Bernard Bigras

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this is why the Bloc Quebecois has 38 members in this House. Despite the consensus reached by everyone in Quebec, from the Quebec Liberal Party to Mario Dumont, members opposite refuse to acknowledge that Quebec is a nation.

As long as the members opposite maintain this kind of behaviour towards Quebec, there will be in this House members to defend Quebec at the international level and members to defend Quebec at the summit of the Americas.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very carefully to my colleague opposite who is still wondering why Quebec wants to send its own negotiators to these major international tables.

I would like to put a question to the member. First, does the member truly believe that Quebec is a nation? If she answers yes to this question, and I would ask her colleague, the parliamentary secretary, not to slip her the answer, if she believes that Quebec is a nation, does she not think that nations should be present at international tables to defend their own interests?

I would like her to answer the first question. If her answer is yes, then, of course, she will have to say that Quebec should take part with the other nations.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I misunderstand my role and that of the other members in the House. We obviously want to increase Canadian investments and facilitate exports. We want a FTAA but not at any cost. Above all our role is to protect the health of the people and our environment.

When the government and the House pass laws to protect our environment and the parliamentary secretary says that there is nothing wrong with legislation that his own government has brought forward being legally challenged, what kind of world are we in?

We are here to facilitate Canada's economic development, but also the protect to health of our people. If the parliamentary secretary is not ready to defend these principles, some day, when he goes on the campaign trail, his constituents will certainly remind him of that.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, this government says that “Chapter 11 works relatively well. There are only minor problems”. Need I remind the parliamentary secretary that chapter 11 deals with relations between businesses and the government?

If the parliamentary secretary accepts that, under this chapter, the legislation of his government can be legally challenged, it says a lot about who will protect this trade agreement. The comments made by the parliamentary secretary are totally unacceptable and only seek to protect investors, at the expense of people's health and of their environment.

If the parliamentary secretary thinks there is no problem with the fact that the Canadian legislation can be legally challenged, fine. Personally, I do not think he is in the right place. He should go back to the private sector, because we are here to pass laws that will not be legally challenged by major companies.

If the parliamentary secretary believes what he just said, let him go back to the private sector, because the House of Commons is not where he should be.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention, because even I was having trouble hearing what I was saying. So many people on both sides of the House were talking that I could hardly express the views and the principles I wanted to bring forward.

It is a pleasure to rise in the House to speak to the motion put forward by my hon. colleague from Joliette, on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois, the government to “put in place an open and ongoing process to keep parliament informed of negotiations to establish a free trade area of the Americas so as to allow parliamentarians to debate it and civil society to be consulted before parliament approves it”. Of course, I also support the amendment moved by the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

Why are we asking today for a more open negotiating process to establish a free trade area of the Americas?

For many different reasons, because it is quite normal to hope that our fellow citizens and non-governmental organizations will be able to take part in the debate that will help us reach in the future, somewhere around 2005 according to what was agreed upon during the weekend, a free trade deal with a human touch, which will reflect a number of the fundamental principles of our modern societies as well as the consensus developed here, in Canada.

I will deal mainly with the importance of protecting the environment in the context of globalization, free market and free trade, and also of protecting the environment when it comes to the creation of the free trade area of the Americas.

We should think back to the period when NAFTA was negotiated and signed. At the time, it was described as one of the greener international trade agreements.

Environmental clauses in NAFTA were the result of the perseverance, involvement and determination of non-governmental organizations to include a number of clauses to protect the environment. We should recall that back in 1993 NAFTA did include a number of environmental principles and clauses.

Clearly, at the face of the preamble of NAFTA, there is a bias in favour of sustainable development, environmental protection and compliance with environmental standards and regulations.

The NAFTA preamble was clearly pro-environment, and that in itself is significant. Had these principles been stated in an environmental agreement, it would have been understandable, but they were stated in a trade agreement. It was a step in the right direction.

NAFTA contained a number of provisions including one that said environmental standards had to be higher than those recommended by international environmental organizations. This makes it possible for a signatory state that wants to raise its environmental standards above and beyond what had been agreed to internationally to do so. That was very clearly stated in the agreement.

Another aspect was the fact that under NAFTA there would be no lowering of environmental standards to attract investors and investments. Why is that? There was a provision preventing a signatory country from creating, through this free trade agreement, what was called a polluter's paradise, from lowering its environmental standards to attract investors. That was clearly stated in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Of course, all that added to the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation, which created the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, was the culmination of environmental cooperation between Canada, the United States and Mexico.

NAFTA has obvious flaws. We talked about chapter 11, and we must keep talking about it. The Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade were telling us today that there were very few challenges under chapter 11 of NAFTA, that it is all in the opposition's head.

From an environmental standpoint, it is totally false. Let us consider what happened with Sun Belt Water Inc. This California based company sued the government of British Columbia because it would not allow it to export bulk water from Canada. The Prime Minister and the Minister for International Trade were telling us that there were no problems, but that was one.

Another case in point concerns Ethyl Corporation, a company that got $30 billion in compensation because the federal government wanted to pass here, in this House, a bill banning the use of a gasoline additive called MMT.

It was not an act that the company was challenging, but rather a bill that was brought before us, the parliamentarians, but had yet to be passed in the House when it was challenged in court. The company received $30 billion in compensation.

We are told that the chapter 11 investor-state dispute mechanism is not a problem. Quite the opposite, since the situation with the Ethyl Corporation has clearly shown that our law making authority, as parliamentarians, could be limited.

The minister was not clear on the issue. Are we shoving chapter 11 aside? Do we really want to protect the environment? The government will have to answer those questions.

At the summit in Quebec City, we would have liked to see the government make a firm commitment on three or four environmental issues. We would have been pleased with that. First, regarding the environment, that the federal government would not accept anything less that what was agreed upon in NAFTA.

Could the Minister for International Trade take all the necessary steps to assure the House that the Quebec and Canadian environmental legislation will not be challenged in court by large corporations, as was done under the North American Free Trade Agreement?

First and foremost, the Bloc Quebecois wants to ensure that there are provisions preventing large companies from challenging the environmental legislation in court. How ironic that we, in the opposition, are the ones who want to protect the Canadian environmental legislation. The environment minister is letting the international trade minister negotiate an agreement that does not only deal with trade, but also with the environment and public health.

We also would like to have the international agreements on the environment, the Basel convention and the Montreal protocol on the ozone layer be honoured in the free trade area of the Americas and in the agreement likely to be signed in 2005. We will not ask the Government of Canada to have the Kyoto protocol honoured. I think that would be a bit much to ask of it, since it did not even deign to ratify it.

So, this is what we expected from this government. Of course, the government decided to exclude the Minister of the Environment from discussions. I could talk about this for a long time yet.

However, what we might have wished from the Minister of the Environment, a few weeks away from the summit of the Americas, was a reiteration before the 34 environment ministers in Montreal of his intention to honour the Kyoto protocol. In meeting with the 34 environment ministers, he refused to sign the Montreal declaration on climate change. That says a mouthful about where we are going in terms of negotiations in 2005 for the free trade area.

We will be watching and will make sure, in the coming weeks and months, that the North American Free Trade Agreement, and especially the free trade area of the Americas, contain provisions on the environment.

[Supply, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today on the motion moved by my colleague in the House of Commons—

[Kyoto Protocol, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on April 12, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously passed a resolution asking the federal government to ratify the Kyoto protocol.

Does the federal government realize that it is alienating all the other countries by copying the Americans' position? Under what conditions would the minister be prepared to sign the Kyoto protocol?

[Kyoto Protocol, April 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we recently learned that in early April the U.S. secretary of state sent a memo to U.S. embassies indicating that the United States would oppose the Kyoto protocol, regardless of the circumstances.

Moreover, the Minister of the Environment stated last week that it will be impossible for Canada to ignore American positions.

Is the minister's decision to align Canada's position with that of the Americans not an illustration of the federal government's refusal to ratify the Kyoto protocol?

[Criminal Code, April 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take part in this debate, an important debate.

Why is it important? Bill C-24 amends the Criminal Code and related laws, specifically to clarify a major social problem.

The Bloc Quebecois, long before this bill, wanted to do battle. My colleague from Berthier—Montcalm naturally headed this battle. He spearheaded this important bill, which he could have tabled, but which the government tabled.

This bill could very easily have been tabled by a member of this party, the Bloc Quebecois, because for many years the Bloc Quebecois has called for a vigorous law, tighter legislation, to limit and reduce crime, and criminal gangs in Canada.

My colleague from Berthier—Montcalm was not the only one. I recall very clearly from an event in the Montreal riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve that my colleague who represents that riding introduced a motion under private members' business and initiated this debate in this House to ensure that the government was taking the necessary steps to establish legislation to fight organized crime.

What is being tabled today concerns basically six elements, six legislative means to fight organized crime. One concerns the question of participation in a criminal organization, which becomes an offence under the bill.

Another is the whole issue of protection given to persons participating in the legal system against certain acts of intimidation.

The third aspect is the simplified definition of criminal organizations. This is essential, essential because we wanted to see a clear definition of what a criminal organization, what a gang, is. Right at the start of the bill, in clause 1, in the explanatory notes, the definition is clear:

—“gang”. Group or association or other body consisting of five or more persons, whether formally or informally organized,

(a) having as one of its primary activities the commission of an indictable offence under this or any other Act of Parliament for which the maximum punishment is imprisonment for five years or more;

(b) any or all of the members of which engage in or have, within the preceding five years, engaged in the commission of a series of such offences;

This bill provides clarification of what a criminal organization is, because we feel that the current legislation—not the bill we are looking at today but the present legislation—is in my opinion complex and to some extent provides organized groups with loopholes about which we as parliamentarians have a duty to do something.

The other aspect addressed by this bill is the whole matter of seizure and forfeiture of the proceeds of crime.

There is also the matter of protection for those mandated to monitor application of the legislation, what is termed immunity.

Lastly, there is the matter of non legislative measures, the budget in particular.

I will close on this point. It is not merely a matter of equipping ourselves with legislation. We also need the financial means to be able to enforce it. We are waiting for a budget that will allow us to meet the challenge.

[Criminal Code, April 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take the floor for the first time since we got back from parliamentary recess and to congratulate my colleague from the Canadian Alliance for his speech which may have contained more nuances and perhaps more rigour, more severity than the Bloc Quebecois.

Like the Bloc, which has been fighting for this for a long time, the Canadian Alliance has long been calling for the federal government to develop some backbone in this matter and to turn out a bill that would, once and for all, make association with a biker gang or other organized criminal group an illegal act. This we have been calling for on a number of occasions.

There are two points I picked up on in my colleague's speech. First of all, he stated clearly that the bill we are examining today does not go far enough, particularly on the legislative level. My colleague clearly stated that this bill, which will inevitably become law, did not provide the legislative means to really fight organized crime in Quebec and in Canada.

So, we have lack of legislative tools, and then my colleague went on to speak of an obvious lack of financial resources. He would like to see this co-operation between the provinces and the federal government made possible and would like to see the police forces with sufficient financial resources to achieve the objectives set out in the bill, not only in principle but with the bottom line of really battling organized crime in Quebec and in Canada.

To a certain extent, what my colleague says is that the principles, the provisions of the law and the financial resources do not allow it to achieve these objectives.

Another aspect is the right of association and the right to belong to a criminal organization, which would not be an offence, according to him.

Could my colleague clarify these two aspects of his speech?