Warren Allmand

[The Late Hector Toe Blake, May 18th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I pay tribute to Hector Toe Blake who died yesterday in Montreal. Toe was the greatest and most successful hockey coach in the history of the National Hockey League. He was also a great leftwinger.

As a coach he won eight Stanley Cups in 13 seasons. As a player he played for 15 seasons with the Montreal Maroons and with the Canadiens. He was on three Stanley Cup teams, one with the Maroons and two with the Canadiens.

He won the scoring championship and Hart Trophy in 1938-39 and the Lady Byng Trophy in 1945-46. He was a leftwinger on the punch line with Rocket Richard and Elmer Lach, one of the most colourful and prolific scoring combinations in hockey history.

He was named to the Hall of Fame in 1966, was on the first All Star team as a player three times, on the second All Star team as a player twice, and as coach of the All Star team nine times.

Toe Blake will be missed and long remembered in Montreal. I think all Canadians will pay him tribute on this sad day.

[Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, May 11th, 1995]

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

One hundred and seventy-five nations are now meeting in New York to consider the extension of the 25-year old nuclear non-proliferation treaty. While the non-nuclear states have honoured that treaty and have not acquired nuclear weapons, the nuclear states have not honoured article 6 to reduce and eliminate their nuclear weapons.

In order to assure the extension of this important treaty, could the minister say what is being done to oblige the nuclear states to reduce their nuclear weapons in accordance with article 6?

[Montreal Economy, May 4th, 1995]

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

A study initiated by the Government of Quebec was published yesterday. The report indicated that Montreal could lose 5,000 corporate jobs if Quebec were to separate.

Given that the rate of unemployment in Montreal is unfortunately already at 12 per cent, how could the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs convince the Government of Quebec to cancel the referendum entirely and work seriously with the federal government to resolve the problem of unemployment in Montreal?

[Petitions, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by over 500 citizens from the region of Montreal who ask that Bill C-58, an act to amend the RCMP act and the Public Service Staff Relations Act, be withdrawn.

They say the bill is undemocratic, will isolate the members of the RCMP by depriving them of the status of public service employees and will in consequence violate their fundamental rights and freedoms.

[Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, April 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, discussions are now under way to extend the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

The non-proliferation treaty came into force in 1970 and was given a life of 25 years. The non-nuclear states, like Canada, that signed the treaty made a commitment not to develop nuclear weapons. The nuclear states, like the United States and the Soviet Union, made a commitment under article VI to reduce their nuclear arsenals. That was not done. While the non-nuclear states respected the treaty and did not develop nuclear weapons, the nuclear states did not respect article VI.

In 1970 the nuclear states had 8,000 nuclear weapons. By 1990 they had 50,000. Now the nuclear states and their allies want to extend the treaty indefinitely without any mechanism to ensure compliance with article VI. As a result, several non-nuclear states do not want to extend the treaty on that basis. This important treaty is now in jeopardy.

I urge the government and its allies to reconsider their position and to be more flexible. The world cannot tolerate another nuclear arms race.

[Peacekeeping Act, April 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on March 13, I asked the Minister of Justice if he would order a full review of the Access to Information Act as recommended by the information commissioner in his 10th anniversary report. In response, the Minister of Justice said that he was considering such a review and hoped to come forward with reforms in due course.

In 1986-87 I was a member of the justice committee which made an extensive review of this act. It issued a report entitled: "Open and Shut" which made 87 recommendations for amendment. Unfortunately, none of those recommendations were implemented by the former Conservative government.

Recently the information commissioner made similar recommendations in three documents entitled: "The Access to Information Act: 10 Years On"; "The Access to Information Act: A Critical Review"; and "Information Technology and Open Government".

The basic principle of this act is that Canadians should have the right to information about their government and to information compiled and held by the government. Of course, this is information paid for with taxpayers' money.

For years prior to the Access to Information Act the government's general policy was to say no whenever information was requested and only to say yes by exception. The purpose of the Access to Information Act was of course to reverse this process. There would be exceptions, of course, for national security, for privacy and for cabinet confidence, but the general rule was to make information available.

The "Open and Shut" report concluded that the act had major shortcomings and weaknesses which should be corrected. As I said, the committee made 87 recommendations to do that.

Among those recommendations were first, that all government institutions, including much of our parliamentary process, be included under the act.

Second, it was recommended that all crown corporations except the CBC be included under the act. These institutions are not included under the act at the present time.

Third, it was recommended that all persons in Canada, not just citizens and residents, have access to the act.

Fourth, it was recommended to entrench the status of the information co-ordinators who are present in every department to facilitate the operation of the act and to give those co-ordinators senior rank in the departments.

Fifth, there were several recommendations with respect to the exemptions. We said that the exemptions should be subject to a significant injury test. We also recommended narrowing certain exemptions.

With respect to the cabinet confidence exemption we said that it should be covered under the act, but subject to a class tested discretionary exemption. In other words, cabinet confidences would not automatically be outside the scope of the act.

We also said that the information commissioner should have the power to issue certain binding orders in some cases, although generally he would still act by recommendation only. We made recommendations that the social insurance number be restricted in its use by outside agencies.

We recommended that the time for answering information requests be reduced from 30 to 20 days. We also recommended that there be legislation to protect whistle blowers within the Government of Canada.

Those are some of the recommendations which were made in 1986-87 in the "Open and Shut" report. I would like to ask the government again tonight if and when it intends to move on the recommendations made in "Open and Shut" in 1986-87 and also on the recommendations made recently by the information commissioner in his 10-year report.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, 1995, April 25th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I did not vote on the last motion and I would like my name to be added to the government's vote on this bill.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, The principal causes of the deficit are speculation in currencies which cause changes in the interest rates and globalization of economies which allows large multinational corporations to manipulate and speculate on products, derivatives and currencies. For example, I was told yesterday by a prominent member of government that each time interest rates go up by 1 per cent it costs us $1.7 billion per year in additional payments on our debt. If it goes up by two points it is twice that amount. Those are the types of things that cause the deficit.

In addition, many people are getting away without paying the taxes they should be paying. The tax system is not fair. There was some movement in the budget to correct it. I applaud that and I support that but it did not go far enough.

With respect to the other question the member asked regarding a new way of arranging Canada, I supported in the House and voted for both the Meech Lake accord and the Charlottetown accord. Both were eventually defeated. Those accords would have rearranged the structures in Canada.

I believe in maintaining and even increasing the payments to the provinces for social programs, but I also believe that national standards should be set by the federal government. The federal government can equalize opportunity and care throughout the country. That is the humane thing to do.

[The Budget, March 14th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the budget debate, but it is with no joy I say what I feel I have to say. I doubt, with the short time available to me, that I will be able to properly develop the case I would like to make. I doubt whether I will have the time to put on the record the many points which I think are essential.

There are some positive measures in the budget which I fully support. I have in mind the measures for tax fairness, those measures which deal with tax deferrals, with family trusts and with RRSPs. I also fully support the measures to put additional tax on large corporations and the new special tax for banks and bank-like institutions.

I regret that with respect to the balance of the budget I feel there is much that is wrong. Specifically I am opposed to those measures which attack our social programs. In the budget it is proposed that we cut transfers to the provinces for post-secondary education, health care and the Canada assistance plan by $7 billion over the next two years. It is also proposed that we cut from unemployment insurance a minimum of 10 per cent, a program which has already been cut by the last budget and cut savagely many times under the previous Conservative government.

For those Canadians who are not aware of what is covered by the Canada assistance plan let me refer to a few items. By agreement with the provinces it covers payments for food, shelter, clothing, fuel and utilities for disabled people and people who are not able to work. It covers rehabilitation for needy persons. It covers day care centres. It covers hostels for battered women. It covers nursing homes for old people. It covers the cost of children in foster homes. It covers homemaking and home support services. It covers adoption services. That is only a partial list.

These cuts are not only wrong in principle, they are contrary to the campaign promises which we Liberals made in the red book and throughout the last election campaign. They are, first of all, wrong in principle because social programs are not the cause of the deficit. In answer to a question in the House only a few weeks ago the Minister of Finance admitted that the cost of social programs as a percentage of gross domestic product was exactly the same today as it was 20 years ago in the mid-seventies. He admitted that they were not the cause of the deficit. If they are not the cause of the deficit why attack them and why propose such extreme cuts to them in the budget?

These cuts are wrong in principle because they will cause considerable harm and pain to a segment of the population that has already been hit very hard before. I have in mind the unemployed, single mothers, older workers, the disabled, the mentally ill and others. These provisions will widen the gap between the rich and poor, will cause further social unrest and will hurt the economy by causing unemployment and reducing purchasing power.

The cuts are not only wrong in principle but contrary to what we said in the red book, contrary to what we said during nine years in opposition and contrary to what we did during twenty years in government under Mike Pearson and Pierre Elliot Trudeau.

I have the red book here. I do not have much time so I will just read one or two quotes. I could read many. I refer to page 74 of the red book. It reads:

Since 1984, the Tories have systematically weakened the social support network that took generations to build. Not only have they taken billions of dollars from health care and from programs that support children, seniors, and people who have lost their jobs, but they have set us on the path to becoming a polarized society, divided into rich and poor, educated and uneducated, with a shrinking middle class. This is not the kind of country most Canadians want to live in. In a polarized society, crime, violence, intolerance and group hatred flourish.

That is just one quote from the red book but there are many others that are similar.

I also have here the complete list of the opposition motions that we tabled during the nine years we were in opposition. Motion after motion proposes solutions which are contrary to what is being put forward in the budget.

Again, I do not have time to read them all but I refer to one put forward by the member for Hamilton East on an opposition day:

That this House regrets that almost one million Canadian children are living in poverty, that 1.4 million Canadians each year must rely on food banks and that the current recession the proposed goods and services tax will make this situation worse; and that the House, desiring the elimination of poverty in Canada by the year 2000, demands immediate programs to ameliorate the plight of the working poor, including a review of the minimum wage, discriminatory employment practices, current available children's benefits and other income support programs.

I also have the amendments that we tabled to the Tory budgets during the nine years in opposition and they state similar sorts of things.

Some people say that times were better then and we could do things when we were in government that we cannot do today. That is not completely true. The government was in better economic shape then but the country, as the Minister of Finance said the other day, is better off today. The gross national product is higher today than it was 30 years ago. Canada is producing more goods and services. Unfortunately they are not being distributed as fairly as they should.

Some members have said, in trying to justify the budget, that being a Liberal means being flexible. One should be flexible but one should be flexible within a framework of principles. To be flexible does not mean that one completely junks all the principles that one has stood for and it certainly does not mean that one throws out the promises that one made in an election only a year and a half ago.

Yes, the red book and the election were only one and a half years ago. As far as I know there has been no significant change in Canada or in the world since that time. If the red book policy had to be changed due to changed circumstances then the case has not been made by the Minister of Finance.

Those are my specific concerns about the budget but I am also troubled by the longer term implications of the budget. There are several measures that continue to strip away in my view the federal government, to strip away the federal authority, to strip away the federal presence in this land, the presence and visibility of Canada as a nation.

I have in mind cuts to transportation, to communications, to the CBC and to social programs. These have always been the national glue, the national infrastructure which has bound this country together for many years. My concern is that the federal authority will be left as a hollow shell once these cuts are made.

I support the deficit reduction goal of 3 per cent of gross domestic product that we put forward in the red book. I support deficit reduction but I support it in the way that we proposed to do so in the red book: by cutting waste, by cutting unproductive expenditure, by encouraging and promoting economic growth, more jobs, more profits for business to bring about more revenue for the government and by filling in and closing down the unfair tax provisions in the Income Tax Act, not by cutting social programs. I support the goal of deficit reduction but not in the way in which we are doing it in the budget.

Yes, the fiscal deficit is important and I agree that it must be addressed. But it must not be addressed at the expense of a social deficit where we have more crime, more social unrest, more family violence, suicide, alcohol and drug abuse.

I saw a very good button the other day on a person. The button said: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance".

[Firearms Act, March 13th, 1995]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Among the myths of the gun lobby is that when we attempt to ban or restrict guns only criminals will have guns. There is no class of persons born criminal and there is no class of persons born non-criminal. People do not have an identifying mark as criminal or non-criminal.

As I just said a few minutes ago, ordinary individuals in situations of stress, alcohol, drugs or whatever often strike out at other people and if guns are available they use them. It is not because they are professional criminals. As I say, the overwhelming number of murders in Canada committed with guns are not committed by professional criminals and gangsters but by ordinary people like Fabrikant and Lepine who did not commit any crime before in their past lives.

Another myth we hear over and over is that guns do not kill but people kill. Of course a gun is the most lethal type of means by which to kill another person. Yes, it is possible to kill someone with a baseball bat, but frankly I do not know anybody in this House who would rather have somebody chasing them

with a lethal weapon instead of a baseball bat. Of course it is possible to kill people with poison, a knife or a baseball bat, but a gun is manufactured to kill, to kill animals or to kill people. Guns should be controlled and this bill will give better control.

With respect to registration, previous speakers, especially those from the Reform Party, asked how it will protect society and why we are doing it. We have had registration in this country for many years. Restricted weapons, especially handguns, have been registered for a long period of time and it has been successful. The rate of crime with handguns in Canada has, for the most part, been much lower than the rate of crime with long guns because handguns have been much more strictly controlled.

With the registration of all weapons, including handguns and long guns, it will be easier to conduct criminal investigations. The police will know who have guns and who do not. It will be easier to trace weapons used in crime and the criminals who had access to those guns. It will be easier to take preventive measures against violence with guns. For example, in a family that has a history of family violence, the police will know whether the husband or another family member has a gun registered in their name and that gun could be taken away.

It is true as some who oppose this bill will say that not everyone will register their gun. However, a large number will. Such a measure will help the police to remove guns from dangerous situations, especially situations where there has been a record of family violence.

With respect to the ban on most handguns, that is, handguns that are not used for competitive shooting, handguns such as the Saturday night specials, the very small and very easy to conceal handguns, these have no purpose except for use in crime. If someone is actually taking part in competitive shooting, then the gun is registered; the person belongs to a gun club and that is permissible. The other types of handguns which are very small and are not used in competitive shooting will be banned under the legislation and they should be banned.

The bill provides for an increase in the penalties for the misuse of guns, for the smuggling of guns and for the illegal sale of guns and ammunition. I support that but I do not believe that increased penalties are the answer. Increased penalties deal with the situation after it has taken place. The crime has been committed. Someone is dead. They have found the criminal and they will give them a stiffer penalty.

What we are trying to do with this legislation is to prevent the crime from taking place in the first place. We are trying to make guns more difficult to obtain and to screen the applicants who want to own guns. Doing that will prevent the crimes from taking place. It is a preventive measure.

To rely simply on long, tough, hard penalties as is done in most of the United States does not work. They have absolutely no effect whatsoever. The crime rates with guns are much higher there than they are in Canada, especially in Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

In conclusion, I assure the House that as chair of the standing committee on justice, despite my strong views in favour of this bill, I intend to be absolutely fair with all sides who take part in the discussion before the committee. I want to assure those who oppose the bill that they will be fairly treated. Those who wish to amend the bill will be fairly treated. Those who support the bill will be fairly treated.

When I act as chair of the committee the most important aspect is the tradition of Parliament of the rights of minorities to have their say. I want to assure all members of this House and the general public that as chair of the justice committee everyone will be given their full right to be heard.