Ken Epp

[Supply, October 2nd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I will be brief, obviously of necessity, which of course is my usual pattern anyway.

I would like to emphasize that I support this motion. It is atrocious that the government is wasting billions of dollars on unaccounted for programs such as the gun registry, the billion dollar boondoggle in HRDC, and the millions of dollars that are spent in advertising in Quebec. It takes all of this money from Canadian taxpayers, including money collected on gasoline, and pays back such a paltry amount to maintain our roads.

I look around at the different roads in this country that I have travelled on and almost universally they are terribly substandard compared to those in the United States. As a matter of fact, whenever I go down there it usually takes me about a month or so to adjust back to the poor road design and construction in Canada. It is time that we put some real money into that because with a country as vast as ours, it is obviously very important that we have good transportation systems.

With the railroads in this country increasingly being cut back, more of our goods and services are being hauled by trucks on our highways. We had better have good roads. They had better be in good shape not only for the efficient movement of our goods and services, but also for safety.

I would like to point out again a couple of my hobby horses. The 1.5¢ per litre tax that the government imposed to reduce the deficit is redundant because the deficit is gone. We thank the Liberal government for taking our advice over the last 10 years and eliminating the deficit. That tax was brought in as a deficit reduction measure and the tax is still here. It ought to be gone because that was the justification for it at that time.

Of course, as a mathematician I must always add that with the 7% sales tax on top of that, it is not 1.5¢ a litre. It is really $1.605¢ per litre that the government is taking from us. It is taking billions of dollars, year after year, and not returning to the provinces the money that they so desperately need to provide for a high grade, up to date, and modern road system.

[Library and Archives of Canada Act, October 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, when the whip for the Liberal Party stood, she mentioned two members who were not to be included in the votes. I think it might help the clerks at the table if it were ascertained whether they were abstaining or voting opposite.

[Parliament of Canada Act, October 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it says something when the only substantial debate that the Liberals can come up with on this particular bill is to make sure that other people cannot do anything about it, like amending it to make it better. That is atrocious. The Liberals on the other side ought to be hanging their heads in shame. They have come close to coming up with an ethics package that would be useful and workable but it has serious flaws and they will not fix them. I am very disappointed.

I want to talk a little about this whole ethics thing. As we all know it was a little more than a year ago that the Prime Minister came up with an ethics package. One might ask why he would do that. Is it because they were keeping an election promise after 10 years? I do not think so because if they were working on keeping that election promise, one would think they would have brought forward the legislation a long time ago.

The fact of the matter, which is inescapable, and I do not see any Liberal on the other side objecting to what I am saying, is that they brought this forward simply as damage control at a time when the wheels were coming off the Liberal ethical bus. As a matter of fact, I think they have had a tow truck dragging it for the last five or six years. It is a desperate action that they have taken in order to make it look as if they are fixing the problems.

We are in a difficult situation in our party and that is that we have to vote against this package because of its flaws. That produces for us, of course, an extraordinary communication package. I can just see them in the next election going around the country and saying “Here we are, the wonderful Liberal Party. We brought in an ethics package”. Of course they will want the people to believe that they are now becoming very highly ethical. Then they will say “The Canadian Alliance Party voted against it. They are not in favour of ethics”. That is what they will be saying.

Well, I sincerely hope that Canadians will see through that facade and will recognize it for what it is because the occurrences which brought us to this place will not be solved by the ethics package that the Prime Minister announced. I believe that what they are doing is building yet another series of steps that they can take when ethical problems occur so that they can deflect the media interest. I am very concerned about that.

All these breaches that we have heard about have had to do with the executive branch of government: the Prime Minister and the front row of the Liberal Party over there called the cabinet, which is the executive branch in our system of government. Whenever there have been problems, that is from where they have derived. It began, of course, with the Prime Minister himself. He alone has the power to determine whether or not there is an independent inquiry into the thing, and surprise, surprise, he declined. No, let us not find out the truth in this. There was more than ample evidence that he interfered but the results of that are still not in. The new ethics package, which the Liberals have introduced, will not address that problem. It will not require that there be an independent inquiry into such things. It will not require that the minister or the Prime Minister be held to account.

Then we had this dreadful situation with government services and the advertising contracts; contracts being given to advertisers in Quebec, where the only work they did to collect the money was to sign the cheque and take it to the bank. I cannot believe it. No wonder Canadian taxpayers are outraged. We have a government that just loosely gives away the hard-earned taxpayer money.

I regularly hear from constituents that they are having trouble making ends meet and yet their incomes are high enough that they are taxable. I hear particularly from seniors and widows who have a limited amount of income, say $15,000 to $18,000 a year. With that, they have to pay horrendous utility bills and property taxes. Yet the government thinks it is fine for them pay income taxes.

After that money goes to the federal government what does it do with it? It gives it to Liberal friends who presumably contribute to its party during election campaigns, but who do not do anything. They may copy a document that they wrote the year before, put a new date on it, print it again and get another $180,000, or whatever it is that they get for these contracts.

However that money is the hard-earned money of Canadian taxpayers, including those widows who come to my office or who phone me. They want to know what to do. They say that they have expenses but that they will run out of money. They tell me that they have skimped and saved to provide for their future but that after paying high utility bills and all the taxes they will not have enough. Then they read in the paper how some people are getting that money just because of political inbreeding and they are justifiably upset.

The government comes along and says that we will have an independent ethics commissioner because that is what was promised in 1993. That would be wonderful if it were accurate. Unfortunately, it is not. Unfortunately, under Bill C-34 the appointment of the ethics commissioner is, as always, made by the Prime Minister. That is our primary objection to the bill.

When it comes to dealing with ethical breaches on the part of the government, that is the cabinet, what we find is that the ethics commissioner will still be investigating and providing private information and advice to the Prime Minister.

Sure the bill states that the Prime Minister will consult with the leaders of the other parties on the appointment of the ethics commissioner but consultation is left undefined and there is no requirement in that consultation that the Prime Minister actually has to respond if they object.

I find it repulsive that the next time one of the Liberal boondoggles shows up, with a waste of thousands or millions or billions of dollars, the Liberals may haul up some petty little complaint against a backbench MP or an opposition MP and sic the ethics commissioner after them, an ethics commissioner who would have been appointed by the Prime Minister without the concurrence of the other parties.

Some have argued that the ethics commissioner should have the same status as other officers of Parliament. I would tend to agree with that but I would have a further proviso. Since the ethics commissioner would be making judgments that could affect the whole future of another member of Parliament, it should be absolutely mandatory that he receive, for all intents and purposes, the unanimous support of all members of Parliament, instead of just having the Prime Minister appoint him or her.

This is a very frustrating exercise. It is frustrating to the point where one just wants to ask what the point is of it all. What is the point of standing here and arguing, trying to get all those Liberals over there to change their position on this? They do not listen. If they agree with me, let them say so. If they disagree, let them say so. They will not say a thing because they are totally entrenched in their old ways. They will simply vote the way they are told.

The bill will come up for a vote later today and they will stand on command and say that, yes, they agree with the way the Prime Minister wants to do this stuff. That will be the end of the matter and we will have to live with it.

I pledge on behalf of my constituents and all Canadians that we will not rest until there is a procedure in place for a truly independent ethics commissioner, and a truly and transparent set of rules that guide our behaviour so that Canadians can once again put their trust and faith in their institution of government.

Without that, our democracy is at risk, our country is at risk, and our children's future is at risk. We can settle for nothing less.

[Health, September 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House to debate this most important and most critical issue.

The motion before the House is that of my colleague from Yorkton--Melville, Motion No. 83. I think it might be good at this stage to take a few seconds to read the motion. It states:

That the Standing Committee on Health fully examine, study and report to Parliament on: (a) whether or not abortions are medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining health, preventing disease or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or disability; and (b) the health risks for women undergoing abortions compared to women carrying their babies to full term.

This of course is a very emotional issue. Unfortunately sometimes in life as in Parliament emotions take precedence over careful thought and looking at independent and objective truth and objective facts. This is exactly what has happened on the issue of abortion in Canada and, I would venture to say, around the world.

There are those who say that women have a right to an abortion and therefore no one should have the ability or the right to say that they may not have them.

The dilemma for Canadians is that we are all required to pay taxes and, through our taxes, to fund abortions in an environment in which medical funding is limited. This is without any firm proof, scientific or objective, that it meets the requirements of the Canada Health Act. It has always been assumed so, since the abortion rules were struck down a number of years ago. If one has the gall to even suggest that perhaps we should have a look at it, there is this huge emotional outcry and name calling that ensues. That does not contribute to a positive and meaningful debate on the issue.

I would like to point out, as my colleague did when he first spoke to this motion on May 12 of this year, that the wording of the motion is precisely the same as that which was given to him by the department when it looked for criteria to determine whether or not a medical procedure should be covered by the Canada Health Act and by funding from the central government in Ottawa.

We all know there have been several instances in our country where provinces have been punished for not complying with all of these conditions and yet there has been no proof given that this is a necessary procedure.

I would like to talk about these different points, the first being maintaining health. If pregnancy were a disease then we would all be in trouble. In fact I would venture to say that if pregnancy were a disease, which would be vigorously attacked on all fronts, then our species would cease to exist. I believe that pregnancy has always been considered a normal phase of life and it has not, to my knowledge, ever been called a disease. As far as maintaining health is concerned, it really is not the issue.

If we are talking about preventing disease or diagnosing and treating an injury, does having an abortion prevent a disease? Pregnancy is not a disease. Childbirth is not a disease. Therefore it is not logical to say that abortions are necessary to prevent disease or to treat an injury.

Just as a little aside with a bit of humour, I remember seeing a notice from a life insurance company stating that its policy for injury payments did not cover certain circumstances. It then went on to mention a bunch of things, including suicide, attempted suicide and so on, pregnancy and other self-inflicted injuries. We know, of course, that pregnancy is not usually a self-inflicted injury. It is just one of those normal things that mothers and fathers do in order to provide for the next generation.

I would also like to say sort of as a parenthetical phrase--I suppose the modern lingo is a little sidebar--that my wife and I have three wonderful children. In each instance their births were welcomed and absolute miracles, as were the births of all our grandchildren. I think my wife and I were more enthusiastic with the birth of our grandchildren and about the well-being of the mother when our grandchildren were born than we were when we were having children ourselves. It is a wonderful process and one which I think we ought to really be very careful about.

Then, of course, we also have illness or disability, and I think the same arguments would apply.

Those were definitions given by the Department of Health in answer to an inquiry as to how to determine whether a procedure should be covered by the Canada Health Act.

There are serious questions. There is mounting evidence that there are in fact significant traumas that are incurred in the performance of abortions. I have done quite a bit of reading on this myself. I have a real interest in books. One of the things that I sometimes do is go to the library just to see what kind of books it is getting rid of. Everyone knows about the 25¢ books that are outdated. People can buy them and take them home. I have a whole stack of books to read for that date way off in the future when I retire.

One of the books that I picked up, because of my interest in the subject, was a book entitled Providing Safe Abortions . I thought it would be an interesting one. It was 25¢ so I plunked down my money and walked off with the book. I began to read it. It is a fascinating book because it was written by a medical doctor who provides abortions, believes in abortions and, for the sake of training practitioners, he wrote the textbook to be used in medical colleges, which was to answer the question of what one has to do to provide a safe abortion.

I was astounded when I read that book. It was not a very thick book, maybe 150 pages or so, but it talked about all sorts of things that can go wrong during an abortion. I never knew that. Those who promote abortions want us to believe that it is just an innocuous procedure like removing the appendix or some other thing like that. I was really quite astounded that this person who wrote the book actually works in that particular area of the medical field and by all the elements that he had identified as being dangers.

I think it is just common sense that we should ask the questions. I do not believe we should refrain from asking the questions simply because we are going to be yelled at by someone. I think they are legitimate questions and we need to get the answers. If the answers come out opposite to what we expect because of the literature that we have obtained and that we have garnered, so be it, but let us ask the questions. Let us find out the true dimensions of this procedure. Particularly, in support of my colleague's motion, we need to make sure as the government that this procedure is indeed medically necessary as is claimed.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, September 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very short interruption to my speech, it being only a little over an hour. I do not know if I hold the record on an interrupted speech but there was one time when I was interrupted and then the bill that I was speaking on was not called for a couple of days less than a year. I started my speech over by saying, “as I was saying when I was interrupted”, and I will not do that today.

I have only a few more points to make on Bill C-37. I draw attention to the fact that with Bill C-37 finally reserve troops are drawn into the pension plan for the armed forces. This again is another item which is long overdue and which I would commend. As a matter of fact, if Canadians were to look at one way in which they could get a lot of value for money, strengthening the reserve forces in Canada would almost certainly be one of those ways.

I know there are other countries in the world that rely very heavily on reserve forces. Perhaps instead of spending a billion dollars on registering duck hunters and threatening to take away their guns if they do not comply with these administrative rules, we might better off issuing rifles to reservists, making it a part of the condition of their having a gun that they take the training and that they be ready to be called upon in case they are needed.

That is perhaps a facetious statement, but certainly the reservists have a great deal to offer the armed forces and the people of Canada. There are many times when there is an emergency that occurs in some part of our country. At that stage, instead of using our regular troops, we could call upon the reservists to help, especially when it comes to helping domestically. I think that would be a very good return on our money.

In any case, Bill C-37 draws them into the pension plan as well. Full time reservists would receive a partial benefit. For those who are part timers, it is a little less generous, but that is fair enough since most reservists have other full time employment and are able to look after their retirement needs in that way.

I would like to comment briefly about the schedule. There are two problems that I have with the bill. One is that there is an awful lot in this bill that will be done by regulation, by order in council. I have spoken on this topic before and I will reiterate it.

The ministers have a great deal of unilateral power when it comes to regulations. If anything needs to be strengthened in our parliamentary system, it needs to be the scrutiny of those regulations. We have a parliamentary committee that does that, but generally it has only the capacity to respond when there are complaints or issues are drawn to its attention.

While it is obviously administratively necessary, we should have perhaps more debate and more public input into decisions that are made and that are proclaimed by regulation.

My final statement on Bill C-37 is that it is long overdue. I commend the government for doing it now but I need to point out very emphatically that looking after of the pension scheme for our armed forces personnel and for our RCMP officers is a need which has been there for a long time. While commending the government for doing it now, I would like to also chastise it for having taken so long to get to this important issue.

Probably most of the members on this side of the House, as certainly on the other side, will be supporting this measure.

I would like to conclude my speech as I began it and that is by thanking the people in our armed forces for the good work they do. I hope that by supporting this measure, we are giving a tangible arm to the support that we are giving them.

[Beef Industry, September 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, you would not believe how incredibly difficult this summer has been for the farmers. The closing of the U.S. border to the export of our beef is devastating the industry.

I am sure that the agriculture minister, the finance minister and both prime ministers have a total incapacity to understand the meaning of losing 85% or 90% of their income.

I have a large number of people in my riding who depend on the beef industry. I think of the Andersons, who operate a major feedlot and who are expecting their fourth child. Producing high quality beef is their livelihood and it is evaporating.

There are hundreds like them and this government seems to have no concern for them at all.

Imagine: these Liberals voted against an opposition motion to send a high level delegation to Washington and to make an extraordinary effort to reopen the border. Maybe the motion confused them, because it referred to the Prime Minister and right now we do not have one.

[Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, September 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the legislation introduced today by the government on behalf of pensioners and future pensioners currently employed in the armed forces in the defence of our country and in the many other functions our armed forces personnel are required to fulfill these days.

I have a considerable interest in the matter of pensions. Some people will remember that on one occasion I took part in a philosophical debate about how pensions could be improved but unfortunately the timing was wrong. It made some interesting headlines in the newspapers, and we received a bit of flak about it.

Whether we are talking about Canadian pensioners at large, members of the armed forces, members of the RCMP or whomever, my interest is primarily and solely to improve the benefits and the fairness of the benefits received by people who work on our behalf.

We probably are not aware of the debt of gratitude we owe to our armed forces personnel as much as we should be. In my mind they are very special people. Not only have they chosen a career in the armed forces in the defence of either our civil or international liberties, they are willing, if necessary, to put their lives on the line on behalf of others as well. That is something which most of us do not think of often enough or deeply enough.

It is important to recognize that our armed forces personnel are serving in peacekeeping missions abroad in places like Afghanistan and others trying to improve the situation for people around the world as well as preserving our rights and freedoms in our country. These people occasionally live in very high risk situations. The fact that they are willing to do that makes them special people. We should pay particular attention to ensuring that they and their families are adequately and properly looked after when they reach retirement age, or heaven forbid, if they have some calamity in their lives requiring those benefits to be paid out before they reach that age.

I would like to commend the government for most of what is contained in Bill C-37, and the House may find that surprising. It is usually considered that the opposition's role is to oppose, and indeed it is. We oppose those things which are wrong. By the same token, our party is a party which is based on principle, and I am very proud of that fact. We are not here just for political reasons. We want to promote the principles that are good for our country.

Bill C-37 would improve the superannuation and retirement conditions for our armed services personnel. It is an improvement, and therefore I cannot, on that principle, oppose it. I agree with it because we need to make these improvements.

One very important change is one which strikes at some work that I did in my riding on behalf of several individuals who were with the armed forces and then for various reasons were asked to leave. The Canadian armed forces was reducing its personnel due to cutbacks and these individuals received a buyout which was fair according to the rules at the time but which was scarcely defensible. Then they were asked to return to the forces and continue serving in the capacity in which they were trained.

These individuals came to my office and said that little exercise had cut them out of their pension. I could not believe it. We tried to go to bat for them and very frankly did not have success in that case. The regulations were very clear. Once having been in the armed forces, if they quit for whatever reason, there was a final deal on the pension. It was a payout, or a transfer or whatever, and they could not buy back in. These individuals were, if I may be permitted to use a slightly unparliamentary term, shafted. They were not given a fair deal and it was not possible to correct it. I still feel badly about that.

I do not know whether the bill will serve retroactively to correct that error. I rather doubt it. However this is one of the issues which is addressed in Bill C-37 and it is one of the items I would like to include in my list of things for which I want to commend the government. No longer does it talk about continuous service to earn pension, but it talks about years of pensionable service, so if it is interrupted the member does not take a hit. I can only say, in a mild but sincere way, kudos to the government for recognizing that flaw and for repairing it. This is probably the most important feature of Bill C-37 and I wanted to talk about that first.

The second thing the government has included in this bill, with which I agree, is it gives access to armed forces personnel to their deferred pension benefits. This is a very common situation when people retire or they are pushed out of their positions early, often because of injury or other factors. The bill will give them access to pension benefits all the way down to age 50.

I do not know whether members are aware of this fact, but when one does this, actuarially the pension is reduced, which sometimes puts these people under some duress financially. However I really do not know any other way that that can be done. It would not be right to have one person who serves until age 60 or age 65 receive no more pension for the years of pensionable service left than the person who has been collecting pension since age 50. Actuarially reducing the pension is fair and we have to live with that. That is provided for in the bill and it is a very good situation.

Some people in the armed forces choose to retire early. In some cases it is a combination. Some individuals get into positions of extremely high stress and they really need to get out because of that stress they have had to endure. Even though they are not asked to retire, some of them recognize that their effectiveness in the armed forces is being diminished because of the toll the stress has taken on them over the years.

I commend the government for making these provisions available to members of the armed forces. I have not had a chance to read the bill in its entirety unfortunately, but I believe that those provisions, or at least some variation of them, are also being made available in this bill to the RCMP. That is another area where we have had presentations or representations from people who say that due to the very nature of the job, it is really unrealistic to expect them to work for 45 years before they reach retirement age, say from age 20 to age 65.

The RCMP also has made representation to all members of Parliament and have asked if its members could, for the sake of for example the Canada pension plan, make a one-third greater contribution to it to enable them to receive full benefits at age 55 instead of 65. Therefore there would be an additional contribution rate in proportion to the time that they have paid in.

Of course I had some discussions with them. I have this slight mathematical bent which I have difficulty turning off. I pointed out to them that even though they were asking for the contributions to be increased in proportion to the time the contributions would be made in fewer years, they failed to take into account the actuarial fact that the pension was now paid out for many more years, assuming that their age of death was about the same as if they would have kept on working to age 65. In fact if the stress relief provided by retiring early actually worked, they would probably live longer, actuarially speaking. Therefore one has to take those things into account as well.

However I still support that measure. Canadians benefit greatly by the work of our peacekeepers in our country, our police forces, and we ought to have that ready for them on behalf of taxpayers. I know I would much rather spend my money on providing decent benefits for our armed forces personnel and our RCMP officers than I would spending it in the many ways that the government wastes money.

For example, I would much rather put $1 billion into the RCMP and armed forces pension fund than I would to have them register duck hunters who go hunting in fall. Absurdities like that are very obnoxious to Canadian people at large, especially to the people who work in the defence of peace in our country. We ought to really be thinking about that.

The next element I would like to refer to briefly is the element of portability. I really think we have a lot of work, in total, on the portability of pension plans. This is true in the domestic world as well as for our armed forces.

A person who works for 20 years in one business, or who works for 20 years in the armed forces, should not be a slave to staying in that position simply because if they leave they lose any pension benefits they have accumulated. I would like to see full and total portability. I would like to see that among industries. I would like to see that among schools and colleges, for people in my profession. It is outrageous that people can lose their benefits and be forced to simply take a payout.

I do not know if members are aware of this but in most contributory pension benefit plans the contribution rates are usually matched by the employer.

This actually happened to me when I taught high school math for four years, when I was a youngster. When I left that to go to the college, I had a choice. I could either transfer it, which at that time was a gift because it was not to be included to make any greater benefits for myself, or I could take back the contributions I had made, forgoing the ones that were made on my behalf by the employer. This is true for armed forces personnel as well.

I am very pleased the bill addresses that issue. It states that if a person who has been serving in the armed forces for more than two years and leaves the position, the pension benefits they have earned are portable. That is a very good provision. At that stage, under the Income Tax Act, they can move it into an RRSP or they can transfer it to another pension plan if they go to another employer, specifically one in the government. In other words, they can transfer that pension benefit over and carry it over in the next plan.

It is my understanding the bill does that. If my understanding is right, then that is a positive step and I need to commend the government for it.

[Social Condition, September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to add a few words of wisdom, I hope, to this important debate.

The member proposed that we should add in the Canadian Human Rights Act the phrase “social condition” as being one of the categories that cannot be used as a basis of discrimination.

I always wonder about this whole concept of having a list of groups that are to be included or not included. For example, under the Canadian Human Rights Act the grounds for discrimination already include race. I do not think anybody in the country in the year 2003 would disagree with that. We should not discriminate against people because of the colour of their skin when it comes to having them apply for rental accommodation, a job or whatever it is.

The same thing applies to national or ethnic origin. I do not think we have a problem with that. Colour, I presume, is the colour of a person's skin. That is related to their race. They are closely tied together. I would simply say that nowadays this is almost self-evident. I do not even think it needs to be codified, if the truth be known. If a person has the tendency to discriminate, the law will not change it. I think we can do a lot better by using a process of persuasion.

Actually I have an example of that. When I was a youngster growing up we happened to live close to the armed forces base in one of the little towns in Saskatchewan called Swift Current. There were a lot of air force people there. In those days we had the separation of the armed forces.

Here we were, German-speaking immigrants during the second world war, going to school with people whose moms and dads had recently been fighting the war in Germany against the Nazis. There could have been a law at that time that said that one could not discriminate against people because of their race. I do not know if it would have made any difference. Some of those kids in school did not like us because their dads were out there fighting us. Somehow they equated us to that but we overcame it.

When my brother and I were in school we made it a point to get along with everybody, and we did, as did our parents in our community. In fact, my dad was a leader in many instances in helping people who were in need of help and established a reputation that totally neutralized the discrimination which may have existed against us. I think that is the way to do it. It is not by passing laws.

I remember a little phrase I heard a long time ago which ties in with this. “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still”. Therefore we cannot, just by passing a law, change a person's mind but we can change a person's mind through reasoning and by doing the right things.

The act goes on to say that we cannot discriminate against people because of their religion. Now we are getting into areas where I think we have a potential problem because occasionally different religions conflict. If we cannot discriminate against people because of their religion, with which I basically agree, when a person comes looking for a job and if in fact the religious faith has nothing to do with the job, then that is not a basis of the choice of whether or not we hire that person.

However what about people who own a book store that promotes their religion? Could people of a different faith enter the store and demand that their books be put on the shelves alongside the others? Does the owner of the store have the right to say, no, that he or she will not sell those books, or does that person not have those rights?

I think we need to be very careful here. If we try to make everybody into one huge homogenous group we may actually undo something for which Canada is noted, which is that although we have differences we respect them and we get along really well with them. However let us not codify into law a whole bunch of restrictions.

We cannot discriminate against a person with respect to age. I will give an example that is really quite absurd. If I showed up at the local racetrack and said I wanted to become a jockey, the people there would have every right to say that they did not think that I had the right body shape, size or weight, that I would break the backs of their horses, and that I was too old. I think they would have had the right to say that. I could not have said that they had to hire me because otherwise I was going to take them to the Canadian Human Rights Commission because they were discriminating against me because of my age.

In recent years we have added to this list the undefined term “sexual orientation”. We need to be really cautious about the application of that one. How about marital status? We cannot discriminate against people because of their marital status, family status, disability and--here is an interesting one--a conviction for which a pardon has been granted. I think we probably agree with those different things.

The proposal before us is to add to that another undefined term “social condition”. I have such a terrible problem with that. I have some of the same concerns as the parliamentary secretary. We could end up having people deem protection from this act when that was not the intention at all. There are different places in which there are differences on how we treat people based on things that are already here.

I think, for example, when I drove into a national park--and I have not had an opportunity to drive into a national park for a number of years now--it used to be that people who were seniors got in free. People who are not seniors should take that to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and ask why they, because they are younger, should pay more than that rich cat up there who is 75 and going in with his 40 foot motor home? It is a place where we differentiate between people based on age, which is not right, but do we want to really make a big scene about this in the Human Rights Act?

We have this undefined term “social condition”, which can frankly mean just about anything. I can even tie it back to ethnic origin. I am thinking right now of a person in my riding who is an aboriginal. This guy went to work. I will not identify him obviously, but man did he do well in business. He is a rich cat in my community and he is doing very well. Would he need to have protection which other visible minorities need? How do we balance these things off?

Frankly, the government should be out of this entirely. I really believe that. In our society and with our enlightened views these days, we can get along with each other with our diversity very well without being threatened by going to human rights commissions that have all of these strengths and powers to impose fines and other penalties because we have not met some arbitrary and undefined definition in our behaviour toward or with people.

We must also consider in this whole issue the long term effect. When we were debating the issue of including sexual orientation--I used the phrase then and I will use it again now--the list is not complete until everyone is on it. I think that really is it.

We ought to treat people fairly, honestly, and treat them for the humans that they are. Let us not look at and magnify the differences. Let us not classify people into this group and that group because that will lead to increasing problems rather than to a more cooperative and a happy society.

[An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Cruelty to Animals), September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the minister for giving us a wonderful legal speech, including legalese galore. One has to really think hard about some of these things, especially when one says that if killing is done without unnecessary pain, then it is done without unnecessary pain. That is awfully close to circular reasoning, but I guess that is what lawyers do in court and that is one of the things that is necessary to make our legal system work.

I would like to comment on Bill C-10B, cruelty to animals. In general it would be fair to say that the purpose of any such law would be to prevent the abuse of animals, the infliction of unnecessary pain, in fact to assure the humane treatment of animals in all instances. On the other hand, it should also serve to protect people who use animals in normal everyday living and they should hopefully, by our laws, be prevented from being continually dragged into the courts and having to defend themselves against practices which are judged by some others to be cruel, yet they are practices which have been used for many years.

I think for example back when I was a youngster. I know that probably, Madam Speaker, you tire of my stories from my youth, but we did among other things have animals on the farm, obviously. We had cows, pigs, horses, sheep, chickens and on occasion we had geese. Without those animals in those years, we would not have been able to live. They provided us with, in some case, the bare necessities of life, including food and other things.

I remember very fondly, even though at that time there were no laws that governed this, my dad particularly was very careful that we treated our animals with respect. We did not treat them as if they were humans, by no means, but we treated them in such a way that they did not have to endure unnecessary pain.

I know occasionally animals, especially large animals like cows, have to be dealt with rather harshly because they have to be controlled to prevent human lives in the barn from risk. I know for example that when we had bulls on the farm, they always had rings in their noses. When we took the bull out, we had a rope around his neck but we also had a rope through that ring. If he misbehaved, then there would be a tug on the ring on the nose. It was a very good persuader. He always followed us exactly the way he was supposed to because he wanted to avoid that pain.

Now the question is, is it painful to have a ring in the nose of an animal? Is that cruel? Should a person go to jail if he does that or be fined? I say that is much to be preferred to having one of the children in the family, of which I was one, suffer injury or death. We had to do these things to control these animals. Of course, once they are trained, they behave reasonably well and normally we do not have to take these extraordinary efforts.

It would be a tough sell to say that having a ring through one's nose is an act of cruelty because all we have to do is go down to the mall nowadays and we will see many teenagers and even older with rings in their noses and, dare I say it, in a whole bunch of other places, which really boggles the mind in my view, but then I guess I am a little old fashioned.

In any case it is very important that we continue to permit those who deal in animal husbandry to do so without fear of being prosecuted and to have to spend a lot of time in court and a lot of money on lawyers.

[Income Tax Act, September 25th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I was wondering whether you would cast your eyes to this side of the House. You gave the member opposite two chances before I got my first. But I appreciate being recognized now.

The member said so many things in his speech that I agree with that I sometimes wish we were in the same party. But maybe that is another topic.

I would like to mention one thing that he talked about, and that is EI and the scheme that we have. Right now the federal government is taking from workers and employers across the country in excess of $5 billion per year. That is money that belongs to these people and yet the government takes it, rolls it into general revenue and uses it for its own purposes.

He floated the idea of having individualized accounts, which is an idea I had over 10 years ago. I remember playing with this before I was even a member of Parliament.

If one were to have an individualized account and were fortunate enough not to have to use it, it would have an accumulated value at the end of one's working life of 45 years, some $580,000 in the bank as part of the RRSP.

Those were some of the ideas that I played with that never went anywhere, but I was curious about his ideas in that area.