Ken Epp

[Code of Conduct, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it was so long ago if I tried to repeat it now it would be another version of a different riddle. However it would be just as nonsensical as the answers we get from the ministry on the other side.

This is not acceptable. If we want to increase the trust of Canadians in their government and in parliament we ought to have a decent board meeting here because that is what this is. It is a meeting of the board of directors of the corporation called Canada.

Let us imagine we are on the board of a bank, business or corporation and one of the directors of the organization is in front of the board to answer questions. Let us suppose a board member asks a question and the director of one of the departments says “What kind of a member would ask a question like that? How about him? Last night I saw him doing this or doing that”. I do not think the director would last very long.

That is what we have here. On the front benches in parliament we have the executive branch of government which should be responsible. The fact that we can ask questions over and over, day after day and get such nonsensical and unconnected responses is an absolute absurdity. That is why the government has such a small reputation among the people of Canada. We need to start running this place like a real business. When someone on this side has a question to ask on behalf of the shareholders, taxpayers and voters out there it should be answered. It should be given an honourable, fair and reasoned response.

That is what is missing here. We get mockery instead of genuine answers. Why do government members give such answers? On occasion their answers have been very solemn and correct. After the tragedy in Afghanistan when some of our armed forces personnel were killed we had a couple of days of questioning in the House. The tragedy was of concern to many of my constituents because there is an armed forces base in my riding. The previous minister of defence rose solemnly and gave the best answers he could. I asked what we were doing for the families of the victims. It was a genuine question and the minister responded in a genuine and fair way.

However when we ask questions about untoward contracts why do we get such garbage from the government? The answer is quite clear: It is a cover up. There is no doubt in my mind. If there were no cover up the government's behaviour would be very bizarre. It would not make sense for government members to respond that way if they were not guilty as charged. People who are guilty will use every tactic possible to throw critics off guard and deflect questions. They will do whatever they can to get the media off the story.

The best way to get the media off the story would be to have a full, independent and public judicial inquiry. That would get the facts out. If it were truly independent there would be no partisanship. It is more important for the government to have an inquiry and let people know the truth than to use a whole bunch of tactics to try to solve its ethical dilemmas.

One tactic the Liberals are using is to introduce this legislation which has been gathering dust for six years since the committee reported. I was on that committee. I remember some of the debates we had. We worked very hard. We came up with a recommendation and suggested the government accept it. Lo and behold, there it has been sitting for six years.

Why did the government bring it out now? It wants to give the impression it is doing something. It reminds me of a speaker who used to say “Before I say anything, let me talk for a while”. That is what these guys are doing. Before they do anything they want to talk about the code of ethics. It has been studied to death. One need only look at the history of codes of ethics in the House which goes all the way back to 1973 and presumably before that.

It is not for lack of a code of ethics that we do not have ethical behaviour. It is for lack of ethics. That is the problem. It is not the code. It is the fact that the individuals engaged in this do not distinguish right from wrong. If they do, they blatantly and deliberately betray their own consciences because they must know it is wrong. If they do not know it is wrong we are in deep trouble and voters should take the opportunity to turf and get rid of them.

As parliamentarians we should have the highest behaviour. I have been impressed over and over again by the expectations everyone has of members of parliament. It is doubly true for members in the executive branch of government. They have a lot of power over there. They make all the rules. They have the power to determine which laws will be and which will not. They have the power to enforce or not enforce them as they choose. With all that power they must be totally upright. That is where the dilemma lies. These people are morally bankrupt. They have an ethical vacuum. It is absolutely incredible that they cannot use their own moral compasses to decide what is right or wrong.

Perhaps their behaviour is at the behest of civil servants, in which case they should be found out and prosecuted. However I do not believe that is the case. I am much more inclined to believe it is the influence of political ministers who have the power to tell bureaucrats whether or not they have jobs. They are the ones who put the pressure on. A lot of evidence is pointing in that direction. That is where the correction must be made. There is no point in having a code if we do not have an independent ethics commissioner to enforce it.

[Code of Conduct, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this is a curious debate we are having today because I believe it is a diversionary tactic along with so much else the government is doing these days. I cannot help but believe that. Had we not had the disclosure of all of the conflict and the sleaze that we have had in the last couple of months I am sure the government would not have brought this up at this time.

If we look back in recent history we will find that leading up to the 1993 election the government promoted the concept of increased ethics in government. Undoubtedly that was well-founded at the time. There were some allegations of misconduct in the previous government which the Liberals were trying to replace. The Liberals made that an election issue and it resonated with Canadians. There were a lot of people who voted for our party, the Reform Party at that time, who said that was one of the reasons they voted for someone else.

Out west a lot of people said that they would not vote for the Conservatives because there was a lot of evidence that they were not on the up and up when it came to ethical behaviour. However, they said they were not voting for the Liberals either because they still remembered some of the things that they had done. Therefore, they gave this new party an opportunity to begin spreading its influence, hopefully one that was positive and directed toward improving not only the ethical behaviour of government but also fiscal behaviour and behaviour in many other areas.

I remember many years ago when I was teaching in a high school there was a problem in our school. Audio-visual equipment kept disappearing. All of a sudden one of the projectors was gone, then one of the screens and then a tape recorder disappeared. I remember how incensed we were when the solution to solve that problem was to increase the amount of time that teachers would spend monitoring the halls at noon. In other words, instead of having three people on hall duty at noon it was increased to five or six.

We said that it was absurd because whoever was taking that equipment had access to the room where it was stored and none of the teachers had keys to that room. We had to go to one person who had a key. It was either that person or someone else who had a key who was liberating the equipment. We objected because there was a problem that was identified but the solution was opposite to what would have solved the problem.

The reason I give that example is because we have the same thing here. Unfortunately, we have here a culture of corruption. That is a phrase that has been used. It is not used inadvisably. I do not believe we are heading in the right direction if we were to say that in the midst of this culture of corruption the problems would be solved by coming up with another document. Will we behave differently from what we believe in our hearts because of the presence or absence of a document?

I have the advantage of sitting in the back row on the opposition side but directly opposite, for all intents and purposes, the Prime Minister. When we ask questions I get an opportunity to observe not only his body language but I also get to hear his words. In the last couple of months when accused of steering public money into purposes for which it was not originally intended, he seemed to suggest that it was normal. I found that to be incredible.

He said it explicitly. He said that he was just doing his job as a member of parliament. This happens with other members. The solicitor general was asked about trying to get a contract for a school in P.E.I. That was just a good MP working for his constituents. It so happens from my understanding that the college was not even in his constituency. He was acting as a political minister for the province. His job was to get money from the federal coffers into his province as a political minister.

Yet when we asked questions of the political minister, the Speaker, with all due respect, ruled them out of order. He said it was not a proper ministry. It was not labelled and not listed in Hansard as one of the ministries. The questions were ruled out of order because a ministry did not exist. Yet the government ministers and the Prime Minister were telling us that this was normal, people just did this.

It is the thinking that has to change. These people must come to the realization that whether it is written in a code or not, it is wrong. That is the simple bottom line of it. People do not take things that do not belong to them, nor do they take things and give them to their friends if they do not belong to them.

I am incensed at the lack of ethical behaviour by the government. It is totally wrong what it is doing. It is wrong to give contracts to businesses where there is no intention of doing any work, but there is no qualm at cutting the cheque.

I have wondered about this. Where has the breach come from? I strongly doubt, and I have no evidence for it, that this was instigated by the public servants themselves. I do not know what would be in it for them. Unless they were getting immediate kickbacks from the scheme then there was nothing in it for them. In the long term it would have to be a pretty substantial one to persuade them to do this. Their job would be at risk, at least we would think so, if they were caught.

Where then does this come from? I have a suspicion, but again we cannot find out, that the source of the problem was a directive from higher up, from the political minister for the province. I will tell members the reason why I believe this.

When Nicole Simpson in California was murdered there was this bizarre situation where the helicopters hovered over the white Bronco. It was reported that O.J. Simpson was in it, apparently holding a gun to his own head. There were other stories that were circulating at the time. There was probably nothing that cast more doubt on his innocence than that particular occurrence. What bizarre behaviour if he did not know anything and was not involved.

I have used an analogy and I bring it back to the case at hand. In January there was a sudden and unexpected cabinet shuffle. The result of that shuffle included the former public works and government services minister being released from his post. He resigned from cabinet and resigned as a member of parliament and off he went to Denmark. That was totally bizarre. If there was nothing behind it in terms of these contracts that were going on in Quebec, that was bizarre behaviour. Why would one just out of the blue one day say that his job was done here, and he was gone. I cannot understand that.

The Prime Minister used to get up and say that this was a minister who was doing a fine job and he supported him. He said that for everybody, no matter what the controversy. Those words are meaningless. If the same words are used all the time, regardless of the situation, then it does not take long and the words become meaningless.

The Prime Minister's testimony that this was an excellent minister and he supported him all the way proved not to be true when in January he sent him hurtling over to Denmark. Why would he do that? We have no way of finding out. The Prime Minister will not answer the question directly and I guess he does not have to. The rules of the House state that we are free to ask any question and the government is free to give any answer. Most of the time when we ask a question that is directed toward getting at these facts we receive the most absurd response. Sometimes, in fact almost always, the answer has no relation to the question at all.

As a humorous diversion, I recall when I was a youngster we used to relish in riddles. I do not know if I can remember this one correctly because we are talking decades ago and I was probably in grade 4 or 5. This was the riddle: “If your mother were a $5 bill and your father were a cat, how many flapjacks would it take to shingle the roof of a doghouse?” The answer is 23 because a Ford does not have feathers. That does not make any sense.

Yet I have thought of that riddle many times in question period. We ask questions of the minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Prime Minister. The responses that we get have about the same relationship in comparison to the riddle that I just told. We ask questions on specific aspects of the investigation, where the money went, who was accounting for it or who had the right to sign for it. Invariably--

[Oral Question Period, June 20th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as question period co-ordinator for the official opposition it is my job to help our team put together thoughtful, probing questions each day to hold the government accountable on behalf of the voters and taxpayers.

However, I am very frustrated. We ask pointed questions which demand an honest answer and all we get back is deflect, deny, dodge and distract. We ask a question of the Prime Minister or a minister for which they alone know the answer and someone else stands up in their place to deflect and deny. We just cannot squeeze answers out of this government whose only goal seems to be to cover up its misdeeds.

This has gone so far that only an independent public inquiry will put the question to rest. The fact that they refuse this inquiry is in my opinion further tacit admission of guilt. If they have nothing to hide, they would welcome the exoneration of the inquiry. I believe it is because they have much to hide that they do not want the truth to come out.

[Canadian Flag, June 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to participate in the debate today. I want to say at the outset that I was quite shocked at the speech given by the parliamentary secretary from the government side. I have never seen such a wimpy attitude toward defending something that is worth defending.

We keep on saying that we do not want to offend anyone, that we want to make sure people can do or say anything they want and therefore we do not dare lift a finger and in any way suggest that desecrating our flag might be wrong. People would probably say that it is a right that is protected under our charter. We certainly have it wrong if that is what we are saying. It is almost beyond comprehension to me.

I am not particularly a flag waver. This may come as a surprise to some people since it is known that historically I was involved in what came to be known as the flag flap a couple of years ago. However that was quite unplanned. It was a reaction which I made at a time when I was challenging something that I believed should be defended.

It was at a time when one of the members of the separatist Bloc Party insisted that we not display a flag in the House. I felt that I could not allow a member of a party that wanted to break up our country to tell me that I had to put away my flag. It was a plain defence reaction. When challenged in that way I knew I had to stand up for that symbol of our wonderful country.

Unfortunately, it did not go the way I intended. The Bloc member appealed to the Speaker at that time calling it a prop. We know that props are not permitted in the House. Even in this debate I cannot hold up but an imaginary flag or bring any props into the House. The Speaker ruled that in fact I could not display this prop and I was dissuaded from doing so.

I made the mistake of defying the Speaker at that time. I said that if we had to take the flag away in here then it was all worth less. It then became a controversy which I later regretted and apologized most sincerely for having defied the Speaker but certainly not for having defended the Canadian flag.

Our flag represents very hard won freedoms. The flag we are talking about today is the flag that represents for many of our immigrants the hope for freedom and opportunity which they were denied in their own countries.

I just confirmed that on July 1 I will be participating in a celebration of inviting new citizens into our country and giving them their citizenships, as many MPs do on July 1. I remember a number of years ago at one of those ceremonies there was a relatively young lady, of course at my age everyone is relatively young. She was living in this country and was about to receive her citizenship. She had tears running down her cheeks and just kept saying “thank you, thank you, thank you” with a broken voice.

I could relate to that because my grandmother always said that, too, having escaped from a country in which the family was under threat of death. My dad was just a youngster at the time when my grandparents brought their family to Canada. My grandmother so often said that Canada was a wonderful country and how thankful she was to be in a country of freedom and opportunity.

Since 1965, if I remember right, we have had a new Canadian flag. This was not the same flag when I was a youngster in school. This may come as a surprise to the pages, but by the time the current flag came into being I had already graduated from university. It is ancient history to them but it is pretty contemporary history to me that this flag came to be.

I remember the debate that was held at that time about the Canadian flag. There were of course various defenders and detractors of the flag. However, having adopted it, it is now the symbol of our country and it is recognized around the world as the flag of a country of freedom and opportunity, probably unequaled in the world. People are literally risking their lives in order to come to this country.

My colleague has come forward with a motion, which I was most pleased to second, that is the most gentle of motions. There can be no member in the House who could come up with any rational reason to be against it. All the motion says is that we want to refer the issue to a committee that will work through the details of coming up with acceptable legislation so that the wilful desecration of our flag as an act of disrespect will be subject to penalties.

The definition of desecration and the penalties would be decided by a multi-party committee so there can be no serious objection to the motion today. Members who vote against the motion today would be saying that they do not want to even talk about it. They are ready to give up. They are ready to put their hands in the air, raise an imaginary white flag, the flag of surrender, and give up. They are not prepared to stand up for what is right in the country. They do not want to even talk about it. They do not want it to go to a committee and they do not want to discuss it any further.

I believe that members who stop to think about what the motion says have no defensible reason to vote against it.

I want to quickly address the issue of freedom of expression. We do not yield that as a universal unassailable right. We have laws in the country, and rightly so, that there are some words that we cannot use. A classic example is that a person cannot in a crowded theatre in an evening yell “fire, fire”. It would put people's lives at risk. If a person did that and people were hurt, he or she would be subject to criminal charges even though the person may only have been expressing his or her freedom of speech.

We have laws that do not permit us to counsel other people to commit murder or to commit suicide, although I think the one to counsel people to commit suicide has now been pulled from the books. However, when I was a youngster it was against the rules to counsel people to take their own lives.

I could say that I have the freedom of speech to say to some young person or older person that he or she would be better off to end it all. However I do not have that freedom of speech because that is against the law.

I do not have the freedom of speech to speak against an identifiable group of people and promote hatred toward them. That right is taken away, and quite rightly so. Even within the confines of our charter we may not do that.

There are some exceptions of course. In the last election campaign we had the case where the then minister of immigration thought it was quite acceptable to take an identifiable group of people and say all sorts of horrible things about them that were untrue and which would then subsequently produce a great aversion and a hatred toward the group. It happened to be the Canadian Alliance. We had to live with that and accept it. I guess that is part of the political process. Personally I think it would have been quite legitimate for us to have launched a legal action in that case but we chose not to do that.

We have accurately and justifiably put limitations on the expression of our speech. Therefore I do not think there is any reason not to say, yes, we can speak in opposition to the government but that we must do it respectfully and that our debates should be logical, rational and persuasive. I do not believe in the kind of debate that involves violence and overturning cars. That is not debate.

I once was asked to speak at a meeting and there was a small group there who started chanting and basically drowned me out. They deprived me of my free speech. I did not want to deprive them of theirs so I just walked away and let them do that.

We must have the right to protect our flag in this country. I urge all members to support the bill because it is a proper limitation on our total and absolute freedom of expression, which is well justified.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, June 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether to say that I find pleasure to speak to this bill. I certainly support the concept of not being cruel to animals. Having suffered a little pain in my life and extrapolating that to the ability of animals to feel pain, absolutely 100% we should not impose on animals any pain that can be avoided. That should be true for human beings as well.

However I have great concerns about the bill because of the implications of it in the long term and the effect it will have on a number of different portions of our society. I am thinking particularly of the agriculture industry which is very large.

It just so happens that it is impossible to go through life without pain. I read an interesting book a long time ago and even now as I speak I am thinking that I should reread it. The title is, The Problem of Pain , by the writer C.S. Lewis.

He contended that pain is a valuable mechanism that is built into the body of all human beings. If it were not for pain, we would not go to the doctor when we have something wrong internally. If I had something wrong with my chest but could not feel the pain, I would carry on until I keeled over one day.

The fact is when there is something wrong and it generates some pain, it is a positive thing for survival. That is true for all creatures. Pain can be a mechanism prompting one to take corrective action for something that is ailing one.

Another aspect of pain is that it is used in the training of people and animals. Sometimes the pain is temporary. I contend that we ought not to have pain of the sort that causes permanent psychological damage for humans or for animals. It is a straight psychological fact that to train animals, occasionally one has to apply a bit of gentle pain as a disincentive while on the other hand giving a reward as a positive incentive.

Any person who has ever had a dog knows that if we want to avoid the pain of continually having to clean up after the little puppy, we have to go through a process of training. In that process a little pat on the side, enough to cause that puppy to think that it did something wrong, is not damaging. It is a small amount of pain and is used to train the animal.

I do not have a dog in my house at the present time but I have I observed some of my friends who have had them. The dogs they love the most and appreciate the most are the ones that are properly trained, the ones that are house trained and trained not to jump all over people. I do not know how others feel, but I do not appreciate it when I walk into a house and a big great dane greets me at the door, puts his feet on my shoulders and licks my face, especially when I am wearing my Sunday suit. A dog that wags its tail at a five foot distance, I like a lot. I do not like a dog that when I reach out to pet him he snarls and bites my hand. I like a dog if he is friendly because he will have been trained. That is one aspect of it.

We ought to be very careful about legislation like this because of the implications it can have. Some organization or do-gooder can come up and say “I saw my neighbour punishing his dog. Throw the book at him. He was cruel to his animal”. I do not think we want to get into that type of thing.

There is another thing and it has to do with the agriculture community. I have a great number of farmers in my riding, which is a combination rural and urban riding. Many of these farmers have animals. I have a number of poultry operators in my riding. It is really quite a sight to go into one of those huge 200 or 300 foot long barns where the whole floor is covered in little chicks and they are all singing in chorus. They get their food and their water.

There are several operations, but the one I am thinking of is a quite a big operation with several people working there. People go in there every day and check these little creatures to see if they have any physical ailments. I will not go into graphic details of one of those ailments but anyone who has ever raised little chicks knows that it has to do with the gastrointestinal system and they have to be watched so that they survive.

I am impressed by the fact that people produce chickens so I can go to the chicken place and have a chicken dinner once in a while. They are in the business of raising these chickens. They care for them probably as well as many people care for their children, if not more so. I am distressed by the fact under this bill someone could come along, launch an attack or a lawsuit, charge them in court and say that by keeping these chickens in these great big long sheds is cruel. They will be harassed, taken to court and incur legal expenses to defend themselves.

This is something that farmers right now, very frankly, do not need. They are facing huge economic pressures these days, then on top of all that face the potential of lawsuits. They would have to get lawyers to defend them and with costs like that they could face bankruptcy. To me that is unconscionable.

I was interested in reading an article from one of these animal rights groups that said it would like to work. It was asking for money in this letter. It said “Allow us to save the animals from the torment of the hunters, the researchers, the fashion industry”. It just is not true. Hunters are not out to torture animals. I have never gone hunting myself but I know those who have take every measure to prevent unnecessary suffering on the part of the animals.

How about this one? “We have to make sure that we work to rescue innocent dogs and cats from pounds that would sell them into the excruciating hell of the secret experiments of researchers”. If that is not over the top, I do not know what is. There is no benefit in making these animals suffer unnecessarily or even making them suffer necessarily.

Here is another one, which talked about a family whose dog was picked up by the pound and then apparently taken away to be put down. It says “A poison-filled hypodermic needle was plunged into poor [dog], a cold-blooded killing of a deeply loved family companion”.

I was asked one time to do a service for friends of mine. Their dog had gone amok and had become a danger to the children. They said that they loved the dog so much that they could not take him to the vet and asked me to do it. With great reluctance I said I would because I knew the children had to be protected. I went to the vet carrying the dog my arm. I walked into the vet's office and asked if he would mind if I observed because I wanted to ensure that the dog was put down humanely.

I observed that event and that dog was put away in a humane fashion with absolutely no suffering at all. The dog was put on a table. The veterinarian cut the dog's hair, put on an anaesthetic and used a needle that instantaneously stopped the heart.

I am distressed that we are succumbing to extremist groups that just do not accept that we are trying to do our best.

[Housing Bill of Rights, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, first I want to pick up on what my colleague tried to do on a point of order in which he did not get very far and that is to correct the record.

I am sure the hon. member for Mississauga West had a source of information which was less than impeccable. I think it is damaging to the reputation of a builder and a project manager to have information put out that is in fact not true. In this particular case, the residence he talked about, Urban Manor in Edmonton, which is in my colleague's riding of Edmonton Centre-East, is in fact a place that right now has 62 residents in it. If it had been condemned by some level of government, we would expect it to be empty. It is not empty. In other words, the information was less than impeccable. I think that is a good way of putting it and we have set the record straight.

We ought to commend those people who are currently planning to build another unit. It will provide housing for many more people.

When this issue of housing came up, I could not help but think of when members of my family first came to this country. They came here as refugees. I do not know if all the members even know what a granary is but in the early 1920s and up until the time I was a youngster, it was a wooden structure that was used to hold the grain that was taken off the farm.

When my family first came to this country they landed in Montreal and ended up going by train to Saskatchewan. They were met by a family whom they had never seen before who were part of an organization called MCC, the Mennonite Central Committee, which helped refugees come to Canada. This family re-outfitted a granary for my family. I remember my grandmother telling us youngsters many times how grateful she was that when they came here there was someone who provided something for them that they could not provide for themselves. Out of generosity, they provided what they could. At the time it was a rebuilt structure, probably about the same quality as many detached garages that we have now for our cars. My family lived in that and were very happy to have shelter.

Shelter is indeed a very important aspect of people's lives. The member has gone so far as to call it a basic human right. It certainly is a very important issue especially considering the climate in which we live. We need to take whatever steps we possibly can in order to provide affordable housing for those who do not have it.

One of the flaws I see in some of the projects that are being promoted by government is that the people in charge know no bounds on how to spend money. It is quite possible to build very affordable apartment style housing units which cost a reasonable amount. They would be available with government subsidies for the poor and would provide them with basic housing. Unfortunately too often we see that the people who get involved in these projects have very fancy architectural plans and go way overboard in the way they spend the money. They could build twice as many units with the same amount of money if they simply stayed with basic housing.

Most people, like my grandparents when they came here, are not looking for anything fancy. Certainly in our society nowadays people expect a kitchen, perhaps a sitting room or living room, some bedrooms and a bathroom or two. That is not an expensive project, but it is if it includes a whole bunch of architectural niceties that go far beyond what one would call basic housing which would provide for people's needs.

I also think very fondly of the Habitat for Humanity organization which indirectly gets government subsidies since it is a charity and I believe is eligible to offer taxable receipts. People who are charitable by nature get together, provide the materials, supply the work and build basic housing for people who cannot afford it. It is a wonderful thing. The people themselves help to build it. It is another plan which I think we should build on.

Mr. Speaker, I could give the rest of my speech but your signal quite clearly indicates I can only give half of it as my time is up.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, when the proceedings were interrupted by question period, the minister was just coming forth with all the wonderful plans that his government apparently had for the well-being of the country.

I find it rather distressing that he exceeded in volume what he produced in substance. I would like to ask him to simply state what he was trying to say. He was so loud that we could not understand his words.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am privileged to speak in the House on this very important and critical issue. It is very interesting when I think of the implications of the bill and all that pertains to it. Not very long ago in the House we were debating an issue that was very similarly related to the bill and that was to change the terminology in the various government codes relating to children whose parentage was not directly known. I gave a speech at that time which I think very clearly outlined my very deep commitment to the value of human life and the dignity of individuals. I stand by that as the opening premise of any statement which I make here today.

I would like to indicate that I am one who is very much in favour of medical research. This is a question that is before us here today. It has to do with the use of human genomes and their use in research and, hopefully, in increasing the quality of life for people.

I have mentioned before that I have several friends who are permanently disabled. One of them, a very dear and in fact one of my closest friends, has been very severely afflicted by Parkinson's disease. He is younger than I. He sits in his wheelchair all day. Most of the time he is unable to communicate.

You do not know, Mr. Speaker, how much I wish that there would have been a cure for that disease when he was first diagnosed some 15 years ago or that there could be a cure even now in the ongoing stages of that disease in his life. I have another close friend who suffered a severe stroke. It would be wonderful if we could have some medical research that would yield some results and that would solve the problems that these people have to deal with when they are afflicted by such a calamity.

My basic premise in rising today is certainly to underline the fact that I am in great favour of medical research. In fact, one of the things that I thought I might do at one stage in my life when I was in high school and the early years of university was to go into medical research myself since I had a sister who suffered from cerebral palsy and who in her whole life never once was able to speak, at least not a language that we understand.

I was very much interested in the neurology of the human. I thought I might want to do some neurological research. I think I would have found it fascinating to discover much more, because as a young first year biology student how much does one learn? One just barely touches the surface. I have talked to people who have studied it. I understand from them that the more we learn the more we realize how little we know, so it is a very fascinating topic. Obviously people who get into research will be going down every trail they can find which hopefully will yield some results in the area they are researching.

However, what this bill is about is actually changing the criminal code in such a way that the use of human embryos is defined in the criminal code so that people do not unnecessarily go to jail based on what they do with human embryos.

With that, I want to take another little sidebar, as we have in recent years come to call a little side trip. I think we err greatly in the definition that we apply to human life. We like to speak very impersonally of the embryo, the fetus and so on. I think that we err by not attributing to the unborn child the full degree of humanity. I think that is an error and I will tell members why: We do not value a person's life based on whether or not he or she is wanted in any other case except the pre-born.

We have a lot of government interest in social housing these days and in trying to solve the problem of homelessness. There are unknown individuals on the streets somewhere in Toronto, Vancouver or any of our cities. Nobody knows them. They are really not wanted, but we do not say they are not wanted and therefore we should end their lives instead of finding houses for them. We do not think that way, nor should we. We say that they are valuable humans and everything possible should be done in order to provide them with a dignity of life, including housing.

We do not do that with the unborn. We simply, even flippantly, use the argument that the child is an unwanted child so therefore we can end its life. I think that not valuing the pre-born child diminishes our perception of human life.

I will dare to give a personal anecdote at this time. Very close relatives of mine, my nephew and his wife, were eagerly looking forward to the birth of their second child. Unfortunately she underwent a spontaneous abortion and lost the child. Holding this little pre-born child in his hand, just a tiny replica of a full grown human, my nephew said he could not help but note that there was the full potential for a human which was not allowed to proceed.

There are many people unable to have children naturally, as we say, so they seek medical assistance. I think that is perfectly fine. They use various methods to improve their chances of conceiving a child and thereby in some cases we end up with fertilized eggs in Petri dishes and in other areas. Of course the argument is always used that those eggs are human. They must be human, because if they are not human then what else are they? I would say they are obviously the beginning form of a human life.

Again one can ask the question: When does human life begin? It obviously begins at the moment of conception. Scientifically that is totally obvious, because it is when the unity of the two elements of life come together that the dividing of the cells springs into action. That is the beginning of the formation of a human life.

Scientifically there is no disputing that, as far as I know, and yet we simply have come in our society to a place where we say until that child has fully emanated from its mother's body it is not a human and warrants no protection. Again I think that we err. We take the lower road rather than the high road when we do that.

This bill is one that deals with the excess of these fertilized eggs, or young embryos as they are called, and they are the beginning of, the potential for, a human. I would certainly make sure in any of these considerations that we define that as human and treat it with all the dignity and care any other human is entitled to. One of the flaws in the bill that I think is really significant is the flaw of the identity of the so-called donors. I would prefer to call them parents. In many cases these elements are used to provide a child for someone who is not in any way genetically connected.

This particular bill provides that they should continue to be anonymous. I have problems with that. I have encountered in my short life a number of people who, having been adopted, have gone to great lengths to find out where their roots are. This seems to be almost an innate desire.

We should amend the bill to include that people who provide the elements of human life, who are indeed the parents of potential human beings, should be identified for the benefit of the children. Those children may one day want to know who their parents were. “From whence did I come?”, they would ask. They deserve the right to know.

[Tax Credit, May 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we in Canada have a rich and wealthy heritage in our youth. It is incumbent on governments at all levels, but particularly at the federal level, of ensuring that education is available to students of all financial ability. I am abhorred by the fact that some students have a lot of mental ability and the motivation but lack the money and are deprived of a necessary education.

It is undoubtedly true that if we were able to take people, particularly from the so-called poorer end of the spectrum, those who are not as well off financially, and help them to become educated, in many instances, that would help those families get off the treadmill of dependency and discouragement which so many people face.

I would endorse any actions that the government would take. I listened to the member who introduced this particular motion. It is a measure which unfortunately is too piecemeal. We should have a measure which will help all Canadians across the board in terms of taking less money out of their pockets and leaving more there so that they could provide for themselves.

I would also be remiss if I did not add that students are a great investment. When I was an instructor, one of the things we did was evaluate the present value of the tax dollars that were earned by a well educated person versus a person who quit after high school. We found out that over a lifetime the incremental amount of additional income tax that was paid yielded a very good return for the taxpayers who invested in the education of young people.

It is a vast benefit to our country to have more people that are well educated, well trained and able to participate not only in our economy, but also in building the standard of living that we have come to enjoy and to expect.

[Tax Credit, May 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, somehow I am often the speaker to wrap up the debate on a Friday and I might be again today. I eagerly stand to speak to the motion because of my longstanding interest in education.

I always enjoyed being a student. Teachers told me when I was a very young person, even before I went to high school, that it is important to learn something new every day even after finishing school. It is probably true that with very few exceptions I have learned something new every day of my life. I hope that continues. I learned a few good things today but I will not bother getting into that as that would be what is called a side bar.

I have a great interest in education. As is known by most members now since I mention it frequently in my various speeches, I taught at the post-secondary level for 27 years and I shared with many students the frustrations they had in their education.

Some students came to the institute with an inadequate academic background. Unfortunately, some of them were the victims of an inadequate school system and for some there were other reasons. They did not have the necessary prerequisites and therefore for academic reasons, they could not survive at the technical institute level in the programs I was teaching.

There were other students who had reached the limit of what they could learn. I would tell them there was nothing wrong with that. I personally will never be an Olympic runner. I have a physical limitation which would prevent me from doing that. I told them we all do not have the same mental abilities. A false assumption which is sometimes spread around in educational circles is that all students can be successful. That just is not true. There are some who reach their limit of education earlier than others. That is a reality of life. I do not think it is pejorative statement at all. It is just a true statement.

One situation frustrated me the most. On numerous occasions there were students with more than an adequate ability to learn and who had the prerequisites. They could have received an education and done better in their lives with an education than without but they were forced to leave for economic reasons. It always bothered me when students came to me and said they were dropping out and it was their last day. When I asked them why, the students would say they just could not make ends meet, that they had to work and they could not study and hold down a job at the same time because they just could not do them both.

That always bothered me. I often wished I were a multimillionaire so I could help tide those students over to keep them in school. In some cases they had exhausted their student loan capacity and other methods of financing and were simply forced to leave. I believe a large part of Canada's population is below average on the socioeconomic scale. We have a huge untapped reservoir of talent and ability in young people who will not receive an education because of a lack of financing. That is a very serious flaw in the system.

I commend the member for Fundy--Royal for this initiative because it is well motivated. He wants to do something to solve the problem. However I have some reservations with the motion. One very large one is it promotes a culture of debt. Mr. Speaker, I do not know what you or the other members think but we have an incredible culture of debt. Every Canadian bears a part of the national debt.

If members want to visit my office, I have a picture of my grandson when he was about one hour old. My wife put it together for me. It shows my little grandson Noah who was one hour old. He was still pretty pink. The coloured caption reads “I owe how much of the national debt?” It is on the shelf in my office. He has a $20,000 debt and he is one hour old. Then he has provincial debt.

Fortunately we live in Alberta. We at least have some hope in the near future that the provincial debt will be eliminated. We sincerely hope it will happen. The provincial government is committed to reducing the debt, unlike the federal government which will reduce the debt only if there is nothing else it can think of to do with the money.

Besides that, the students go to school and what we do is provide them with a student loans system. When they graduate from school they will have another $20,000 to $35,000 debt in student loans to pay off. By the time a young person in Canada graduates from university, collectively that person's share of the federal and provincial debt and his or her student loan could amount to a debt of $50,000 to $70,000. That is wrong.

The member has a plan that would enable the students upon graduation to get rid of at least the student loan portion of their debt more quickly. However I think what we ought to do is to push very hard for adequately funded post-secondary education right across the country so that student loans are much less necessary.

There should also be lower tuition. There should be lower costs for books. It is atrocious that the government charges GST on student books. Some of those textbooks cost $100 and the GST must be added to every book they buy.

The Chair knows I am on a roll but no one can argue with the clock in this place, so with that and it being Friday, I wish everyone a good weekend.