Ken Epp

[Criminal Code, April 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to support the bill of my colleague from Calgary on this very important issue; that of home invasions, break and enters involving people's homes and residences.

I just cannot resist prefacing my statements on the bill today by simply stating how jealous I am of this member and indeed of all the other members who in the last 10 years have been able to put forward private members' bills, have them debated and in some instances voted on in this place.

In the 10 and half years, and I cry in my soup again, I have never once been drawn. It seems so incredibly unfair to me because I have such excellent private members' bills, which resonate well with Canadians across the country because of some of the work I have done on them.

The one on standardizing the date format is an example. What does two, three, four mean? Is it 2002, March 4, or whatever? I had one that would at least standardize it for legal purposes and hopefully move Canadians toward some consistency on how they expressed dates in numerical format. I never got a chance to have it debated in the House.

I have another very excellent bill on EI, pertaining to students to ensure that they do not have to pay premiums on an insurance policy that they cannot possibly ever collect. Yet it never was drawn, and did not have the opportunity to have that debated in the House.

I have yet another bill on property taxes. We know that we are overtaxed in this country. Families are having a hard time making ends meet. Yet my very excellent private member's bill, which would exempt property taxes from income tax, the principle being a Canadian should not have to pay taxes on money earned for the sole purpose of paying taxes, never got a chance to be debated.

Here I am after 10 and half years, and I expect to be re-elected. However, in the event that changes, this will be my last opportunity to talk about my private member's bills, which I never got to talk about in a meaningful way in this place. There we go. I thank everyone in the House for all the sympathy I am getting.

Having used two minutes of the time on this bill to promote my own, at least I got it off my chest.

This bill is a most important one. We have somehow in our society increasingly lost the fabric of ethical and moral behaviour. It has become fashionable nowadays, and to our regret even within the high levels of government, to take things which are not our own.

I remember when I helped write the handbook for our private Christian school, of which I was the chairman when we started out. We had a little section in there which we copied from others that said that students should not bring valuables to school, the intent being that then they would not be subject to being stolen. I could not resist, working on that, inserting another statement in there that said, “Notwithstanding this, that students should not bring valuables to school, we still expect our students to not take things that do not belong to them”. Even if there is something there that is valuable, one should not be able to take it.

I remember, when I was youngster, my mother taught me a very important lesson. It was in a different language so the idiom does not fit at all. Basically the message was, “You cannot steal even so much as a thimble”.

I imagine many people here do not even know what a thimble is. A thimble was a little device, usually metal in those days. It was put on the finger of a person sewing so that if the needle went astray, it would prevent the finger from being injured. That was a thimble. It was a very small, almost worthless, device. However, she taught us, “You do not steal even a thimble”.

I remember also, when I was youngster, that our home on the prairies in Saskatchewan was never locked. In fact I do not remember if we even had a lock on the door. I remember my dad asking why we should lock the doors. He said that perhaps when we were not home, someone would come by who needed to use the phone.

That was the kind of trust we had among one another in rural Saskatchewan when I was growing up. We were taught both by word and by example, by our parents, by our schools and by our churches, that we did not take stuff that did not belong to us. It was just unthought of.

What a sharp contrast that is to what we are seeing in government these days. I find it despicable. A reporter back home asked me if I was not happy with everything happening here because, she said, we now have an excellent chance of forming the government. Surely Canadians will punish these Liberals for taking a whole bunch of money, she said, for misappropriating it and spending it in ways for which it was not intended--except that she used much stronger language. I have changed her language so that it is parliamentary.

I responded to her by saying, “No, as a matter of fact, it makes me incredibly sad”. It makes me incredibly sad that in our government this type of thing can be done. Where is it that people get the idea they can spend taxpayers' money, which is to be held there in trust? Where do they get the idea that they can just take it and use it for whatever personal purposes they have, with or without accounting and with or without justification? That should be so far from our thinking that it should just never happen.

However, I have digressed. We are talking about a bill that says there should be a harsher sentence imposed on people who engage in the act of breaking into people's homes and taking their things. Of course, one of the reasons for this, one of the large reasons, is that the invasion of one's personal space is such a violation of the person himself or herself.

I have talked with many people who have had their homes broken into. They have all said that they are not as concerned about the television or whatever because that can be replaced. In fact, the insurance company, after a deduction, will replace the things that are taken.

What people are really concerned about is the fact that they have had their personal space violated. We used to say that a man's home is his castle; it is one of the places where we have the privacy of our home, our families, and we do not expect it to be invaded by a stranger with all sorts of intents that could be very devastating.

I will never forget the case of Barb Danelesko in Edmonton. It is now a fairly old case from probably seven or eight years ago. Three young offenders broke into her house. She thought it was the dog that wanted to go out, as dogs sometimes do in the middle of the night. She left her husband in his bed, the children upstairs, and she went downstairs to let the dog out, she thought. Unfortunately, these three young thugs grabbed a knife from the kitchen cupboard and they murdered her. This happened because they were in the process of breaking in. They were young offenders. We were not even permitted to know their names. I believe they are no longer serving a sentence for this crime. In essence, they got away with it. This is the type of thing that can happen.

This bill has as its primary goal to put a large deterrence on breaking and entering into homes. It would require a minimum mandatory sentence of at least two years for individuals who have been found guilty of a second or subsequent offence.

We are still letting them get away with the first offence, so let the Liberals vote in favour of this bill because they are always the ones who want to be soft on crime. We are being soft on the first offence, but we hope that after the first offence for which a person is convicted that person would learn the lesson and never do it again. If people have not learned the lesson and do it again, hence the subsequent or the second offence, then we say a minimum of two years.

This will do two things. First, it will act as a deterrent. Second, it will prevent that individual from continuing this activity for at least two years.

[Points of Order, April 30th, 2004]

Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

[Ethics, April 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this new code that has been tabled is essentially the same as the old code. The ethics commissioner still provides private and confidential advice to the Prime Minister, just like with Mr. Chrétien. The old code did not prevent millions of dollars from being derailed. Why should we expect that the new code, which is really a new name for the old code, would be any different?

[Ethics, April 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the conflict of interest code for members of the House of Commons addresses potential breaches of conduct for ordinary members of Parliament, government backbenchers and members in opposition.

However, this is not where the problem is. The problem is with ministers who control billions of dollars. Why has the government done nothing to address potential corruption and untoward behaviour on the part of cabinet ministers?

[Taxation, April 30th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this government knows no bounds when intruding into the personal lives of Canadians. It has come to my attention that if two people live at the same address, Revenue Canada is unilaterally determining that they are a common law couple and are having conjugal relations. This is preposterous.

How about a woman who has a female boarder living in her house? Revenue Canada determines that she is a lesbian and that she is having conjugal relations with this boarder. This is not true and it is very unfair to characterize her this way, to reduce her benefits, and to force her to appeal to get it reversed.

Let us consider a couple who are separated and divorced but unable to afford separate living quarters. She lives on one floor and he on another in the same house. Revenue Canada reverses their status and treats them as a couple.

Trudeau said that there is no room for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, but that concept is totally lost on this government and this minister. What a nightmare.

[Canada Marriage Act, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this is another occasion where I was not on any speaker's list, but listening to the debate I have become rather interested in what is going on here. I have some comments I would like to add to this particular debate.

First, I would like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether you can accurately predict what will happen 22 years from now? In what state will the country of Canada be in? What will the world be like? Can you predict that? I venture to guess that you cannot and I would certainly confess quickly that I cannot.

If we look back at 1982 when the charter was put together, I believe that, with some wisdom, those people also said that they could not predict everything and anything that would be in place 22 years from then, in the year 2004.

There were some who recognized that giving unfettered power to the courts without any balance would be an error. Consequently, a section was put into the charter that said notwithstanding, which has come to be known as the notwithstanding clause. Notwithstanding what the charter says, we can do other things.

We do this regularly in this country. We have a law that says we cannot discriminate against a person with respect to race. It says that right in the charter. Yet, we have people, for example, in the Westbank in Kelowna living in a certain territory called the Westbank reserve who, because of their race, are not permitted to vote in the elections of the territory in which they live. There is a difference made based on race. In fact, the government quite happily approved that bill not long ago. It happened last week, I believe. That is considered to be okay, notwithstanding that the charter says otherwise.

I believe that the framers of the charter some 22 years ago, recognizing that there should not be unfettered power given to the courts without some kind of balance, put this notwithstanding clause into the charter.

I can think of another example. We have had quite a bit of debate lately about child pornography. There are some who claim that this comes under freedom of expression. I believe not. Even though the charter guarantees us freedom of expression, there are some limitations to it.

The very common one is that we cannot, in a crowded theatre, yell “fire”, because that would put other people in danger. We can actually be charged if we were to do that because we could cause the death of some people if they were to crowd each other out and trample each other on the way out. We have limitations to every one of the freedoms which is given in the charter.

The bill before us today, as I understand it, simply states that in no way did the framers of the charter, by talking about equality, say that the courts could arbitrarily change the definition of marriage. I agree wholly with my colleague who spoke earlier. He said that this should be a decision of Parliament. It should be done democratically, not by an unelected court. It should be done by the people through their elected parliamentarians.

Since the courts are proceeding in this direction--and, in my view, in a direction which was certainly not envisioned as something which the original framers of the charter wanted to include--I believe that it would be totally appropriate for the Parliament of Canada to say that notwithstanding these court decisions, it wants to respect democracy.

We want to respect the historical meaning of the English word marriage and its equivalent in all the other languages. Notwithstanding that the court has done this, we would like to maintain the definition of marriage.

We are a bit shortsighted when we say that permitting the marriage of any two persons has no ramifications. What happens if someone wants to marry a 10 year old? The charter says we cannot discriminate based on age, but I think we should object to that. I am not sure that will ever be the case, but if the definition of marriage is between any two persons, then that is a possibility.

There is nothing wrong with having restrictions on who can marry. What happens if a man wants to marry someone, notwithstanding that he may already be married to someone else? How can we tell that person that he cannot marry the second woman, or the third, or the fourth? That is a violation of that freedom under the charter. We are going on a very dangerous path.

What societal benefit is there by changing the definition of marriage which promotes the union of a man and a woman? One of the obvious outcomes of that is the production of children and family. I am not denying the fact that there are other arrangements in which families are together. Why should we as a society, as a country, and as a government deviate from that?

I would like to come back to the issue of democracy. We have been deluged with petitions from Canadians. Many people have contacted every one of our offices with many petitions which have been tabled in the House. The petitioners ask that Parliament take all steps necessary to preserve the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. These petitions are not just from one religious group but from many, and they also come from non-religious persons.

There is another issue that we ought to take into account as well. When we propose to change the definition of marriage, we ought to look carefully at what the ramifications would be. One of them is the trampling of people's rights. I will give the House an example.

The British Columbia government has given a directive to all of its justices of the peace that they will either, when asked, perform same sex marriages or else resign. I find it difficult to believe that, without exception, every justice of the peace in that province would be comfortable doing that. There must be undoubtedly some people who, because of religious or other reasons, would not want to do it.

What we are proposing is that only people who have a so-called religious attachment have the right to make that choice. What about non-religious people? Will we trample on their freedom to make this choice? This has already occurred in the Province of British Columbia. People have been told to either do it or resign.

What we have here is a collision of competing ideas and forces. I would like to appeal to the House and to all Canadians to go slowly on this issue. Let us use our common sense and ensure that we do the right thing.

[Criminal Code, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the judge will take into account the age and the age difference. If one is a 13 year old and one is a 15 year old, the judge will say, “No charge”, and the victim will not have any protection. That is my answer. That can be the last comment. She does not even need to respond. We already know where she stands.

[Criminal Code, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am totally nonplussed by this. It seems to me that our job as parliamentarians is to do a good job of creating legislation that will do what it is supposed to do.

This bill is titled the protection of children. I posed a very simple and real life example of a 13 year old who is not protected by the bill. It is just a matter of an amendment that would permit the change to be made. That is why we want the bill to go back to committee. We want a few amendments. That is one of them. There are several others. We want them corrected before that bill comes back here.

For that member to totally cop out like that is unwarranted and is a disservice to not only Canadian voters, Canadian citizens, but especially to our children. I want her to tell the House how the Liberal government and this Liberal bill will protect that 13 year old. I want to know that.

[Criminal Code, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I notice that no one else is rising, so I will indeed take the opportunity to challenge the member.

She has failed to address my question. She gave a wonderful answer, that there are some nice things in the bill and some positive things. I agree. The bill is not totally bad. That is not why we are sending it back. It has several serious fatal flaws and we want those corrected in the bill so we actually protect our children.

I posed the problem to her twice. This is now the third time. Her inability or unwillingness to address it, I think is a tacit admission that the bill fails on the very point I mention. That point is, if a 15 year old smooth talks a 13 year old neighbour into doing things which are wrong, that child does not have any protection of the law. Yet the government has the gall to call Bill C-12, in brackets, protection of children. It does not do exactly what it says in the title of the bill that it purports to do.

How is a 13 year old protected in this scene that I have stated? The fact that she will not address the question and talks about everything else is warranting a press release that says that the Liberals do not care whether 15 year olds smooth talk neighbouring 13 year olds into having sexual activity together and things like that.

[Criminal Code, April 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, then I will push her. I want her to comment on the issue of a 14 or 15 year old talking a 13 year old into doing things that are wrong and immoral. That is what the bill permits without any sanction of the law. Does she favour that? Will she say to Canadians that the Liberals do not care if that 13 year old gets attacked or not, that it is up to whomever? The bill does not protect that child.

Would the member, who is a lawyer, comment on that and to admit that she is wrong?