Ken Epp

[Export Development Act, October 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on Bill C-31 regarding the Export Development Corporation.

I asked my assistant to go to the website to find out exactly what the mandate of the organization is and I will quote the very first sentence: “EDC is a Canadian financial institution devoted exclusively to providing trade finance services to support Canadian exporters and investors in some 200 markets, 130 of which are in developing markets”. I believe the website is relatively current. It goes on to say that last year, Canadian business concluded $45.4 billion in export and domestic sales and investments in markets using EDC trade financing services. It claims right up front that it is not only involved in exports but also has domestic sales and investments in the marketplace.

The EDC also says that 90% of its customers are smaller customers, but it does not indicate the magnitude of the business conducted with these different corporations. While 90% of its customers are presumably smaller companies, in terms of the number of them, we have no indication or any way of finding out exactly who the other 10% are. It could well be, and I suspect it is the case, that the 10% that are not smaller companies are large corporations that benefit immensely from the majority of the financial activity of the corporation.

The EDC goes on to say that it also has responsibility for social corporate activity. It logs its code of conduct and business ethics. It lists all of the things it is high on and we should commend it for that. It is a global business and says that it is therefore a global citizen and works within a global environmental context.

I find it quite incredible because the Government of Canada has expressed its concern for global environmental issues. We are no longer living in a world where what we do with our air, water and soil is limited only to ourselves because of the fact that our world has become a very small community. I commend these words, but when we look into the depths of the legislation that is before us and what is proposed therein, we find that it is somewhat inadequate in the sense that Canada's rigid environmental laws do not apply.

I will digress for a second. I think of Canada signing the Kyoto accord. One of the questions that has been asked of me, and which I actually have asked myself, is exactly how the environment is enhanced by shipping Canadian money to other countries that for whatever reason do not have as much pollution as our country.

For example, we are a northern country. We have heating demands which are just not present in Africa. A person would have a hard time making a living selling furnaces in Africa because they are not needed. No fuel is burned and hence not as much pollution is produced.

In order to solve the environmental problems of the world, should we ship our money to Africa? How is the environment enhanced by that? Would it not be better to keep the money at home in Canada and use it for research and other activities in order to clean up our environment and the way in which we produce our own energy needs?

The Export Development Corporation is not required to adhere to Canada's environmental laws. It has its own law. I can see its argument. It says that it is one that is internationally agreed to and in order to allow it to play on a level playing field, that is the rule it needs to apply.

From time to time EDC becomes involved in financing projects which would not fly in Canada because of Canadian environmental laws. That to me is an anachronism. We are willing to send money out of the country which has nothing to do with helping the environment yet, through the Export Development Corporation, we may be financing projects which do not meet even our own requirements. It is a contradictory use of Canadian taxpayers' money.

There is also something called the Canada account. My colleague from Kelowna mentioned it. The Canada account is used to support export transactions which are determined by the Minister for International Trade to be in Canada's national interest. According to its website, this is usually due to a combination of risks and it mentions what those are. Basically the executive summary of it is it would become involved if ordinary banks would not touch the matter.

Canada account transactions are negotiated, executed and administered by the EDC, just like the corporate account transactions are, but the risks under the Canada account are assumed by the Government of Canada.

We see a direct involvement of the Minister for International Trade who can say “This is a project which we will approve”. Unfortunately, there is no check and balance in the legislation to prevent the minister from using it for the purposes of propping up businesses of the minister's choice rather than perhaps what is really good for the country as a whole.

To whom is EDC accountable? It says that it operates at arm's length from government. However, the way the corporation is set up, the Government of Canada, i.e., the taxpayers of Canada, is the only shareholder of the corporation. I was elected to speak for taxpayers in Canada. That was my primary theme. Canadian taxpayers have “invested” into EDC in excess of $1 billion, yet the corporation claims that it operates at arm's length from the government and does not cost the taxpayers anything. I beg to differ.

As a matter of fact, if someone were to give me $1 billion and said that I would have to pay it back, eventually I would give back the $1 billion but boy, would I live a happy life in the intervening years. It is a little thing called interest. One billion dollars could easily produce $100 million per year in income. That would be adequate for a good weekend, would it not? We are talking a lot of money here and it is money that is lost to Canadians by virtue of the fact that it is tied up in the Export Development Corporation.

Let us not kid ourselves. Let us not say that the corporation does not cost the taxpayers anything. It obviously does since we have this huge amount of money that has been invested in it. It is taxpayers' money.

I will not deny the fact that many businesses benefit from the work of the Export Development Corporation. It enables them to promote their own business and to export to countries around the world. In that sense those taxpayers at least get something back. It obviously produces some employment and that is also good.

I would like to see legislation which would greatly enhance the accountability to the Canadian taxpayers. I am appalled when I read the details that although the auditor general has access to the accounts and makes reports and the five year special report, those audits are not readily available, even through access to information.

I regret that my time for debate is up. I hope some members will have questions for me so that we can enter into debate.

[Canada-Costa Rica Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, September 28th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate today on Bill C-32 which gives considerable detail to expanding free trade. I will set out a preamble to my comments today and say that in general members of my party and I are supportive of free trade. It is in fact our party policy.

We have another adjective we use with respect to trade. Trade should not only be free, that is free from tariffs, countervailing duties and all those things. It should also be fair. That is unfortunately where the Liberal government often fails. It is imperative that we vigorously defend Canadian industries.

The government does not have a good record for doing that with other commodities, including agricultural commodities. The government has often entered into agreements without enough forethought about the implications. As a result it backs itself into a corner and we in the country suffer enormously.

I cannot help but digress to the whole question of western Canadian farmers and the tariffs and controls the government has put on grain marketing over the years. Canadian farmers are not able to market their product at the best price. Instead the government controls it. It is almost an inverse Zellers' law. Zellers says the lowest price is the law. The Government of Canada has told farmers the worst deal for them is the law. That is unfortunate.

The government is making the same error with Bill C-32 in that it is not giving enough thought to the long term effects. There are a few things we ought to be aware of. Bill C-32 would expand free trade with Costa Rica. It outlines a 10 year plan. Some tariffs would be reduced in stages over 10 years and others would come into play rapidly.

It should be noted that we already have a free trade agreement with Chile. There is also NAFTA which is about seven years old. The purpose of these free trade agreements is to give Canadian producers better access to foreign markets and give our trading partners abroad better access to our market.

A problem arises. Canada for some reason has gone ahead of all the other countries in the agreement by being the only country to refuse to substantially subsidize its producers. All the other countries subsidize, in some cases very richly, their producers of agriculture and food products. Canada is way down the list, almost at zero. When it comes to sugar producers, subsidies from the Canadian government are essentially zero. Yet the other countries subsidize them.

How are we to compete? It is impossible. That is common sense. It should not escape Liberal members of the House and the Liberal government.

If there is another country competing with our producers and its producers are being substantially subsidized over and above what Canadian producers are, that puts our guys at a huge disadvantage. It is as if we were to enter a race and we were to say to our athletes that we would like them to carry an extra 50 pounds. I guess I already have mine and that is why they do not enter me into Olympic races, because it is a bit of a disadvantage.

Canadian producers are operating under this disadvantage. They are working against a trade barrier of price because of the fact that producers in other countries like the United States and those in Central America substantially subsidize their producers. As a result, our people have to be very efficient to compete, which they are, but in many cases they lose out on the fight.

We should be aware that 80% of the products that Costa Rica exports to Canada, and we are talking about fruits and vegetables, coffee and coal, already at this stage enter Canada duty free. Therefore the market in Canada is already largely open to Costa Rica. Canada of course is now looking to expand its market into Costa Rica, so in that sense it is a good initiative because if it already has so much duty free access to our market then it only makes sense that we should negotiate with Costa Rica to remove its tariffs to give Canadian producers access to that market.

Unfortunately this is done sector by sector. Sometimes we fail to recognize that when we are in a trading agreement like this we must have all of the food on the platter at the same time. We cannot make a deal commodity by commodity and then in the end land up with a few commodities left that were not negotiated, because consequently we are unable, because we have lost our bargaining position, to get a really good deal for our own producers.

It just so happens that in the year 2000 Canada exported to Costa Rica approximately $86 million worth of goods. In that same year we imported from Costa Rica $183 million worth. At this stage, then, we have basically a net loss in income as a country because of the fact that while Costa Rica spends $86 million a year here we spend $183 million there. That is fine because it allows us to bring into this country products which we need and which are saleable here, but we must recognize that those products are also competing with those of Canadian producers and Canadian processors.

One of the areas of much concern to us as a party is the impact on the sugar industry. One of the fond memories that I have of being a youngster growing up in Saskatchewan, and which young people of today would not have any knowledge of at all, is that there used to be metal pails of Rogers Golden Syrup. It is probably the best syrup in the world. If I recall correctly most of the sugar beets that produced that syrup were grown in southern Alberta and some in British Columbia. If I am not mistaken, the processing refineries for this sugar were actually in eastern Canada, in Ontario and Quebec. At any rate, we had this syrup and it was a wonderful product. In fact I would hasten to surmise that perhaps Rogers Golden Syrup has had a significant contribution in making me into the man I am today, and I mean that in a humorous sense of that word, because we used that syrup a lot in our home.

Rogers syrup came in little 10 pound pails that when empty became our lunch buckets that we carried to school. Nowadays this of course would never be done. Nowadays the youngsters have designer lunch kits. However in those days we were not different from our neighbours. We were poor and we made use of everything we had. When the pails were empty they became our lunch buckets and we walked to school carrying these pails with Rogers Golden Syrup written on them. They contained our sandwiches or whatever our mother produced for us for the day.

We can see that the history of the Canadian sugar industry is a long one, not that I am terribly old, but we are talking about 50 years ago at least. Even at that time the syrup was a wonderful, very good, high quality product.

At this stage, as far as I know, Costa Rica does not have any substantial amount of output in actually refining and processing its sugar. This means very simply that the tariff on sugars, which is designed to protect the market in whatever country, is very one sided. In fact, the United States and most Latin American countries have an import tariff on their sugar ranging anywhere from 50% to 160%. In other words, when we export that product our people have to be very efficient in order to compete in those markets since there is an automatic price added to our product as it crosses a border.

My biggest complaint about Bill C-32 is that there is not nearly a rapid enough or substantial enough removal of those tariffs that tend to inhibit the flow of our product into the other countries. As a matter of fact, knowing the way the Liberal government operates I can see that in the future, perhaps under CIDA or some other of our other wonderful plans, we would actually be helping Costa Rica build a processing plant so that it could process its sugar there and export it to Canada duty free. If we try to do that with our product when sending it there, we will have a tariff to pay in various stages for at least 10 years. There is no guarantee, as I see it in the bill, that the tariff would ever be removed.

Why would we not negotiate on this issue in such a way that it is fair for Canadians instead of lopsided? We may have all sorts of altruistic motives in this matter. Perhaps we want to help the Costa Rican people. I have no problem with that. Sure, let us help them, let us trade with them, but if we are to compete let us compete on a level playing field.

I hasten to point out that this agreement could become a template for future agreements with some of the other Central American countries. If we do not fix this problem, it will be embedded in the agreements with countries like Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. Each of those countries not only has some considerable capacity to refine their sugar and to export it, but they also have large subsidies.

For the life of me I cannot see why we would not, while we are negotiating these tariffs, also make sure that we do not repeat the errors that we made with wheat agreements. We should say very clearly that if we remove tariffs they must remove their subsidies. We did not do this with wheat. That is why the United States, still subsidizing its farmers substantially more than Canada, is a very unfair trading partner with respect to the sale and the movement of Canadian products.

In Canada with respect to wheat we have the barrier of the wheat board which applies, by the way, only to the prairie provinces. Go figure that one. Why should wheat producers in Ontario or Quebec or Atlantic Canada be able to sell their grain without going through the wheat board? If the wheat producers happen to be in Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta the mighty thumb of the federal government is on top of them. If they try to make a move they go to jail. That is scary. We have actually had our own government, not the importing country, not the United States, put our own farmers in jail because of their attempts to sell their own products at a price that is better and more immediate as opposed to what the wheat board offers.

In negotiating a free trade agreement with the United States did we insist that it remove its subsidies? No. Consequently it has them. Consequently our farmers are operating at a disadvantage.

Now we have Canada making this agreement with Costa Rica and looking ahead at some of the other countries with which we will undoubtedly be processing a trade agreement . We are in favour of that, but we had better make sure that we put all of the elements on the negotiating table, not just the tariffs and the free trade. Let us also very clearly specify and demand as a condition that the subsidization be included in those negotiations and that the subsidization be removed. How can we compete?

A number of years ago I had a friend who sold one brand of imported Japanese vehicles in Canada. Along came another importer from Korea. The Canadian government for some reason exempted the Korean manufacturer's automobiles from some of the import tariffs. As a result it became a very unfair playing field, just because of the negotiations of the government.

We need to make sure that all Canadians in these trade agreements are treated fairly.

We should also note that right now, to the best of my knowledge, every country in the Americas, Central America and South America, and including the United States, subsidizes its farmers except Canada. At least to put it this way, their subsidies are much higher in proportion. We are remiss in our duties to our own people if we do not make sure that these tariffs are not stacked against us in view of those duty free agreements.

I would also like to say that there is a considerable movement of agricultural goods around the country and it is so important to Canada. It is my belief that approximately 80% of our food production is destined for export, so we had better have good trade agreements. We had better have fair tariffs. We had better make sure that our producers are protected.

As a matter of fact, our economic well-being is largely dependent on the export of those agricultural products. For every $100 worth of food that Canadian farmers produce we Canadians consume only about $20 worth of it and $80 of it goes to feed people in other parts of the world. That is great. We should be very proud of that.

I happen to come from an agricultural community. I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. To this day my brother farms on the family farm and on more land he has added. We often speak in our family of the contribution that we have made in providing food not only for Canadians but also for people around the world. One of the great things that some of our people have done in Saskatchewan, and I think this happens in other parts of the country as well, is that farmers have actually given some of their surplus as a donation to some of the third world countries where people are starving because of a lack of food when we have so much.

It behooves our government to make sure that we have a market for the food we produce for export, but it has to be done fairly.

We had a considerably lengthy and interesting debate last night on agriculture. I do not think we adequately recognize that a good, solid, secure food source is a very important base of our national security. If we were ever to lose our agriculture industry, and I mean all agriculture, our food producing sources, the farmers and fishermen, and our infrastructure to process food, we would suddenly no longer enjoy the security of a plentiful and safe food supply.

It is incumbent upon on us as a country, especially in these troubling days, to make sure that our producers and processors can survive and be strong economically and in their businesses. We need to make sure we do not jeopardize that in any way.

I am inclined right now to vote against the bill simply because it is not good enough. I absolutely love the idea of free trade and being able to export our food around the world. I love the idea that we can provide it to those who do not have as much we do. However let us make sure that we do not hobble our own farmers. We should not attach a weight to their ankles.

This is just a small diversion. In the agreement dairy, poultry, egg and beef products are excluded from this present provision. Presumably that will come at some future time in some future agreement, but it is not included now.

I think I have laid my case in front of the House and the Canadian people. It is very important that in this instance our government be given a message. It should go back to the bargaining table. It should strengthen the protection of our sugar industry. It is not there now. Unless we change that, I cannot vote in favour of the bill because of that very serious and fatal flaw.

[Agriculture, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Chairman, I am very happy to stand to persuade all the Liberals in this hon. House that they ought to have compassion and take a serious look at the needs of farmers across the country.

I grew up on a farm, many years ago obviously. As a matter of fact my dad says that I am a child of the depression, the thirties. When we were young and growing up on the farm we were very poor. It is amazing to me that with all our technological advancements and our prosperity in the country now we have not invented a way of solving the problem for farmers when they have these downturns from time to time.

Way back then, like today, farmers faced many problems, anything from drought to too much moisture. I remember that as a youngster there was a time when we had rust in the fields. We also had plagues of grasshoppers. We had various diseases go through the crops. We had ups and downs in prices. Throughout all of that the farmers survived.

In order to emphasize the importance of this, especially in the context of what is seizing us as Canadians these days in terms of national security, I would like to point out that a solid, independent and self-sufficient food supply is absolutely critical to our national security.

There are many Ukrainians in my riding who point out to me frequently that there was a time in their history when the deprivation of food was used to destroy them as a people. It is really atrocious that we do not take it very seriously and make every effort possible to look at a secure food supply as a national security issue.

I imagine that everyone here today, especially on the other side of the House, has had a full meal or two today. We are not accustomed in Canada to thinking about real hunger. I do not know, Mr. Chairman, whether you have ever gone without food. I probably should have more than I have, but from time to time I have fasted, which is a good exercise for many reasons. To go without food for a day or two while drinking only water or perhaps juice has a number of very good effects on a person. One of the most important ones is that it really emphasizes the importance of food in our lives.

It has been said that a person can live about a minute or so without air, a day or two without water and a week or two without food. Mr. Chairman, I would probably outlast you, but it certainly is true that in a very short length of time we become dependent on food input in order to stay alive.

I think it would be a great exercise, as was suggested to me by my son-in-law, a farmer, if every member of parliament were to be asked to do a one day fast. If by the end of the first week the agriculture problem is not solved, the following week the members should do a two day fast. Then if by the end of that week the agriculture problem is not solved, they should do a three day fast, and they should keep going until the problem is solved. He said he was sure that MPs would soon discover a way of solving, in the long term, the agriculture problem that faces our country.

I think we ought to address the issue. Right now of course it is a disaster. My colleagues have spoken of areas where there is no income, where expenses and bills are piling up, where bankers and indeed the government's own Farm Credit Corporation are asking for the money and farmers do not have the ability to pay it back. It is in fact a desperate situation.

I suppose there is another way we can look at it. What would we as members of parliament do if at the end of the month we did not get a paycheque, then did not get one the next month or the month after? Then the banks would want to take our houses for not paying the mortgages, or the gas or electricity would be shut off because we were not paying the bills. We can see how quickly we would become desperate. That is where many farmers are today. They are without an income or a hope of an income and are literally facing personal disaster.

I want to mention a few things the government should do. One is with respect to user fees, which have really shot up for farmers. There is some justification for charging users the fees for these services that are supplied by government, but the fact of the matter is that these services for which fees are charged in the case of agriculture are good not only for the farmers. They are in fact for every Canadian. We should question whether or not we should charge excessive user fees to farmers when every citizen in the country is the beneficiary of the services such as food inspections and things like that supplied by the government.

I am thinking of another one that the government should do immediately. It could be done tomorrow if we had the political will to do it, and that is to have a motion that says effective tonight, or if we want to be generous take it to the weekend or the end of the month, as of October 1 we could have no more fuel tax on farm fuel. Why can we not take away that excise tax? No, the Liberal government seems to be quite content not only to charge excise tax on fuel used by farmers but then to charge GST on the excise tax itself, besides charging GST on the cost of the fuel. It is actually charging farmers, like all Canadians, a tax on a tax and it does not feel badly about it. I sometimes wonder whether government members have any conscience at all.

I think very seriously about the whole issue of trade. We presumably have an open border between the United States and Canada with the free trade agreement, except for food products. We can imagine how frustrating that is to farmers who, having a product in the bin which has value and which they can sell, are forced by the law in the country to sell only to the wheat board, but the wheat board is not buying it. They are prevented from pulling a truck up to the bin, loading their own product into the truck and taking it to a market where they could sell it. I have spoken to more than one farmer who has been in that situation. It is atrocious that in this country farmers do not have the freedom to sell their products to whomever will give them the price they are ready to sell it for. That is how the marketplace works. It works that way in every other area.

In my little town I have a number of different grocery stores to which I can go. I can choose to buy my food at Safeway or IGA. I should not have started the list. The others will be upset if I do not complete it. There is Save-on-Foods. We have all these different marketers of food. I cannot believe that farmers cannot also choose who to sell to. They should be able to make a deal. If somebody is willing to pay the price and they are willing to sell the product, let them go and do it.

I am thinking of organic farming, another area where farmers would like to break free. Can they do that? No. At every turn they have impediments from the government in regard to growing and marketing their products. In fact the wheat board will not handle organic food as a separate commodity and yet farmers are required to sell their grain to the wheat board. That is ridiculous.

I can see nothing wrong with continuing to have the wheat board, but we should make participation in it free. If a farmer gets the best price from the wheat board let him sell his product to the wheat board, but if he can get a better price elsewhere who are we in this country to pass a law to prevent him from doing that?

We should be thinking of some other things. When we go to the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread for around $1.20, depending upon where we are, the farmer gets about six or 10 cents. We could add just a little to the cost of food and give the farmer a fair market price.

There are many things that can be done. I am very sad that my time is up because I am only half done, but it will hold for another time.

[Standing Committee on Finance, September 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this was not a case of members not knowing where the committee room was. They were already there. This was a case where well before the time of the gathering in room 200, west block, committee members walked out. It was quite clear that it was at the call of the whip or some other official from the government.

My question is very simple. The Liberals defeated our supply day motion to produce anti-terrorist legislation. Now they will not let us work through committees. How and when will Canadians ever get some answers to this serious issue?

[Standing Committee on Finance, September 21st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister told us on Monday that committees would be informed and involved in finding solutions to the present threat by terrorists.

We gave notice and had motions prepared to call the Minister of National Revenue and the commissioner of Canada Customs and Revenue Agency to the finance committee. However instead of receiving, debating and voting on our motions, the government pulled all Liberal members away so that quorum was lost.

Why does the government not want these officials at committee?

[Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from Winnipeg has made a very important point. Indeed, there are many times when legislation that affects a number of different acts is changed. It is then totally appropriate to list all of those acts in the same bill. It is not in that case truly an omnibus bill, although it is given that name, because it deals mostly with one subject. It just happens that many acts have to be changed in order to accommodate that legislative or policy change of the government.

However, what we are dealing with here, as he has indicated, is a very onerous mixture. It is a mixture of all sorts of things. I suppose it is comparable to taking all of the things that we might eat in a week, putting them all into a pot, mixing them all up and then heating it and saying “Here, eat this”. I do not think it would be very palatable. We would probably want to reject it and in fact we might after we eat it. That is how I feel about this omnibus bill.

[Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the interpreters, without whose help I would not have been able to understand a word this member said since I am one of those very unfortunate unilingual Canadians.

I would like to address the questions which he has raised, first the question of age. That is a very good question because we are often falsely accused of wanting to treat children in the criminal system as if they were adults. That is not at all the intent of our legislation or of our policies.

The way it is now, youngsters who are 10 who commit a serious crime are simply sent back to their parents. Very often what they need is a serious intervention within our criminal system that says they will get counselling at the time, that they will go to a home for juveniles where they are taught social responsibility. All we are trying to do is to draw them into the loop for help so that they will not grow up to be true criminals after having learned more and more.

We also believe in this same context, though, that if youngsters, persons under 18, commit a serious crime such as murder, rape or major assault, they should be held accountable. I do not make apologies for that. I am not talking about 10 year olds. I am talking about those in the upper part of that range.

Second, the member asked the question about whether or not the government could act in good faith here. I really wish it would. Our legislative process would be greatly enhanced if all members of parliament were given true ability and authority in this place to represent their constituents and to represent their consciences.

For example, in committee today we had given notice of a motion to hold some ministers accountable in the present crisis. I was absolutely amazed to find that I was not permitted to make that motion. How was that done? On command, all the Liberals rose and left the committee even though it had not yet been adjourned. We lost quorum and therefore the chairman was not able to accept my motion. Those are bullying tactics.

The correct response would have been, let us let the man make his motion, debate it and let each individual there, without the coercion of party pressure, consider this, and if it is good vote for it and if not vote against it. Would our system not be improved if that happened?

The same thing should happen with this bill. I would love to see more free votes on government bills in this place. I know that there have been a number of them where members of the ruling party were not really with it, but they voted for the motion basically because of the pressure that was put on them. I am quite convinced that if we had more freedom in our respective parties to vote outside the party line we would be accepting amendments which would improve legislation.

I would also like us to actually have the capacity to defeat a bill without defeating the government because when I am voting on a bill I should be voting on the essence of what that bill is, not on whether or not there should be an election. That is a total mix-up, where we are not voting on what the issue is but on whether or not the government stands.

We absolutely need to have those reforms. We need to have that ability of a governing party, whichever it is, as right now it is the Liberals, and my answer to the question that the hon. member asked is a resounding yes. It would be very helpful. It would build good faith. It would enhance the reputation of our parliament among all of our citizens if the government would split the bill and allow us to deal with it properly. That is not being done now. We are being bullied instead of being allowed to do our work as parliamentarians.

[Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001, September 20th, 2001]

He noticed just by looking at me sideways. One of the items on the menu is a beautiful steak with all the side orders, the trimmings and everything. But I am told that I cannot have it unless I also eat the gravel that is sprinkled on top. Gravel is not very tasty and it chips my teeth, but I am told that I cannot have the steak unless I eat the gravel.

I have another example, and this one is going to be even more crude. This one is turkey with all the trimmings. We are coming up to Thanksgiving soon both in the United States and Canada. What a meaningful Thanksgiving it will be this year because of the recent incident. How grateful we are that we live in a country that has freedom, freedom of movement and freedom to live. But I am thinking of that turkey and in among the turkey are the feathers, because the feathers were not taken off the bird before it was cooked. I am told that I have to eat the feathers as well as that wonderful turkey that I like so much.

In all these different instances I am not given a choice. So it is here with this bill. I am being asked to either vote for these elements en masse or against them en masse.

The reason that it is so crass is I am sure that it is exactly along the lines of what I saw in the 1993 in the election.

One of my colleagues at that time, the member now for Edmonton North then from Beaver River, was running in the election. A brochure was sent out in her riding which listed all the things she had voted for or against. These were things that no doubt the people in that constituency either did or did not want. They used it for straight political reasons. In the midst of a vote, and this is almost always true, it is very seldom that we get a vote which we can support wholeheartedly.

When we have a bill like this, which has some things that are so objectionable, we cannot in conscience vote for it and represent our constituents. However, at the same time there is another element in that same bill that I could never vote against. How am I going to win?

I really think that perhaps the Speaker should intervene here. The Speaker should say that we need to guarantee the freedom of members of parliament to vote the way they believe their constituents would want them to vote.

Since this bill puts the members of parliament into such a dilemma, the Speaker should say that he will not accept the bill in its present form. Maybe the Speaker should say to the government that the bill should be divided and brought back for us to debate it, amend it and vote on it. Maybe that would be the solution. After all, the role of the Speaker is to ensure that the rights of parliamentarians are maintained.

I do not think that this means or any other means is an acceptable means to force me to vote opposite to the way I should on certain issues.

The Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act state, among other things, that if someone were to offer me money to try to persuade me to vote differently from what I might vote, it would be considered a high crime. This could result in both the person offering the money and the member of parliament, if he or she were stupid enough to accept the offer, landing in jail, and rightly so.

Why should the person who offers a bribe go to jail, when the government forces me to vote contrary to my beliefs and it does not go to jail? I would like to see all the Liberals in jail. We cannot do this to a person and maintain the integrity of parliament. Think about it. I do not think enough thought has gone into that.

That is by way of introduction to the particular bill. A few things really bother me about the bill, but some things I could probably support. For example, in our modern electronic age it is now possible very easily to transmit information electronically via computers, e-mail and the Internet. One thing in the bill, which I do not think has been mentioned in the debate so far, is that the bill permits the acceptance into evidence of electronically transmitted information. That is perfectly good. It is wonderful that we can communicate quickly and easily.

Another part of the bill is good. It provides that a witness or even an accused does not have to physically be in the court if, by some electronic conferencing means, it can be shown to the satisfaction of the court that all of them are able to see and hear each other simultaneously. That is a good move. It could save our country millions of dollars of costs in getting witnesses to court, as long as the courts are satisfied that there is no coercion and that all statements are freely made. I would vote for that because it is a good one.

I am sensitive to another part of the bill because of my past experience. Those who know me know will know what I am talking about. I have some affinity for people with handicaps because I had a sister who was severely handicapped. There are provisions in the bill that make it easier for them to testify, either as an accused or as a witness.

In the opinion of the judge, if a person feels intimidated in a public court with everyone watching, this bill would allow that person to be a witness from behind a curtain without being visible. Another very important thing is it could be arranged, for example, for the victim not to be in a position to physically see the accused. It is a very important thing in terms of victims' rights. I want to support that. I want to vote yes when the vote comes up for Bill C-15 because of some of those issues.

The bill talks about the issue of child pornography. I know that some of my other colleagues have already entered into the debate on that issue. I strongly want to vote in favour of anything that will reduce these vile attacks on our children. Whether it is an attack of physically using a child, which is absolutely unthinkable in my mind, or whether it is in the realm of cartoons and does not actually involve a child in their production, the very idea we would promote that in our society is such that I want to be against it.

The bill takes a few tepid steps in improving protection for children and in reducing the child pornography industry. I want to vote in favour of that but I do not want to vote in favour of some of the other things.

I am appalled at what little protection we give to children in our society. The age of consent is presently 14. That is unbelievable. We have friends who are a generation beneath us, but their children are growing up now. I am thinking right now of a specific family. They have a wonderful family with three children.

I cannot imagine someone actually enticing or intimidating this young lady, who is a couple months older than 14, into some of these heinous acts, whether by Internet or otherwise, and getting away with it because the age of consent is 14. The bill happens to talk about using the Internet as a means of enticing children.

I am opposed to the age of consent being 14. It should be at least 16, but preferably 18. If we are not ready to protect our children in society, then our society is going downhill. We need to take very strong steps in that regard.

Then there is the issue of cruelty to animals. This is one item that is very badly done in the bill. For the life of me I cannot condone for an instant deliberate cruelty to animals. I have heard of such situations. There was one situation in the Edmonton area next to my riding.

A lady had a house full of cats, which happens from time to time in different cities, but it was unreal how those animals suffered. I believe there were 50 to 100 of them in the house and they were not properly fed. In fact many of them had died. The people who went into the house said the stench was horrific, yet this woman lived with these cats. Obviously, this person was mentally ill and needed help. What happens to those animals is unconscionable.

I want to make it very clear that I am not in any way in favour or will I condone the wilful torture or inhumane treatment of animals.

I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. The things that needed to be done to train animals were well within the limits of reasonableness, yet not clearly defined in this particular bill.

Trying to train any animal, whether it is a dolphin at the zoo or an elephant, a combination of reward and punishment is used. That is the only way to train them. Some would think it is very cruel for a guy like me to get on a little pony to try and break it, yet it is a very good way of breaking it. I do not mean physically breaking its back, although that is a possibility. If a heavy person gets on an animal it tires more quickly and is brought to subjection more quickly. That is part of training an animal.

There are other things. I do not know how many members have a dog. How does one train a dog so that it behaves in a socially acceptable manner when living in a house with humans? I do not know of any little puppy that will respond to anything other than a small amount of physical punishment. It is not harmful, yet there would be some that would say it is cruel.

I think of the way we treated our animals on the farm. My dad was always very careful. However the bill says that everyone commits an offence who wilfully or recklessly causes, or being the owner, permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or who kills an animal or, being the owner, permits an animal to be killed, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately.

When I was young we used to go fishing. It was part of our food supply. When a fish is pulled out of the water it has that mean, ugly hook in its mouth, which is pretty cruel. Then the fish is killed. Some people just allow it to die of asphyxiation. Others use some other means to kill the fish. Does it mean that sport fishing now will be illegal? To me that is pretty brutal. If it was done to a human it certainly would be considered brutal. Yet it says that if one allows it to be done, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately, one is guilty.

We cannot have that. The bill will put at risk everyone who goes out sport fishing and actually uses the fish for food, which is a proper function. Here we have a Liberal bill and I am being told I have to vote for that.

I also think of animals. When we were on the farm we used to slaughter them. Nowadays they are taken to the abattoir and it is done professionally. However when I was a youngster we used to do that ourselves on the farm. My father used to point the rifle right in the middle of the animal's head and it died instantly. Again, if we did that to a human it would be considered brutal and vicious.

The words brutal and vicious are undefined. In this case the animal died, in my opinion, within milliseconds. Yet, according to the bill, that farmer, hunter or native in the North country who takes down a moose are all at risk because they have done something which is vicious and brutal.

I cannot support the bill if it has that kind of a clause in it. I plead with the government and the Speaker. Let us divide these things out. Let us talk about them one at a time. It would not take any longer. In fact it would take less time because we would be able to deal with each issue separately, get it to where we want it to be, have the vote and it would be done.

As it is right now, we are going to be hung up on this because we cannot reach an agreement on these things. It puts us into such a conundrum to be going frontward and backward on issues at the same time.

There is a limit to how far we can do that. I believe that democracy is eroded by the fact that these things are all in the bill. There are others, but I am out of time so cannot elaborate on the others. However, that is the essence of what I want to say today. I really wish that the government would reconsider and even at this stage, second reading of the bill, pull it back, divide it out and let us have some parliamentary co-operation here, which is what allows us to do our job.

[Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001, September 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am indeed privileged to enter into this debate, as we do on other debates from time to time.

I would like to begin my intervention this evening by talking about the essence of democracy, which I think is severely eroding by what is happening here. I know I have to stay within parliamentary rules so I just want members to imagine the very worst terms I could use to describe how incensed I am at the Liberal government for throwing together these widely disparate items and asking me to cast a vote on them. It is totally crass, unjust, unfair political opportunism that motivates the Liberals to do this. I am very upset about it.

I am upset because I believe that in parliament, in this honourable Chamber where we represent the whole sum total of the citizens of this wonderful country, we should be able to discuss issues. We should be able to persuade each other to a better point of view and members of parliament should then be able to vote freely. I feel somewhat frustrated that I likely will not be able to change the vote of a single Liberal member of parliament because of the fact that regardless of what I say, regardless of whether my arguments are weak or strong or how persuasive they are, the Liberals will still all vote en masse on command of the minister to pass a bill which is so severely flawed.

Furthermore, I am really upset that I am being forced to vote for some things that I am totally opposed to or conversely, that I am being forced to vote against something that I totally support. I am in a no-win situation here and it does not have to be.

I have used this example before because this is not the first time the government has done these things. I do not know if I used exactly the same elements but it is as if I were to order a meal in a restaurant. When I look at the menu, there are four or five different items from which I could choose but each of them has some desirable food and undesirable food and I am forced, in order to place that order, to eat something that is totally undesirable.

I use the example of ordering a beautiful steak. I love steak. I am a westerner. There is nothing better than a good Alberta steak.

[Allotted Day--Anti-Terrorism Legislation, September 18th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to answer some of the questions that members in the House have with respect to the motion. I think that their request to have this sent to a committee is embodied in the motion and the amendment. If they will vote for the amendment, it proposes to replace the words “to introduce” with “to send to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, no later than November 1, 2001 draft” anti-terrorism legislation. In other words, our motion does say we should get it to the committee and fairly fast. That is obviously due to the fact that we now are aware that there is considerable urgency to this issue.

There seems to be concern on the part of members of the House who are opposed to, or are giving an indication that they will probably vote against our motion regarding the six issues. I believe instead of facing it head on they are trying to talk around it and let the Liberal committee come up with legislation.

We have specifically stated six items here, each of which deals with terrorist activities. We are not talking about nice people. We are talking about terrorists. We are talking about the type of people who would do what was done last week in the United States. We are saying that it is time we dealt very harshly with these people. Our motion states very clearly that we want the government to create draft legislation which does not omit the specific points on how to deal with terrorism.

My intervention is more a comment than a question. I certainly would like the member to respond to why members suggest that they cannot support the motion. It gives the government clear direction on the type of legislation it should draft. The committee still has the power to amend it and the House still has the power at report stage to amend it and get on with the task at hand.