Ken Epp

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I urge you to hear me out. This issue is one of huge importance. We have had piles of petitions on this question. It is a matter of great urgency to protect our children from further sexual exploitation.

My motion at the end will indicate that substitutions on this committee can be made from time to time, but I am specifically stating the members because I know there are some members who are on the wrong side of this issue. I am not prepared to say that everybody is eligible to be on this committee. That is--

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I believe it is my right to place the motion. The motion, in its entirety, requires that somehow or other I be permitted to indicate the members that I would like to be eligible. If you were to listen to my whole motion, the very last part of my motion gives clarity to exactly what you are objecting to, but you are not permitting me to get to it, and that is causing me some distress.

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue. I think it will be confusing to members who read the record and look to see whether their name is on the list as being eligible for membership on the committee that I am proposing.

I said before that I would shorten it by indicating the members from the total list that I would like to exclude. However, having begun by reading the actual members who I am proposing, I think that would add a lot of confusion. Therefore I would like to actually revert back to reading the names of the members.

I do not have here a list of all the members of the House. I have chosen specific members and I am just going to carry on with it. The motion continues:

Hon. Yvon Charbonneau, member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Quebec; Hon. Denis Coderre, member for Bourassa, Quebec--

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, for greater clarity, I would like to ascertain that from this point on the names of the members who I am reading will be those who are to be omitted from all of the members of the House up to this point. I have already omitted some. From this point on, in an alphabetical listing of the members, these are now the ones who I am going to propose be omitted from membership in this committee.

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I will agree to a compromise. Perhaps it would shorten it somewhat if I were to read the names that are to be omitted.

I would also like to remind you, Mr. Speaker, it is certainly my understanding that, because I have risen on a point of order, it is not appropriate for other members to interrupt me until I have completed.

Here are now the members from this point onward--

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for exercising your patience, but I believe it is my privilege as a member of the House of Commons to put a motion. I have asked that you seek unanimous consent. I have asked that it be notwithstanding Standing Order 105. I believe very sincerely that the Speaker should hear the whole motion, in which I am naming certain members of the House of Commons in a proposal to form a committee. I believe I should have the right as a member of Parliament to do that.

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind you that the first part of my motion said:

That notwithstanding Standing Order 105, a special committee of the House...

Then I went on. That is part of my motion. I would beg leave to simply continue with my motion. I would urge you to hear it.

I will carry on adding to the members, and I am going to miss a few so that you will notice that I am not in fact putting all members on:

hon. Gerry Byrne, member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, Newfoundland; Murray Calder, member for Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Ontario; John Cannis, member for Scarborough Centre, Ontario; hon. Elinor Caplan, member for Thornhill, Ontario; hon. Aileen Carroll, member for Barrie—Simcoe—Bradford, Ontario; Jeannot Castonguay, member for Madawaska—Restigouche, New Brunswick; hon. Martin Cauchon, member for Outremont, Quebec--

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say in my defence that it is not possible, unless one is clairvoyant, to know exactly which words I am going to read.

I would like to also point out that it is a normal practice when one seeks the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion. There is no rule that I am aware of against the length of the motion, provided that it--

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would then ask for your clarification. By what Standing Order am I not permitted to completely give my motion before you put it to the House?

[Points of Order, February 6th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to ask you to seek unanimous consent for the following motion:

That notwithstanding Standing Order 105, a special committee of the House be appointed to prepare and bring in a bill to protect our children from further sexual exploitation by immediately eliminating from child pornography laws all defences for possession of child pornography which allow for the exploitation of children, and that the membership of the committee be: Peter Adams, member for Peterborough, Ontario; hon. Reg Alcock, member for Winnipeg South, Manitoba; Carole-Marie Allard, member for Laval East, Quebec; hon. David Anderson, member for Victoria, British Columbia; Mark Assad, member for Gatineau, Quebec; Sarkis Assadourian, member for Brampton Centre, Ontario; hon. Jean Augustine, member for Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Ontario; hon. Larry Bagnell, member for Yukon, Yukon; hon. Eleni Bakopanos, member for Ahuntsic, Quebec; hon. Sue Barnes, member for London West, Ontario; Gilbert Barrette, member for Témiscamingue, Quebec; Colleen Beaumier, member for Brampton West—Mississauga, Ontario; Réginald Bélair, member for Timmins—James Bay, Ontario; hon. Mauril Bélanger, Ottawa—Vanier, Ontario; Eugene Bellemare, member for Ottawa—Orléans, Ontario; hon. Carolyn Bennett, member for St. Paul's, Ontario; Robert Bertrand, member for Pontiac—Gatineau—Labelle, Quebec; hon. Maurizio Bevilacqua, member for Vaughan—King—Aurora, Ontario; Gérard Binet, member for Frontenac—Mégantic, Quebec; hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew, member for Western Arctic, Northwest Territories; Raymond Bonin, member for Nickel Belt, Ontario, hon. Paul Bonwick, member for Simcoe—Grey, Ontario; hon. Don Boudria, member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, Ontario; hon. Claudette Bradshaw, member for Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, New Brunswick; hon. Scott Brison, member for Kings—Hants, Nova Scotia; Bonnie Brown, member for Oakville, Ontario; John Bryden, member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, Ontario; Sarmite Bulte, member for Parkdale—High Park, Ontario--

[Business of the House, February 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I listened as carefully as I could to the speech just given and was, of course, very grateful again to our wonderful interpreters who allow me to hear a language that I cannot understand when it comes to me directly from the other person to my ears.

I would like to talk about the part of the hon. member's speech where he mentioned the inclusion of the municipalities, municipal governments, the cities, in terms of being able to now share the Ottawa wealth. I say that in quotation marks because I believe Ottawa takes way too much money away from Canadian citizens.

I, as I am sure are some of the Bloc members, am very concerned with respect to the jurisdictional question of the federal government becoming involved directly with municipal governments, whereas that, by our constitutional setup, is one that municipalities deal with the provincial governments.

I personally would like to see a much more strengthened equalization system right across the country so that part of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Constitution Act of 1982, is vigorously enforced. I believe in that, but there is a jurisdictional problem. I wonder whether the government might not be better off to simply vacate some tax room. For example, it collects billions of dollars in gasoline tax. If it were to remove itself from that tax and make the tax room available for the provinces, they could then distribute it to the municipalities based on needs, population and so on. It would be a very simple thing. It would have a zero cost of administration. I think it would wind up really meeting the needs of municipalities almost instantly in a very effective way. That would be much better than the plan that these Liberals have in mind now, although we do not yet really know for certain what it is.