Ken Epp

[Criminal Code, October 30th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I too would like to congratulate my colleague for a bill that goes in the right direction.

I am inclined to think that perhaps my colleague is a little bit too soft when we look at what the provisions of this bill give. For example, under his bill if a person were to actually kill someone because of street racing, the bill does not provide the imposition of a lifetime ban from driving until a second offence. I guess that is how our legal system works. The book is thrown at the person for that first offence and then hope, if the person has killed someone, that he or she will have learned a lesson. I guess that is an element that we need to have.

The reaction is that if a person actually kills someone while driving a vehicle recklessly, and certainly speeding on the highway is reckless driving, then perhaps on the day people are issued their first driver's licence they should be informed that if they kill someone through recklessness their privilege of driving will be revoked and not given back. Maybe that would be more significant.

I appreciate what my colleague is trying to do. He has that wonderful, good, compassionate side of him. That is great. I have that too. I guess we have to try to balance that off as well as we can.

I have no experience at all with racing. When I was a kid growing up on the farm in Saskatchewan we did not go racing with the old International one tonne. It just did not cut it. We had better vehicles later on but by then I was so sensible that I never recall ever being in a race with someone. I was in a race on a bicycle. When I was at university, believe it or not I was in a 50-mile bicycle race. I have been in a race but not one of the wild vehicle races.

I think it is important to realize that when one goes to excessive speeds physics come into play. It now takes a lot of distance and a lot of time to stop a vehicle. It also depends on the kind of vehicle.

Over the years, while I have driven a motorcycle many times, I have often thought that I should stop when coming to an amber light until I would look at the guy tailgating me at 10 feet and realize that he was not going to stop. I knew if I stopped that I would end up going through the intersection anyway, except that I would be going through it with him dragging me.

People who drive a motorcycle can stop very quickly. A car will stop relatively quickly. A semi-trailer truck, which I have also driven, will undoubtedly take much more time.

I did a calculation based on some of the numbers that are given to students when they first learn to drive. It might be interesting to members in the House to realize what excessive speed does. I will sort of put this little picture, and I am estimating here. Let us say that where the Speaker's chair is, is an intersection and a person is walking through the intersection in a crosswalk. Then we have a person driving a car and approaching that intersection, which is at the other end of the House, which in my estimate is about 30 metres away. If that vehicle were approaching, it would take 2.2 seconds in order to stop and the vehicle would be able to stop by the time it got to the intersection.

That is reasonable. All hon. members can picture that. Most members here have driven vehicles. That distance, at 50 kilometres an hour, a person applies the brakes and comes to a stop, unless it is icy or there are other conditions.

One of the cases my colleague mentioned when he gave his speech was of street racing, where it was estimated that when this car hit this lady the vehicle was going 120 kilometres an hour. Do members know how long it takes for a car doing 120 kilometres an hour to go from that end of the House to this end, which is 30 metres? It takes less than one second. It is so fast that if people were walking and saw the car over there but did not realize it until it was there, they physically, even if they were running, could not get out of the way before they were hit.

I was acquainted with someone many years ago who had a very fast car. He only had it about a month or so. I do not know whether he was racing, but he was easily going double the speed limit when he T-boned a farmer who was coming out of an intersection. The farmer obviously saw the vehicle even though it was at night but thought he had enough time to cross the intersection before the vehicle got there. Lo and behold, he entered the intersection and his vehicle was hit on the side. He was so severely injured that he spent the rest of his life in a paraplegic condition. It was a tragic accident. The young lady who was with my acquaintance was badly mutilated. Her life was changed. It was just because there was excessive speed.

I also find other things appalling. Not long ago I saw a youngster crossing the street at an intersection with a crosswalk but no lights. It was a marked crosswalk that was a couple of blocks from a school. The car in front of me stopped and I pulled up behind. I saw the youngster stop but then I saw in my rear-view mirror a guy driving toward me. He saw we were stopped so he moved into the right lane. It seemed totally apparent to me that he was going to keep on driving. He was annoyed that we were stopped, maybe thinking that the car ahead of me was turning left. I did something, which I found rather difficult. I threw on my signal light as fast as I could and moved over to that lane. I will not say what gesture I got, but I feel I probably saved the youngster's life that day because I forced the other car to stop very quickly in order to avoid a collision. If that driver had schmucked my car, so be it, but no one should take a risk like that driver did just to save a few milliseconds when other people's lives are at risk.

It is very dangerous to go fast. However for some reason young men are more prone to this kind of a contest, the one that shows that they are bigger, better, stronger, et cetera. I think the measures my colleague is proposing in the bill are measures that are absolutely necessary.

What I would like to see in every province is mandatory driver training for people who are beginning their driving careers. I would like to see independent examiners. In many instances the driving schools themselves issue the licence to the driver. I would like to include in that training some graphic videos of the results of driving errors and making bad judgments, including street racing.

I would like to see the measures being proposed by Bill C-338 enacted so that young people and even older people who are learning to drive for the first time will have it drummed into their brains that if they engage in street racing or excessive speed for any reason whatsoever they will have the proverbial book thrown at them. This may deter them from doing it.

The measures in the bill are certainly stronger than the measures we have now. I think it is something that we should strongly consider. Whether a person is killed with a gun or with a vehicle, the family still suffers the loss of a loved one. The individual's life is snuffed out. We are ready to take all sorts of what I call extreme measures against presumed potential deaths by weapons so why not, if a vehicle is used as a weapon, have measures that are just as strong in order to deter a person from committing the crime and taking a person's life.

I urge all members in the House to support Bill C-338 because it is a good bill and a necessary one. It will affect no one who obeys the law, and for those who are prone not to obey the law, hopefully it will be a useful deterrent.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with intent to the speech from my colleague from the Bloc. He is not my colleague in the same party, but he is a parliamentary colleague.

I noted he said in one place that Alberta and Ontario did not like equalization. I would like to correct that because I think we do like it. It is in our Constitution. My party at least has a policy that states it approves of and supports the principle of equalization. It is not only in our country's interest, it is in the interest of each province, not only those who receive equalization payments but also those who contribute to them.

I am from Alberta. Under the equalization formula, it receives zero, but I am not unhappy with that because I think that it is good for Canadians to live in the province of their choice. I was born in Saskatchewan and I had to move to Alberta to pursue my career. People should be free to move from province to province, but most of us like to stay in the province in which we were born and live there.

If we did not have equalization, we would either have excessive taxes in some provinces and lower taxes in others or we would have a wide disparity between the level of services provided to the people by their governments.

I would like to correct that. I think he said it just in passing. We do support the principle of equalization, but we want to make it more fair.

The other thing that I want to point out is with respect to the numbers the Bloc members keep using, and the previous speaker drew attention to this as well. They have said that per capita Quebec does not get as much. The math just does not add up.

The latest numbers I have on my computer, and unfortunately I did not update them, are from 1998. At that time Quebec had around 24% of the country's population, but that same year it got 45% of the equalization payments. Therefore, per capita I believe it is somewhat ahead of the game.

I wish members would look accurately at the numbers. I pulled mine right off the public accounts. These are the actual numbers. I wish Bloc members would be a little more precise in the way they use mathematics and statistics, because it is my honest belief, based on what I have read and studied, that they have been net beneficiaries of the equalization program. We welcome them to it, but I wish they would perhaps be a little more accurate in their evaluation of it.

I am not begging them to say thanks a lot. I am saying that we should be realistic in what it means to be part of the family of Canadian provinces.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech. I have always been interested in what we can do to keep the family of Canadian provinces together. I personally think that our equalization plan is very important to the country. It is important, not only to the receiving provinces but also to the contributing provinces so that all Canadians can have an equal level of services at a comparable level of taxation. This was mentioned throughout the member's speech.

The member's last statement about there being a solution to the problem if the provinces could be on their own rather confused me. I happen to have on my computer a copy of the major equalization payment transfers over the years from 1980. Unfortunately I have not updated it in the last four years. The total transfers every year from 1980 go from $5 billion to $6 billion to $7 billion. By the time we reached 1999 the amounts went from $11 billion to $11.6 billion to $12 billion and then to $10 billion. In the 20 years that I have kept track of this, net transfers to the province of Quebec were $178 billion, a total of 31% of all of the transfers in Canada, although it has only 25% of the population. I think we have been very fair with Quebec.

I would like the member to seriously rethink the fact that if Quebec were to go on its own there would be a net loss in view of the total number of transfers that it has received from the country over the years.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague gave an excellent speech. Judging by the total lack of heckling on the Liberal side, I think that stands, does it not? Not a member over there made a single objection.

I would like to ask my colleague to clarify one thing. The principle of equalization is stated in the Constitution. He would probably want to indicate very clearly that our party believes in that principle and that we would like to make it more fair.

I recall a number of years back, when I was a member of the finance committee, looking at the whole question of equalization. There was an anomaly for Manitoba. It lost around $50 million because the people of that province did not buy enough lottery tickets. Lotteries are one of the factors included in this formula. It was deemed that it could have raised so much revenue if it sold so many lottery tickets. The people of Manitoba, being super wise, decided not to buy very many lottery tickets and lost money.

There are these anomalies and I think this is what my colleague was trying to say. We believe in equalization, but we want to make it fair and a more rational process.

[Petitions, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36 I am honoured to present a petition from a number of people, both in my riding and from the city of Edmonton, some of whom will be in the riding that I will represent, hopefully, after the next election.

The petition concerns child pornography. The petitioners demand that the government take all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry I was not clear in my original request.

I would like to point out to members present that we did indeed enjoy working together with the committee. It was a good process, as the chairman has just stated. I have been involved in the process for approximately 10 years.

With respect to the dissenting report, I want to point out that while we agree with pretty well everything in the report, the big hang-up we have is the lack of independence of the ethics commissioner.

The method of appointment is such that the Prime Minister chooses and appoints that person. That is really our largest problem. The committee came so close to doing it right. If the committee had made that one little change we would be delighted to support the bill.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the standing orders do provide for the official opposition to give a clear and succinct statement regarding the essence of the dissenting report.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2003]

Debate, Mr. Speaker?

[Marriage Act, October 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, is there time for questions and comments?

[Health, October 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, once again I have been made aware of a constituent who is having to wait for diagnostic procedures in the hospital while facing very serious medical difficulties. Because of the seriousness of the preliminary diagnosis and the necessity of prompt surgery, the X-rays, CAT scans and MRIs should be available immediately but that is not the case. Instead, there are frustrating delays.

I think we can do better in Canada. Undoubtedly the costs of providing modern medicare are higher, but the government must decide where its priorities lie.

In my opinion, fully funding health care should be way ahead of many of the waste money projects this government funds. I have said it before and I will say it again. I would much rather spend $1 billion on diagnostic equipment for our hospitals than on registering people who go duck hunting in the fall.