Bill Casey

[Supply, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of brief questions for the hon. member.

I have watched the estimate of the cost of this firearms control effort rise from an estimated $85 million to what it is now being estimated at, which is $133.9 million just for this year alone. That estimate was made by the spokesman for the new firearms centre. It will be $133.9 million for this year alone and it has not even begun yet.

I wonder if the hon. member has had any indication from the government what the total cost is going to be? Or has he been able to conclude a cost himself?

My second question refers to the $32 million crime prevention initiative announced by the government, which a newspaper article cites as another $32 million down the drain. It says that the minister's crime prevention initiative is more of the same mollycoddling that has made a joke out of the Young Offenders Act. I wonder if the hon. member agrees with that comment which appeared the Toronto Sun .

[Hepatitis C, June 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, no matter how many times I read this letter it says the same thing. It says “An agreement has been reached for individuals with hepatitis C who were infected between January 1984 and 1990”. It says an agreement between the provincial, territorial and federal ministers.

Somebody is wrong here. Either the premier of the province of Nova Scotia or the hon. member. Will he tell us which one is wrong?

[Hepatitis C, June 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

I have a letter from the hon. Russell MacLellan, premier of the province of Nova Scotia, a former parliamentary secretary. In this letter he says “The provincial, territorial and federal ministers of health have met on hepatitis C and an agreement has now been reached for individuals who were infected between January 1984 and 1990”. Previously we were told that the window was only 1986 to 1990. Premier MacLellan is now saying 1984.

Will the minister confirm this expanded window and tell us when hepatitis C victims will be notified?

[Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation And Safety Board Act, June 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give my views on Bill S-2.

We have been provided with a book on this bill which we have reviewed as best we could. We have contacted as many people as we could, including officials of the transportation safety board to find out their views on it. As far as we could tell there seemed to be consensus for the passing of this bill.

However, the government wants to move it through the system and avoid the transport committee. It will require unanimous consent on that. I am going to withhold my consent on that because this is the second major transportation bill to go through the government. As members of the transportation committee we have been denied access to witnesses.

In the case of Bill C-9, a much more profound bill with more impact, I moved a motion to have witnesses heard but I was overruled by the committee so we never heard witnesses opposed to Bill C-9. There is the same effort with Bill S-2 to avoid allowing witnesses to make presentations. We are only allowed to hear the people in support of the bill while we are not allowed to hear the people opposed to it.

When Bill C-9 went to Senate after we passed it in the House, the senators had witnesses in their senate committee, and many people opposed it. We were denied access to those presentations. I feel very strongly that we were sent here to serve the people. We were put on the transport committee to help make decisions and proper amendments. If we are not allowed to hear both sides of the story but are only allowed to hear the government side, we are not equipped or able to make intelligent decisions. I will be opposing unanimous consent on this.

I am really sorry with Bill C-9 that I did not push harder for witnesses to be heard. I did make the motion and I was overruled but I feel now that I should have done more. I am not going to make that mistake again. I want to hear both sides of the story, not just one.

In that effort we contacted officials of the transportation safety board. They are supportive of this bill. We asked them several months ago and then asked them again yesterday. They feel there are some positive changes here which they want to see go ahead. However, we have not heard the other side of the story from the people affected, and a lot of people will be affected by this bill.

Another reason to send it to committee and to call witnesses is that the government strangely enough moved an amendment in the bill that was passed but it now wants to withdraw that amendment. I do not have a satisfactory explanation of what that was all about. Why did the government move the amendment in the first place? Who was affected by it? I think air traffic controllers, perhaps pilots and a lot of people would be affected by that amendment. Now the government wants the amendment withdrawn with no explanation, no hearings and no witnesses. That is another reason to make this bill go to committee and to hear all sides of the story.

If it is a good bill it will pass committee. I pledge my total support to see that it goes through as quickly as possible but I do want it to go to committee. If we allow this bill to go through without first going through committee and hearing witnesses, it will be the second transport bill this happens to. It will be the same as Bill C-9 where we were not allowed to hear from witnesses.

Bill C-9 was a much more profound bill with more impact. A lot of people were against it and we were not allowed to hear from any of them. The only people we heard from are those we reached out to and contacted ourselves. We did not have an open committee or testimony from people who were affected. That same thing will happen with Bill S-2 if we allow it go through via the speedy process which is going through the House without going to committee. We will be voting against unanimous approval to expedite this bill through the system.

[Fishers Bill Of Rights, June 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I support the bill. I can prove that allowing fishermen the right to be involved with consultations is a great thing. There is really a unique situation on the north shore of Nova Scotia in my riding where the fishermen for years lobbied the department of fisheries to increase the standards on lobster size and the department of fisheries refused for years to do it.

The fishermen banded together. They made an agreement among themselves to catch and keep lobsters only above and beyond the size the federal government allowed as a minimum. They actually threw back lobsters that were legal in the interests of conservation. This is a really good example of fishermen being involved with their own industry and in consultation.

It is hard to believe the government will not allow fishermen to be involved with these decisions when they have proven they will do a good job.

This bill is about allowing fishermen to have a say, but today in the fisheries committee we were not even allowed to have a say. The opposition members moved to have Brian Tobin, the premier of the province of Newfoundland, testify because he is an expert in this field. He is a former minister of fisheries and he is very well respected. He became Captain Canada and yet the members of the government on the committee voted to refuse to have him. That is like refusing to hear Albert Einstein when talking about the theory of relativity.

He is the expert and it is awful to muzzle this fountain of information and source of wisdom and refuse to allow him to testify at committee.

Bill C-302 is appropriate for fishermen to give them a fishers bill of rights, but we should have a bill of rights too to be allowed to hear the people we have to hear from.

This is a really good example of the department of fisheries trying to muzzle all the information, all the input, all consultation from not only fishermen but from premiers and former fisheries ministers.

[Transport, June 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

The last two plane crashes in Canada occurred at Fredericton and Clarenville, Newfoundland and neither plane was equipped with an emergency locator transmitter, one because it was not required to in the first place and the other because it was removed for service.

Now that several weeks have passed since the last crash will the minister tell the House what new regulations he has introduced regarding emergency locator transmitters, and will he give his assurance that all scheduled passenger flights in Canada will have emergency locator transmitters, which I understand cost approximately $500?

[Justice, May 14th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, seven years ago James Mills was murdered while in Renous prison in New Brunswick. Yesterday in question period I asked the solicitor general if he would press charges in this case and he quite correctly answered he could not. I understand that.

I hope the solicitor general understands the frustration of the Mills family and myself. It has been seven years since this murder took place and nothing has ever happened.

We have used the House in question period. We have met with Corrections Canada. We have met with the RCMP. We have met with the minister. We have used access to information.

I was even working on this when I was a member of parliament in 1992. I was defeated. I am back now. I am working on it again. I am still frustrated.

I say to the solicitor general that seven years is too long for the Mills family to wait. The government owes the Mills family an explanation. It owes them justice or at least an apology.

[Justice, May 13th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, seven years ago James Mills was murdered while in Renous prison. The Mills family has never received a full report on the death and no charges have been laid even though seven years have passed.

After I raised the issue in the House six months ago RCMP and corrections officials promised the Mills family that charges would be laid by December 20, 1997. That promise has not been kept. No charges have been laid.

Will the solicitor general honour that promise today and finally give the Mills family a little peace of mind by pressing charges as promised?

[Highways, April 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on February 3, 1998 the minister said in the House in discussions regarding the toll highway between Moncton and Petitcodiac “we intend to make sure that this kind of situation is planned for in future agreements with regard to preventing toll highways”.

Would the minister absolutely and definitively assure the people of New Brunswick and all Atlantic Canada that this $300 million agreement will include clauses and conditions that preclude and prevent any tolling of this section of highway?

[Highways, April 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport.

Recently the New Brunswick minister of transportation said in the New Brunswick Road Builder magazine “The latest federal-provincial highway agreement worth $300 million on a 50:50 basis will be used to upgrade the Trans-Canada Highway from Longs Creek to the Quebec border”. The agreement has been finalized. Will the minister confirm the provincial minister's statement that this $300 million agreement has been finalized, or at least indicate the status of the agreement?