Albina Guarnieri

[Fuel Prices, May 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the constituents of my riding of Mississauga East and countless other Canadians are struggling to keep their businesses and households afloat while being drained by rising fuel prices.

There is a strong and growing sentiment that gasoline subsidies are unfairly inflating prices to the detriment of the consumer.

Will the Minister of Industry explain what steps the government is taking to address this longstanding grievance?

[Committees Of The House, May 9th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Kent:

That the first report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Committees Of The House, May 9th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations in relation to its study of the Senate's main estimates, 1996-97.

The report requests that a message be sent to the Senate inviting their honours to give leave to the chair of the standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration, to appear before our committee in relation to the Senate's main estimates.

If the House gives its consent, I intend to move concurrence in the first report later this day.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 8th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 17

That Bill C-33, in Clause 2, be amended by adding after line 8, on page 2, the following:

"(1.1) In subsection (1), "marital status" means the status of being married, single, separated, divorced, widowed or cohabiting with an individual of the opposite sex in a conjugal relationship for at least one year.

(1.2) In subsection (1.1), "being married" means being married to a person of the opposite sex."

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 7th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, this week members of Parliament will speed through the intersection of values and politics. Not even a skid mark will trace the collision between a radical agenda and the foundations of our society. Fleeing from the scene is any hope of full and open debate. No legislation is more consequential than laws which affect the core values, the building blocks of our civilization, the cornerstone of our culture.

In this respect, Bill C-33 will be the most significant legislation since the charter of rights. We have shifted our aims from a just society to a frontier society, a society lacking structure, without guiding values, with no blueprint for the next generation.

Family is the bridge between our roots and the foundation of our future. Its demise, the dilution of its purpose, will reduce children to little more than a commodity, the guinea pigs of a brave new world.

To compare my objections to Bill C-33 to those of the member from Nanaimo would be as wrong as to connect the support of the Minister of Justice to the North American Man Boy Love Association, which also backs his bill.

In June 1995 I voted for Bill C-41. Its only direct consequence was longer prison terms for violent criminals who targeted homosexuals or other identifiable groups. Three years ago I was ready to support Bill C-108 which had wording almost identical to Bill C-33. I was persuaded at the time that its additional definition of marital status would limit its scope and prevent any consequence on the irreplaceable and central role of the traditional family in our society.

Today's Bill C-33 is a Trojan horse, its payload filled with legal reinforcements for the war against values currently being waged in our courts, the constitutional war against core values. Just one more tool is needed to rid our social infrastructure of traditional family values. This bill is that tool.

Bill C-33 was introduced boasting lofty words and lofty intent. I listened to the Minister of Justice tell us how this bill would help persons who may suffer discrimination in the workplace. On that intent I absolutely agree. No Canadian should be fired or demoted for any reason other than the quality of his or her work. That is fundamental and it is a principle that the government must enforce.

We all agree with the platitudes motherhood, apple pie and justice for all, but platitudes in legislation are an abdication of Parliament's responsibility to make tough, controversial and political decisions. One man, one vote has been replaced by one judge, one vote. Sadly the concept of justice is drowning in the courts.

Today the public has been largely removed from debate about how their society should evolve, about how their children should be raised. Those decisions too often rest with unelected judges responding to complaints from special interest groups. Typically the only role left for the public is to read the results in the newspaper and react with helpless outrage.

Some lawyers, appointed by politicians to sit on the bench in judgment, have abused the highest law of the land, the charter, to legitimize everything from child pornography to the sodomy of a 14-year-old by a fugitive sex offender. Timely barely permits a single example.

Vernon Logan was charged with and pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. Then, despite the guilty plea, Judge Brian Saunderson gave Logan an absolute discharge. Why? Because in the judge's view child pornography law violates the charter of rights.

I do not recall child pornography being protected in the charter but judges have nearly unlimited licence to read their own personal views between the lines of the law. Of course no consideration is given to the rights of children victimized by the pornographer. They have no standing in court.

The values of society should determine the law. The law should not determine the values of society. Clearly the courts are not guardians of our values. We cannot afford to give them any more legislative blank cheques. No more bills like Bill C-33. I looked to the Library of Parliament, our legislative counsel and even outside resources to predict the consequences of Bill C-33. Is it radical to ask to be informed of the consequences of a law before you vote for it? I was told and I quote from the Library of Parliament:

-it is not feasible to draw up an exhaustive listing of entitlements that might, in theory, give rise to the lodging of complaints based on sexual orientation under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

You should not have to be Nostradamas to predict the consequences of law. Is this not unlimited scope, a blank cheque, no legal guarantees, no collateral, no fail safe, no debate? Mr. Speaker, no signature.

My mentor in drafting the two amendments I propose was of course the Minister of Justice whose booklet on the bill declares that:

The proposed amendment will have no bearing on definitions of "marriage", "family" or "spouse". It will simply guarantee individual rights.

We have also been told that this bill will have no bearing on criminal offences. The best way to make these guarantees is in the body of the bill and that is what my amendments seek to do.

I have added a definition of marital status. Marital status means "the status of being married, single, separated, divorced, widowed or cohabiting with an individual of the opposite sex in a conjugal relationship for at least one year".

Kim Campbell referred to this definition as simply confirming the existing law. Is it any different from how almost all Canadians view marital status? Would it diminish human rights in this country to state a central value in our society? Is it too much to ask that more than lip service be given to the notion of the traditional family?

Bill C-33 is intended to have no impact on the definition of marital status, so says the Minister of Justice. If this is the case, then this amendment is perfectly consistent with the position of the Minister of Justice.

My second amendment restates the minister's position that Bill C-33 should have no impact on criminal offences. It reads: "Nothing in sections 2 or 3 shall be construed so as to render any provision of the Criminal Code inoperative or of no force or effect". In other words, Bill C-33 cannot be used to thwart justice.

To support these amendments will allow Parliament to achieve its goal of a non-discriminatory workplace. It would also signal to the courts Parliament's intent that this bill should not contribute to any redefinition of marital status or weakening of the Criminal Code. Support for these amendments would address legitimate concerns. Opposition to them makes the case that our concerns are well founded.

Bill C-33 in raw form is unacceptable to me. It is unacceptable to my church and I believe it is unacceptable to the majority of my constituents. The amendments I propose define my main concerns. They preserve the central thrust of government policy without harmful side effects for the Canadian family and children. The amendments would confine the bill to the rhetoric that is being used to sell it.

No debate about values will ever be solved with platitudes. We cannot forever deflect the challenges facing our society with glib truisms, but what we can do is make responsible changes necessary to maintain fairness in society without demolishing other key principles at the same time.

At the intersection of politics and values, conscience must always have the right of way.

[Canadian Human Rights Act, May 7th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-33, in Clause 1, be amended by adding after line 33, on page 1, the following:

"2.1 Nothing in sections 2 or 3 shall be construed so as to render any provision of the Criminal Code inoperative or of no force or effect."

[Criminal Code, April 25th, 1996]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-274, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (cumulative sentences).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Mississauga South for seconding my private member's bill which aims to recognize victims of crime as individuals by ending volume discounts for rapists and murderers in our courts. These volume discounts are granted by concurrence sentencing which allows a serial killer or a serial rapist to serve sentences for multiple crimes at the same time and be out on the street in only a fraction of the total sentence.

I believe Canadians are tired of having the price for murder and rape marked down by the courts and parole boards. This bill would narrow the gap between our justice system and justice.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

[The Budget, April 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I simply could not let the member's words about drivel go unnoticed.

I wonder if he would agree with Bill Good, B.C. based radio call-in host, who said on CTV's "Sunday Edition": "What Paul

Martin has done is gathered a considerable amount of credibility by hitting the targets that he has said he was going to hit, that is keeping interest rates relatively low because international investors now believe Paul Martin is serious about deficit reduction".

Would he also agree with Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail columnist who said: ``If only federal governments 10 years ago had introduced budgets like the last two, including yesterday's-The fight against deficit-debt has been waged thus far successfully without major tax increases to which Canadians have become politically resistant. It has instead been fought where it belongs, in the government's own spending and in transfer to the provinces''.

Would he agree with the Montreal Gazette editorial: ``For the most part Mr. Martin deserves praise for keeping his government's promise to keep federal finances under control without damaging the core of the country's social services and without hurting too many people too badly''.

Perhaps he would agree with Jason Moscovitz that the reason for the drivel of the member's opposite is that, as Mr. Moscovitz said: "With the Liberals showing the deficit declining, the Reform Party appears to have been caught flat footed. Paul Martin had a day he may not soon forget. In straight parliamentary terms he beat up the opposition-

[The Budget, April 15th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, in less than a single full term in office this government has managed to cut the national deficit by $20 billion and at the same time cut the unemployment rate by a full two percentage points.

Canadians can have more confidence in how they are governed now that they have a Minister of Finance who sets and reaches ambitious fiscal goals without the destructive consequences of public service walkouts or wholesale elimination of service. Successes come from abandoning the failed policies of governments past.

A sixty per cent cut in subsidies to business was born from the realization that little can be gained by collecting taxes from business with the sole purpose of redirecting the same dollars to the same businesses through subsidies and grants. We have learned that the value of targeting funds is small and more than offset by the consequences of increased taxation, administrative overhead and the cost to business of hiring consultants and lobbyists to apply for grants.

It was a typical case in the previous regime that $100 would be taxed away from an industry with $1 or $2 spent in the collection process, as much as $20 more spent on grant administration and the remaining $78 dollars would be handed out to business as a great gift. However, $15 had already been spent by business trying to get its tax money back by hiring consultants and applying for grants.

At the end of the rinse cycle industry would be about 35 per cent better off had the government just stayed away. We have done away with tax and grant government. We no longer believe that the role of government is to seize and reinvest the earnings of private corporations.

Rarely has economic success ever been built on temporary grants and subsidies. It is true the odd business may be lured to set up a factory by the promise of grants, tax credits or some other concession paid for by the local businesses. It is also true that often these factories vanish as soon as the locks get changed at the house of the free money.

Government grants impose a psychology on business that slows sustainable job creation as entrepreneurs wait for handouts rather than accept private sector funding under market conditions. It is not rare to hear of a small business owner planning an expansion which might create 100 jobs. Typically the entrepreneur could find the money needed from private resources or a bank or venture capitalist, but then the prospect of the government grant would get in the way.

The entrepreneur would start spending his time visiting bureaucrats, filling out forms, preparing his case. Pretty soon he would get frustrated and hire a consultant who specialized in positioning companies for grants. The process would drag on for months. A hundred people were still out of work but our entrepreneur would sense the competition. If he did not get a grant his competitor might then be able to undercut his price. He would have to press on. More months would pass with still no word, still more consulting fees, still no jobs created.

Finally there would be a sigh of relief with rejection letters from all granting agencies. Now our entrepreneur could actually carry on his business, creating jobs by using private sector resources for private sector results.

Many forms of subsidy will remain in selected fields and to support exports. Generally business is being freed of having to apply to government for funds to stay competitive. Overwhelmingly the government is being reduced to a level that can actually be understood by citizens who are too busy working and paying taxes to study every branch or tentacle funded by their tax dollars.

The confidence the public has shown in the government and the Minister of Finance arises from our efforts to limit government to its original and irreproachable aims. In 1997-98 total program spending will fall to about $106 billion. Fifty-four per cent of this spending will go to seniors, the unemployed and to the provinces to support education, health and other social programs. Business subsidies by contrast will account for barely one and one-half per cent of program spending.

By the conclusion of our first term in office, the taxpayer will be comforted to know that fewer and fewer hard earned tax dollars are leaking away from the core of government's role. Government will soon be able to say it is doing only what it does best which no one else will do.

Our role is largely to redistribute cash to help seniors, the unemployed, low income earners, provinces with smaller per capita tax bases as well as support our national medicare system and affordable post-secondary education.

Some have criticized these programs, saying their home province is spending more than it receives, say from the employment insurance plan. This plan is about people, not about provinces. It is intended to treat individuals fairly according to the unemployment levels they face where they live.

Politicians in wealthier provinces who protest relief going to people in need in other provinces represent a view of the country shared by Lucien Bouchard, always calculating their share, discounting what they receive, focusing on any area where they pay more than they get back and never viewing Canadians as equal members of a single nature who have a long history of helping each other through hard times.

This 1996 budget does not give in to regional parochialism or selfishness. It preserves the Canadian sense of community by sustaining our social fabric while finding necessary savings in subsidies, administration and by closing tax loopholes.

In short, we have reduced Canada's deficit without reducing Canada.

[Violence, March 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, violence against women and children affects all of us in our communities and as a country. I am pleased that the federal government continues to take positive steps to prevent violence, working with other sectors of society who are active partners in this effort.

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters deserves special congratulations for its launch of a new national campaign aptly named "Violence-You Can Make a Difference". Through co-operation between private broadcasters and several government departments, the message will reach every community across the country.

In the Toronto Star a recent series featuring family violence depicting real life tragedies accentuates the importance of this issue in all its aspects.

I hope these insights will encourage all Canadians to become part of a national effort to stop violence before it happens.