so, will he tell us whether the position will eventually be filled, and who in his department is in charge of the Tran Trieu Quan file in the meantime?

[Great Lakes Region Of Africa, November 18th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I want to tell you first that I will share my time with the member for Verchères. It is a pleasure for me to take part in this debate on the deployment of a UN multinational force. As my colleagues who spoke before me told the House, the Bloc Quebecois supports and welcomes this Canadian initiative.

My colleague from Rosedale told us that it is the third or fourth time we hold such a debate. Every time there is a debate about sending Canadian troops to hot spots, we are always confronted to the same question: Are Canadians and Quebecers in favour of sending these Canadian troops abroad?

In our ridings, opinions are divided. Some people are radically opposed, most often for financial reasons, while others strongly defend the idea, usually on humanitarian grounds.

In the February 1995 budget, the Canadian government cut all subsidies to non-governmental organizations specifically set up to show Canadians and Quebecers how important international co-operation is. I think that, in doing so, the government has made things much harder to understand. People see that the government is making decisions it should explain, but that it has stopped providing information.

I think it is essential that Canada be present in these disaster areas, for they are indeed disaster areas. Everybody agrees that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR have changed the world. It is one thing to recognize that the world has changed, but it is another to realize that the notion of security contains elements we had been previously unaware of.

Nowadays, when we talk about security, our security, the security of Quebecers and Canadians, is at stake every time some disaster occurs. I will list a few, such as population migrations caused by all kinds of situations.

It is estimated that 50 million men, women and children are displaced, have left their home, their homeland, their town or city due to tensions, wars, etc.

At the recent FAO summit on food, it was said that 800 million people are undernourished. The summit made the long term commitment of reducing world hunger by half within 20 years.

Underdevelopment, ethnic wars, overpopulation are issues of concern to us. Is the planet going to be able to sustain continuing demographic growth? I say that all these issues concern us because now and again our constituents ask us: "Do you not think that too many immigrants and refugees are allowed into Canada?"

If we refuse to do something about these problems, if Canada does not intervene in disaster areas, Canadians and Quebecers will not be able to use the same logic and say: "We should not let refugees in". Refugees are the immediate product of these events and we are all concerned.

We are so concerned that increasingly, within the international community, it is recognized that ethnic wars, civil wars within a country's boundaries, give rise to an obligation to interfere. Ten or fifteen years ago, this would have been unthinkable. Now international law is starting to say that whenever there are civil wars where the most fundamental rights of people are denied, it is the duty, not only the right, but the duty of the international community to take action.

Let us go back to the situation in Rwanda. How did the international community address this problem? As early as 1992 or 1993, following some missions in the great lakes region, the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, based in Montreal, had warned the secretary general of the United Nations that something was brewing that had all the characteristics of a genocide.

The international community did nothing. It waited for the crisis to explode in 1994. What happened of course is that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed. Naturally, what followed was the exodus of refugees, and bordering countries, like Zaire and Burundi, suffered the consequences.

Two years after the end of the genocide, we now realize that the international community was not very active in implementing solutions. The refugee situation in Zaire had to become explosive before the international community started to wonder if it should

act, and I want to commend the Canadian initiative, which finally stirred the international community to action.

However, we are always putting out fires. Instead of preventing, instead of making sure the developing countries get out of their underdevelopment, instead of investing in durable human development, education, health, democratisation, democratic governments, human rights and civilian societies, the international community continues to invest billions of dollars in defense budgets and merely tosses crumbs to help developing countries.

Let us take Canada, for example, because it is the same as in the other countries. Canada allocates about $2 billion to its official development assistance and a budget of about $10 billion to defence, as if nothing had happened in the early 1990s, as if the concept of security had remained the same and was only related to a military aspect.

So, the international community must get out of its torpor. Permanent mechanisms must be put in place, not to impose peace, but to ensure that, in countries where these tensions exist, people can gradually regain hope and can develop in a framework that respects them. At that time, we will stop putting out fires, because we will have put a stop, perhaps, to underdevelopment.

[Apec Summit, November 18th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, does the minister not acknowledge that such treatment of a Nobel Peace Prize Winner is truly unacceptable, and that Canada ought to react vigorously?

[Apec Summit, November 18th, 1996]

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

This coming November 23 to 25, the 18 heads of state who are members of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum, will be meeting in Manila, the Philippines. José Ramos Horta, Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist in East Timor, has been denied access to the Philippines at the time of the summit, however.

Does Canada intend to make protests to the government of the Philippines for reversal of this decision and for José Ramos Horta to be allowed onto its territory?

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, October 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Madam Speaker, had the Government members accepted the wise amendment proposed by my colleague for Laurentides a while ago, we would no longer be involved in this debate, or at least not for a while.

In the light of the scientific data available in this sector, it seemed obvious that we were lacking certain fundamental information before going ahead with adoption of this bill. Despite the fact that the government has not called for such scientific studies, it is determined to move ahead, thus placing the opposition parties in the position of having to vote against it, despite the fact that the initial positions, at least as far as the Bloc is concerned, were not so black and white. We were saying that we were not categorically against the use of MMT, but did believe that scientific proof was lacking, and it seemed only logical to demand such proof before going any further. That, unfortunately, proved impossible.

It must be understood that the MMT being referred to is, quite simply, an additive in the production of gasoline for cars. The refineries use additives to raise the octane level. Lead is an additive and, in its case, there was proof some time ago that it was a health hazard. The refineries therefore replaced lead with another additive: manganese or MMT.

It is hard to understand the government position, since there are studies underway at this time, preliminary ones at least. The first outcomes of these are not as alarmist as the government would have it. The government is not basing its alarmism on any scientific study whatsoever.

In the first part of this debate, the government side was often heard saying: "If we continue to use MMT, Canada will be a minority of one, for Europe is not using it." Why is it not in use in Europe? Simply because they are still making lead-based gasoline. Two additives are not necessary, only one, and since Europe has not yet got rid of lead in its gasoline, naturally it is not using MMT. The day that it does get rid of lead, however, European companies may be forced to start using MMT, unless some other product is discovered.

The oil companies are not dead set against MMT. They are simply asking for proof that it is harmful to people's health and the environment. Bill C-29 is really anachronistic because not only is it not founded on demonstrable data, but it is also out of sync with the times.

What does Bill C-29 do? It does not ban the use of MMT, but its importation. Let us keep in mind that, not too long ago, the Canadian government and the U.S. administration signed a free trade agreement specifically aimed at eliminating trade barriers between the two countries. Mexico joined the treaty a little later. So banning the importation of MMT goes against the spirit, at least, of the free trade agreement with the U.S.

But Bill C-29 is also anachronistic for another reason. When we signed the free trade deal with the U.S. a few years ago, the Canadian government stated that, once the problem of liberalizing trade between Canada and the U.S. was settled, interprovincial trade barriers should come down. So what does Bill C-29 do? It bans interprovincial trade in MMT. Second anachronistic element: it recreates a barrier after such vigorous condemnation of interprovincial trade barriers.

Finally, since this bill seems somewhat strange and violates the international and interprovincial rules we gave ourselves, why does the government insist on going ahead? It gave us two reasons. It claims that MMT is harmful to people's health. If that were true, it could have-with or without this bill-added MMT to the list of toxic products, and that would have been the end of it. But that is not what it did.

It also claims that it is harmful to the environment based on a ruling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which did ban the use of MMT at one point. However, this ruling was appealed, and the agency lost its case. In some American states, the use of MMT has become acceptable again.

Not only have the health and environmental reasons not been clearly demonstrated, but according to Ethyl Corporation, which produces MMT, eliminating this product would increase nitrous oxide emissions by close to 20 per cent, which, of course, would have a disastrous impact on the environment and therefore on Canadians' health.

If not for health or environmental reasons, why would the government insist on going ahead? We think that the government was pressured by two lobby groups. First, the auto industry, which claims, without ever having proven it, that the use of MMT would adversely affect antipollution devices.

But it has never been demonstrated that it was. Instead of substantiating its claim, it took the much easier route of simply asking the government to prohibit the interprovincial trade in and importation of the product, making it a non-issue.

The second lobby that probably got involved is that of an emerging industry, namely the ethanol industry. I am not saying that there is something wrong with using ethanol. What I am saying at this time is that, with the science available, we are probably not in a position to safely assume that replacing MMT with another additive like ethanol will not create other problems. We would, of course, have to see what goes into producing ethanol. If it is derived from grains, then we can argue that pesticides and chemical fertilizers may have been used, for instance. If it is made out of wood chips, there would be another problem.

For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois will remain opposed to Bill C-29.