Ken Epp

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. We are here to make Parliament work. That member should now take his own instruction and henceforth, instead of voting according to the command, vote according to the wishes of his constituents.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Just like today.

The government said that it would not discuss Nisga'a or debate it. It was going to jam it through. We said that it was so important that in one way or another we were going to spend a week on it. We asked the government to allow us to debate it according to the House rules, so we could express ourselves and so Canadians could express themselves. The government said no, that it would not do it. Then it turned around and said our using the week for voting was foolish. I contend that its use of forcing us to use that tactic instead of using it for debates in the House was where the foolishness was, and that is what we need to correct.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is like salt and pepper. There were insults and compliments mixed tightly together. I regret that she has never been able to agree with me before but I suppose I will keep on talking and she will eventually come to her senses. There, I have had my shot in.

However, it is really important. I remember in the previous Parliament when we had that very long vote on the Nisga'a agreement. Some people thought that was acting foolishly. The House leader for the government is applauding this.

Why did we do that? This was an issue of such great importance to people in British Columbia and to people right across the country. We said to the government it could not just jam it through. What did it do? It invoked closure right off the bat.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is a very good question and I appreciate that. Why did I vote in favour of the adjournment of the House? Because of the fact that we somehow have to club the government on the head in order for it to understand what is going on.

Does the government and that member think that a minister of the Crown giving untendered, sole source contracts to his friends, his official agent, is irrelevant? Is he suggesting that we should go to the Canadian people and tell them that now has become the norm and that is what the government is defending. Is he saying that we should leave it, that it is fine and that we should go on and talk about other things? If that is what the government members are willing to defend, no wonder Canadians are not showing up at the polls to vote. No wonder people are losing faith in the Canadian government. It is time that we fix that.

I would love to be on that side of the House. I would love to be a minister. I am looking forward to the time when I can write a memorandum to every member in the department of which I am a minister and say that if there is any political interference with the process of procurement, they will not only be permitted to but will be obliged to make that public, to expose it and to stop it because it is totally wrong and it is shameful.

Yet the government says we should let it be and that we should talk about something else. Then it comes in and invokes closure as soon as the new parliamentary session begins.

I am afraid I cannot apologize. I do not think that us voting in favour of adjournment of the House on a Friday afternoon when it is irrelevant is much different from the Prime Minister saying, “Let's shut down Parliament for two weeks while I continue my golf game”.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I respect the hon. member opposite as well. I appreciate his expression of his respect for me. However the fact of the matter is that this place has become totally non-functional.

Whenever we want to address a problem and solve it, we are totally stymied, whether it is in committee or whether it is in the House. I know that it tends to feed the lowering of the respect for this place in the public. However if it is the truth, we need to correct it in this place and then ensure that the people of Canada know it has been corrected.

[Committee Business and Reinstatement of Government Bills, October 4th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I have a real problem with this place today because of the fact that Parliament has become so irrelevant when we look at the number of members present for the vote and the fact that the government is trying to jam through legislation and introduce bills that Canadians do not want. The government is making announcements outside the House. It never uses ministers' statements.

It is really very unfortunate that the House is behaving in this way. We need to make very sure that the House works on behalf of Canadians. We need to be here to debate the issues, to make thoughtful decisions and to vote the wishes of our constituents to make sure that Canadians have the best possible rules and laws. I really deplore the fact that Parliament has become so irrelevant that members here actually believe that we might as well just adjourn and go away. It is really sad that this has happened and the blame for that lies entirely on the side of the government. Two weeks into September, the Prime Minister said he did not think he wanted the inconvenience of Parliament, or else it had just become an annoyance to him, so it was postponed for two weeks.

There is a whole bunch of issues we should be dealing with. We think of the farm crisis. We think of the falling dollar. We think of the crisis with our families and children. We think of child pornography. Why can we not be seized with that matter and solve the problem?

Instead, the Prime Minister just said that the government would wait two weeks and come up with a throne speech. The throne speech of course was the most limp throne speech ever, just a regurgitation of a whole bunch of things which were either previously promised and not kept or which are just not high on the people's agenda.

It is very unfortunate that Parliament has degenerated to this level. I am very sorry that we cannot function as a real genuine board of directors for the company called Canada and do so in dignity, in great respect and with great honour. I will simply close my speech by saying that I deplore what this Liberal government is doing to the reputation of Parliament.

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, yes indeed, a number of people have contacted our offices to express their opinions on this issue. Very frankly, a great number of them have said to avoid war if at all possible. However, most of them also went on to say that if it could not be avoided in the future, perhaps it would be better to limit the losses by doing something now.

On the other hand, there are a great number of people who are saying this is a threat as serious as any that the world has ever faced. We need to have the assurance as an international community that our world is safe from this kind of attack and threat. We ought to be decisive and supportive of the allies who are in that war against worldwide terrorism.

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, yes indeed. I believe we need to give the United Nations an opportunity to do that. If it does not do it, then it must be allies who get together to say we will put an end to this.

The proposal has been made that the dictator of Iraq be given an ultimatum. It should be a rapid ultimatum. He either allows full and unfettered inspection of every location in Iraq within seven days or else we have no choice. When those inspectors are in there, as my colleague said, if they are denied access to any location, then it is automatically assumed advance notice is given. If access is denied, that is a tacit admission it is a place where planning and building of nuclear weapons or bacterial agents is taking place. That is an offensive place and it will be destroyed.

That would be a very fair way. Anything that happens from then on is totally on the conscience of Saddam Hussein himself because he can prevent the threat of violence to his own people. If he chooses not to, I would personally like to see advance notice of one day given. The people of Iraq should be informed somehow that at a certain time, a certain place will disappear and no one should be around there.

I would like that because that would greatly reduce the number of casualties of innocent civilians. Goodness knows the number of innocent people who are tied up in that country right now and who have no way of influencing the outcome. They are victims. Woe betide us if we do anything less than protect them to the max while we are setting them free. We do not want to shoot a person to give them freedom. That does not make any sense.

[Iraq, October 3rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence, that of other members in the House who are here to listen, and the pages who are eager to work extra overtime. I am sure they have had their eyes opened to what goes on in this place in their first week of work here.

I originally was not going to speak on this topic but after listening to it for three nights now I have a few things I would like to add.

I would like to begin by telling members about Keith Primrose. Members would not have heard of him and I had actually forgotten about him because, as a matter of fact, I knew Keith Primrose about 46 years ago. He was a fine young guy in my class in grade 9. He seemed to occasionally get into trouble with other people because he was somewhat abrasive. Other than that I had very little to do with him and we got along fine, until one day, without provocation and without announcement, he came up behind me with a relatively heavy book or binder or something and smashed it as hard as he could on my head. Now I was raised in a home where we were taught to be non-combative, to not be aggressive, to not be violent. I had a very bad headache for the rest of the day, but I did nothing except to say to Keith Primrose that I did not appreciate what he had just done to me.

Lo and behold, not very much later, Keith Primrose, when we were down in the locker room one day, and I will never forget this, attacked me. He just started to try to beat me up. He made a mistake. What he forgot was that he was a city mouse and I was a country mouse. I was used to throwing bales and other things, so even though I was maybe a little overweight even then, I had pretty good muscles.

It took but three seconds and I had him subdued. In typical schoolyard fashion that means that he was spread-eagled on the floor and I was on top of him holding his wrists down, at which point he began to spit at my face. I told him I would not do that if I were him, since gravity would help me better to do to him what he was doing to me. But I did not do it to him. I just held him there for the longest time. Now afterwards I had to go and wash my face, but I just held him. I just sat on the sucker until finally I said “When you're ready to tell me that you will never, ever touch me again I will get off, otherwise we're just staying here”, at which point he spit at me again. Eventually his anger subsided and he said okay, he would give up. He could not do much. I was about 180 pounds at that time and I was quite capable of holding him down and not letting him move.

Why do I tell that story? Because there are ways of restraining a bad person, but it must be done. If we do not confront such a person and restrain him and do not bring him finally to the place where he is not the all powerful one, he will continue to wreak havoc. What does that have to do with this Iraqi war? I point directly to the fact that I think there is a principle here which directly relates to this individual.

A number of my colleagues and a number of people from all of the parties in this debate have talked about the fact that this is a person not to be trusted. The one example that I do not think has been indicated very often is that here is a man who at one stage had several of his daughters, three or four, leave the country with their husbands and their children to tell the rest of the world about what a tyrant this man was. They were so concerned about what was happening to their country and their families in that country that they even were ready to go public against their father, but they knew they had to escape from the country.

What did our friend Saddam Hussein do? He sent them a message saying that he missed his children, his daughters and his grandchildren, asking them why they did not all come home, saying that all would be forgiven but to just please come home. Do we remember that? This is that same man. They made the mistake of trusting him and they went home.

I understand that within a couple of days he personally took the lives of every one of his daughters' husbands, the fathers of his own grandchildren. He had them arrested, brought to his place and shot. This is the person with whom we are dealing. He will break trust even within his own family. Do we need to restrain this person? The fix is in. The evidence is clear. This is a person who is totally irrational. Does he have weapons? There is a lot of evidence that indeed he does.

Since 1998, UN inspectors have been basically driven out because Saddam Hussein will not let them into certain places. He has attempted to buy articles needed to build nuclear weapons such as the long aluminum pipes which are needed to get uranium up to weapons grade. I do not know whether he has been successful but I bet he has, somewhere indirectly.

He has these kinds of weapons. Is he ready to use them? It is for no other reason than to promote his agenda, if he allows the United Nations to go into his country. It is for no other reason than to promote his agenda, if he promises to negotiate and make commitments. We have every reason in the world to be totally suspicious of this person. I do not believe we can allow him to do anything other than give the UN inspectors total access to every location in that country for the security of the people and the neighbouring countries around Iraq. I think we would be doing them a great favour.

Not many months ago Americans and Canadians went into Afghanistan. Pictures came back to this country showing people in the streets singing and cheering. They were finally free from an oppressive regime. I believe the people of Iraq would love to be freed from this person who is acting like a total tyrant and dictator. They are totally in bondage to him.

He does not permit elections. In Canada at least we have the hope of an election within every five years, and if we do not like our government, we can change it. We take that for granted. This guy controls Iraq and has no intentions of giving that up. There are no elections. The only way he could be replaced is if someone were to overpower him, and that has been attempted.

A small part of his army tried to take him out but he found out. If I remember correctly, he had some 200 generals or lieutenants of his armed force arrested and summarily executed publicly. This was done to show the people not mess with Saddam Hussein. This guy totally controls that country and those people. If we were in such a country would we dare to raise our hand? Who would dare to even say that the guy should be replaced? We would be arrested and executed. We in this country have no idea of the magnitude of that kind of oppression.

We need to stand alongside our other allies who want to put an end to this kind of terrorism. We need to be strong. Let us give the United Nations a chance. However we have to remember that the United Nations had those resolutions. When Saddam Hussein said there would be no access to various places contrary to the agreement, the United Nations folded. That was three years ago. Where has the United Nations been?

I agree 100% with the President of the United States when he says if the United Nations cannot not fix it, then he has no choice but to do it. It would be wonderful if the United Nations could come together and do the job right.

I believe the United Nations itself is at risk if it does not act decisively and strongly in this instance because if it fails to stop this tyrant, then the United Nations has become a useless organization. We need to make sure it has an opportunity to do that. We need to stop that person.

I should ask for unanimous consent to go on for five more minutes as my time is up. Otherwise I would have a lot more to say on this topic.

[Iraq, October 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in hearing this thoughtful young man's speech. He obviously had life experiences that have given him a great deal of insight into the topic we are dealing with here tonight. In his past life in Uganda he must have felt very frustrated with a leader who was so brutal.

Different adjectives have been used to describe Saddam Hussein. It is evident that he too is a bad man, much beyond the fact that he has caused us some inconvenience as was mentioned by one of the Liberal members last night.

I have heard it mentioned that even members of his own family left the country. A couple of Saddam Hussein's daughters left with their husbands and children. Saddam Hussein wanted them back. He said he missed his grandchildren. He said to come back and all would be forgiven. Within a couple of days he had the fathers of his grandchildren executed. That is the kind of man we are dealing with.

How does one turn events such as these around without immobilizing the person and replacing the head of that government?