Audrey McLaughlin

[Petitions, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have the duty to present petitions on behalf of the Kaska Tribal Council of British Columbia and the Yukon. The petition is signed by residents of Watson Lake, Lower Post, British Columbia and that general area covered by the Kaska Tribal Council.

The Kaska Tribal Council in this petition is urging the Minister of Indian Affairs to confirm to the Kaska Tribal Council that Canada will honour its fiduciary obligations to the Kaska Tribal Council under the 1989 framework agreement on land claims. It also urges the minister of Indian affairs to remedy any breaches to date to the 1989 framework agreement, including those that may be contained in the umbrella final agreement signed in May 1993.

[Crime Prevention, April 11th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians were recently shocked by two senseless killings in Ottawa and Toronto. There is fear that our streets are not safe and that young people are more violent. That fear has focused attention on the Young Offenders Act.

I share the concern of Canadians about violence in our communities. I agree that laws should be reviewed to make sure they are effective but that review should be based on facts and not fiction. If we are prepared to change the law we must also be prepared to prevent crime.

Since 1992, RCMP funding has been cut by $33.4 million. As a direct result of federal underfunding the Yukon crime prevention program for example has been cut. By going directly to the schools I believe the constable in charge there prevented more crimes than the threat of stiff jail sentences.

It costs $1 for prevention for every $5 in incarceration. I call on the government to look at this aspect of crime prevention in our society.

[Health, March 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this week we had three events coincide on the blood supply issue.

With the Pittman decision the courts recognized the responsibility to spouses and family members of individuals who received contaminated blood products. The provincial packages expired and all with the exception of Nova Scotia did not recognize their responsibility to family members who contracted HIV indirectly. Finally, the Krever commission continues to raise more questions than it answers about who knew what and when and what action was or was not taken.

I call today on the Minister of Health to reopen the federal compensation package to include family members who contracted HIV indirectly from those who received contaminated blood.

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member's statement and comments. I would like to ask the member a specific question about this motion, in particular that a moratorium be put on the court challenges program.

The motion states a new program. This court challenges program is not new. It was cancelled by the previous government but the current government, as I understand it, has agreed to reinstate it. It is a program that is absolutely essential to provide a way for disadvantaged groups and equality-seeking and language rights groups to pursue the rights guaranteed to them under the charter and the Constitution.

I know the member will agree with me that the rights of Canadians are sacred to this nation, but rights without the ability to implement them and to seek equality in those rights are in fact meaningless.

I would say to the member that I know his party's position, very often stated, is: Why can't all Canadians just be treated the same. I would agree, why can't all Canadians just be treated the same. However, in reality and in the real world women, disadvantaged groups, persons with disabilities and visible minorities are not treated all the same.

The intent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is to enshrine in our country the importance that we treat each citizen with equality.

I would ask the member how he can justify this program, a relatively small expenditure, being wiped off the map by the Reform Party? Do they not support the equality of all citizens in this country?

[Indian Affairs, March 14th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development announced the devolution of his department's responsibilities to the First Nations of Canada, beginning with a demonstration project in Manitoba.

All I can say is that it is about time. We have heard a lot in this House about the need to define self-government. Self-government will not be defined the same in Yukon as it is in Manitoba because we must define it in terms of the cultural heritage, of the various aboriginal groups that are being dealt with. It must be an item for negotiation.

Each settlement will be defined by the history and culture of the First Nations people. This is an extremely important initiative and because of that I ask the minister to place before the House a plan with clear timetables and, most important, the financial resources to be allotted to this plan of devolution. That will determine whether this initiative is genuine or just another step on the highway of broken promises.

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the hon. member. I have one question and one comment relating to the part where he said that the government has set firm fiscal targets-I believe these are the words he used.

Given the debt and the deficit we are faced with, it is of paramount importance to set firm targets when it comes to taxation, but at the same time he mentioned revenues. I would like to ask the member if its really possible to get the debt and the deficit under control without creating more jobs, since it is obvious that the lack of revenue is directly linked with the present unemployment rate.

Does the hon. member agree that it is as important for the government to set targets, in its forecasts, regarding job creation and the reduction of the debt and the deficit, and to balance them, giving people a chance to examine the government's agenda and its targets concerning unemployment?

[Supply, March 14th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the hon. member. I noted in his motion that two particular programs are targeted by the Reform Party. One is the youth services corps and the other is the court challenges program.

Is the hon. member aware that youth unemployment is very near the 20 per cent mark? If we cannot provide hope for our youth then surely we have failed in the tasks we set ourselves as parliamentarians. I am not sure why the hon. member would target youth in this way, saying it was not important that something should be special.

I am not commenting on the particular quality of this program, but I would say that the youth of our country deserve better than simply to be told there is no particular problem concerning youth.

Why does the hon. member ignore youth in this way? Why does his party not care about the youth of Canada?

[Parliament Of Canada Act, March 14th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak on Bill C-201, a bill to amend the Parliament of Canada Act so that members of the House may pledge allegiance to the country.

I am pleased to support this initiative. It is extremely important and reflects very much the public opinion I heard during the previous election in my travels throughout various parts of Canada.

I come from Yukon which in this federal Parliament is probably the farthest area away from Ottawa. I recognize how important it is for those of us who live in regions not in central Canada to share in that feeling of commonality which exists among the majority of Canadians.

I certainly do not share in any way the point of view of colleagues in the Bloc Quebecois who want to see Quebec separated from Canada. However I respect the right of duly elected parliamentarians to express their views in this Parliament. That is the essence of democracy. Should we ever be in a position in this country where we did not have a forum to express various views we would indeed be losing not only our democracy but the essence of what we are as a country.

This issue is very important to me as an individual who has worked in federal politics for a number of years and to all Canadians. The country is going through a period of uncertainty. Many people fear for their economic security but there still remains a pride in what we have achieved together. We can go further in that and build not on our differences but on what we have in common.

That is where I part company with some of my other colleagues in the House who have often asked why we cannot all be the same. As a white female anglophone from an Anglo-Saxon background I take great pride that Canada respects different languages, different cultures and that it welcomes people to its shores. There are only three people in the House of Commons whose ancestors did not come to Canada generations before as immigrants.

We must learn to rejoice in the diversity of our culture, not defile it. It will make the loyalty to and strength of Canada which the bill expresses meaningfully.

There are two visions of what kind of country Canada is. One vision was presented by my colleague just before me. Using the analogy of a field of flowers, he would see Canada as a field where all the flowers were the same, all pretty and neat. My vision of Canada is as a field of flowers of different colours, sometimes chaotic, always difficult but vibrant and providing excitement to the North American continent.

What have we achieved? We have achieved a political system with different points of view from social democratic to Liberal to Progressive Conservative and the Reform Party. We represent those views in our debates. By presenting different alternatives we come out with better solutions.

For the cause of our disunity the tendency today is to point to those individuals who have come to this country and not accepted what it is to be a Canadian. This is what I believe it means to be a Canadian. To be a Canadian it means first that we are loyal to this country. We want to take walls down, not put them up. Every part of the country from Newfoundland to Yukon is as important as every other part. When it comes to employment equity and other issues our goal of social and economic justice sometimes stands alone in the world where the tide often goes the other way.

Canada is not a perfect country. Things are not always done perfectly, but what are the options? An option is to wrench our country apart, in many ways to rend our democracy apart when the whole world is moving to work together on major problems of the day such as unemployment and growing debts. Those are not just Canadian problems. They are not the problems of the North American continent. They are problems of the world.

In closing it is with pride that I support the bill. It is a very important message that we put those constituencies we represent front and centre in the House of Commons, but that we know and accept that our first responsibility is to work for Canada.

I hope people will take this debate very seriously and will support this bill. Canada is worth standing up for and we will all be better for doing that.

[International Women's Day, March 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister.

On International Women's Day there are many things the government could do to improve the equality of women but I

want to propose to the Deputy Prime Minister that her government undertake two very simple things that could be done right now.

They concern two actions of the previous government. First, would the government agree to withdraw the appeal of the previous government on the ruling of the Canadian Human Rights Commission that the federal government be ordered to institute the pay equity settlement to female public sector workers. Second, the previous government denied the right of employees of members of Parliament to collectively bargain. A large majority of those employees are women. Would the government act on that issue as well?

[International Women's Day, March 8th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, today on International Women's Day I ask the House whether women are truly advancing in our society.

I use three key measures through which we might decide the answer to that question. The first one is with regard to poverty and women. Latest statistics demonstrate that over 58 per cent of female led single parent families live in poverty and over 45 per cent of unattached elderly women continue to live in poverty.

The second measurement is violence against women. Every 17 minutes there is a sexual assault committed in Canada, 90 per cent of those victims are women, the rest are children. That means three assaults during the time of question period.

Finally turning to employment and women, women in full time work still earn less than 70 per cent per hour of what men earn. We must have, and I challenge the government to bring in, a full national child care program to assist women and men in our society and to put special emphasis on visible minority, aboriginal and immigrant women who suffer double discrimination in our society.