Deepak Obhrai

[Criminal Code, April 9th, 2003]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-431, an act to amend the Criminal Code (probation order).

Mr. Speaker, the effort of this bill is to force judges, prior to sentencing offenders, to determine whether offenders have ever been on probation and how well they have conducted themselves during the period that the order was in force. This would assist in keeping the offenders, who tend to violate probation orders, off probation and onto other formsof sentencing available to the judges.

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

[Employment Insurance Act, April 9th, 2003]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-430, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act (record of employment).

Mr. Speaker, the bill is directed toward every employer who fails to provide a record of employment to an insured person in accordance with the regulations and who then would be guilty of an offence and liable upon summary conviction to 10 years and a fine of not more than $5,000.This is to ensure that people will get their record of employment in due time so that they can claim EI.

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

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it was my understanding that the leader of the NDP had appointed another critic to look after Alliance affairs. I see that my other colleague has taken up that responsibility, which is very good.

However, I will say this. As far as I am concerned, I voted with the member's bill because I felt it had merit. As far as I am concerned I voted for his bill and he is more than welcome to ask the rest of the question when my leader is speaking. Let me tell him that my leader made it a free vote. He gave an opportunity for the caucus to address that issue. That is an excellent step, which he should appreciate.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the Bloc for bringing up a very good point. After listening to the government propaganda, what the government forgot to say was that a billion dollars went down with the gun registry. Let us talk about the GST fraud. Let us talk about the softwood lumber dispute that is going on where my colleague comes from and about the forestry workers who are facing this massive problem. These are situations the government will not talk about. My colleague is absolutely right. I have had seniors come into my office who have had piddly little increases in their Canada pension plan.

Let us talk about GST fraud for a second. Revenue Canada will go looking for seniors for $10 or $50, which may have been an overpayment or something, and yet GST fraud is going on through the back door. There is an old saying, “Don't let an ant go in the front but an elephant can pass in the back”. That is what the government talks about when it allows the gun registry to cost a billion dollars. Like the Prime Minister said, “What is a billion dollars? It is loose change”. Let us ask our seniors. It is not loose change. It is hard earned money for people who have to make ends meet.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say to the parliamentary secretary that he took quite a long time to get his government's propaganda out and that it was very good propaganda. I can argue each and every point of his propaganda, the good times and the good things that the government is talking about. We can counter argue and ask how many times he has increased the budget. The spending has increased, with a 22% increase in program spending. The member will not talk about all these things.

He talks about tax cuts. What tax cuts? Ask Canadians. He is the one who has refused to bring down EI premiums. His government enriches itself on the backs on Canadian workers. There is the Canada pension plan. It is his government that increased the Canada pension plan too.

What the hon. member did not mention is the fact that I alluded to in my speech. If his members continue putting a strain on our relationship with our largest trading partner, then his budget will have no wealth. The government will not be able to implement anything that it has stated because it will be facing a major crisis.

It is time that his Prime Minister and his people who are opening up their mouths see that it is not right for somebody else to jeopardize our prosperity. Otherwise he will have nothing to brag about in what the government is trying to do right now.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak on the budget bill. However, before I speak on the topic of the budget I would like to talk about something which is extremely important that happened yesterday and I would like to bring it to the attention of the House, to the Canadian public, and to the Solicitor General.

Yesterday evening I was in a grocery store shopping. As I was walking down the aisle a gentleman walked by. That is incorrect. He was not a gentleman. He walked by and said to me, “Muhammad, you bloody” something. He walked away mumbling these words. For a second I was stunned and shocked. I turned around and walked over to him and said, “Exactly what did you say. Did you abuse me? Did you use racist remarks?” He was a little stunned that I had stopped him and wanted to talk to him. I told him that this kind of behaviour was not acceptable. He then tried to say that he did not say it, but the next words that came out of his mouth were “September 11”. I asked him what he was trying to say.

In light of the fact that there is war going on in Iraq, the fact that there is tension among communities, and that there are those who are against something, this should be totally unacceptable.

I want to say to people of visible minorities and others who are targets of these kinds of racist remarks to challenge the people who make these racist remarks, ask them to repeat it, and tell them that there are hate crime laws in this country that will hold them accountable. We should not tolerate this kind of comment or insult against the dignity of Canadians. Every Canadian, irrespective of race, religion or creed, has the right to walk down the street with dignity and respect. We should tell these people who make these comments, especially now, that in Canada this is unacceptable. I hope and I am sure every member of the House will send that message out that it is unacceptable.

I will now go back to my speech on the budget. The finance minister talked about the prosperity of Canada, and how that would lead Canada down the road. If I recall correctly the Minister of Finance talked about how great the budget was and that it would put Canada on the road to prosperity.

My colleague from the other side who spoke about five or ten minutes ago talked about the strain in the relationship that is now being experienced between our country and our greatest trading partner. He was trying to blame this side of the House but because his riding is next to the U.S.A. he could feel the pressure coming on.

This strain is a cause of concern, as he rightly mentioned, although putting the blame on this side of the House is something that only somebody who has his head in the sand could think about. I do not understand why he could not make that speech to his own members of Parliament to refrain from doing that.

Business leaders and other political leaders across the country are now sounding the alarm. Fine. I buy the argument that there are those who will support the war and there are those who may be opposed to the war. That is acceptable; that is democracy. It is everybody's right to make a judgment with their conscience.

It is absolutely wrong to abuse somebody for that, to call someone names, to get down to the level of personal insults. This is not an argument. A person loses an argument when he or she makes personal insults. If someone has an argument to make against a cause, then that person should stand up and make it, but when it gets to the abuse level, the person has lost the argument.

If someone wants somebody else to respect his or her argument, then he or she should learn to respect other people's arguments. There may be dissent over it. It could be a different argument, but an individual must learn to respect other people's arguments if he or she wants people to listen to his or her arguments. As far as I am concerned, certain members of the governing party have lost their marbles.

Today two witnesses appeared before the foreign affairs committee. One gentleman was from Carleton University and the other was from IRDC. The committee is dealing with a review of foreign affairs as requested by the foreign affairs minister. Both gentlemen outlined the danger of what is happening in our relationship with our greatest trading partner, which in turn will have financial consequences for Canada.

The budget presented by the finance minister should be chucked out the window because it has no relevance. What he projected will not happen. Over 40% of our economy is tied to overseas trade, out of which over 80% is tied to one country. This decision was not made by the government but was made by Canadian business people about where they are going to trade. They made the decision to trade with the U.S.A.

With those numbers, external factors play a major role whether we like it or not. Our economy is tied to the U.S.A. Over 40% of our GDP is in exports. Naturally outside influence has a major impact on our living standards. This is something that members on that side need to understand. They need to understand that if they strain this kind of relationship it will come back to haunt us on the level of prosperity.

The have provinces of Alberta and Ontario are already raising flags. It is not an issue of being for or against the war. It is an issue of whether we are insulting them because we are not with them. Could we not give them a hand? That is the issue and the government has failed.

I do not know what those members are afraid of considering that the Prime Minister has been in politics for 40 years and considering that our trade has been tied to that country for a long period of time. He should have known because he has had so many cabinet positions. It is all right to stand up and say that we are independent. That is good because we are independent. That is what this House is for. That is why we are standing and talking here. By having a close and good relationship with our friends does not mean that we cannot be independent.

Every time we talk about an issue with our friends in the U.S.A. or other allies, we bring up the issue of our sovereignty. The United Kingdom is sovereign, as is Spain. Why does it have to be here in Canada that we lose our trade relations? Britain does not have a strong trade relationship with the U.S. and neither does Spain. We have to make a judgment of strategic interest to Canada.

The budget that was presented is now irrelevant. There are going to be strains and the budget will go out the window. It may be a good budget according to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, but I can tell him that with the events taking place elsewhere, it will go out the window. It is just a good budget that will remain on paper and there is a debate about whether it is a good budget. We do not agree, but it is going to remain on the paper. There are serious flaws that do not address the issues.

Of course the Liberal member on the other side is now saying that the Americans are great people, that the Americans will understand our childish actions and they will forgive us. It is not a question of forgiving anyone. Canada has to look at its own strategic interests.

We go out and trade. We have team Canada. The Prime Minister trots around the world with the 10 premiers trying to sell Canadian goods. We know our prosperity is tied with exports at over 40% of the GDP. It is quite an impressive figure. We need that. Money was spent on social services, on health care of which we are very proud in this country and rightly so, because our defence expenditures are very low. We rely on somebody else for our defence needs.

It is important that we look at our strategic interests, act accordingly. It is important that we do not act with emotions, do not pound our chests saying that we are sovereign and that we want to make a point, and in the process create a situation for which we will pay for many, many years.

I hope the Prime Minister does not leave a legacy for which Canadians will pay for generations in higher taxes, higher unemployment and a lower standard of living. I hope that is not the legacy of the Prime Minister because of events that are taking place outside the country. I do not even know why, because of a dictator who has never given democratic rights to his own people, we are jeopardizing our own future. It is beyond my understanding.

The government announced yesterday $100 million in aid to Iraq. We need to provide aid to Iraq. It is important that we provide aid to Iraq because the people of Iraq, as we have seen on television, are paying a heavy price. The country is being bombed. Innocent people are dying. Coalition soldiers are dying and Iraqi soldiers are dying because of a dictator. A unanimous decision was passed by the Security Council that he had to be brought into compliance with the request for disarmament, which he did not.

Naturally the $100 million which the Government of Canada has contributed to Iraq is extremely welcome. Our only concern, which we have expressed, is how effective it is going to be. We do not have our own presence there so we are relying on others to provide aid. How effective is that going to be? We have given money for this but we are not there. It is like giving it at a distance.

In the budget the Prime Minister has committed for the next 10 years an 8% increase in foreign aid. This will increase the foreign aid budget to close to $4.6 billion by 2010. Again, the irony of the situation is that he is not going to be in power. I do not know how it can be said that foreign aid is going to be increased until 2010 when the Prime Minister is about to leave. By February of next year he will no longer be the Prime Minister of Canada, so how that will work is beyond understanding. In talking to some of my Liberal colleagues, they expect it to carry on through pressure. The numbers that have been given are not going to tie the government down but they are hanging out there to make Canadians feel good that they are doing something.

Let us talk about doing something. Let us talk about real effective dollars that are being spent now. Let us talk about what CIDA's budget is now. Forget about 10 years down the road.

CIDA needs to re-prioritize its expenditures. Yesterday, the human rights subcommittee listened to the ambassador from Zimbabwe and talked about the dictator living in that country who has no regard for his own citizens. An extremely bleak picture presented by our ambassador on Zimbabwe. Yet sitting on the other side were CIDA officials talking about giving aid.

I understand it is not the people of Zimbabwe who are responsible for what their leader is doing. There are NGOs over there. We need to send to send a message. I am calling for CIDA officials to get out of Zimbabwe and to not give any legitimacy to that government. It is time to leave. The NGOs will carry on with human assistance. A strong message needs to be sent.

Today we are at war with Iraq because we need to send a strong message to a dictator. That is the reason we went over there. So why are we stepping back and saying that we will not send a strong message to the dictator in Zimbabwe? I am not saying we are going to invade the country. I am not saying we have to attack him. We have to tell him that he will get no legitimacy by our presence there. We need to remove our officials.

Will that stop humanitarian assistance? No. Sometimes we need to give responsibility to the other side. We seem not to do that. What we seem to do is say that we will take their travel rights away. Who cares? If we take travel rights away from this Mugabe fellow, it is not a big deal. The next minute, we see a big picture in the Globe and Mail showing the guy in France, with the president of France giving him a red carpet welcome. Imagine that. What travel did we stop? What kind of games are we playing with the poor people over there?

In wrapping up my debate, this is a budget only on paper. Events have taken it. I hope the government will realize the damage it is doing. Pretty soon the government may have to present a new budget, but hopefully by that time the Prime Minister will be gone.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I have never heard a speech like the member on the other side has made, trying to defend what his government has been doing since the war started. When we talk about spinning, this is the best spinning that I have ever heard in my life. The member is trying to put what his colleagues have said on to this side of the House. That is typical Liberal, speaking from both sides of the mouth.

It was the hon. member's colleagues who were speaking anti-Americanism, not the members on this side. It started with the press secretary of the Prime Minister and went right down to the PMO people, who were putting down a legitimate voice on Canada: that of the Premier of Alberta, Ralph Klein. They said nothing about the Minister of Natural Resources. Yet they talk about the Premier of Alberta and put him down.

Let us tell the people on the other side that if they think they have freedom of speech, so do the Premier of Alberta and other Canadians who will stand up to what these people are talking about. For Christ's sake, the hon. member should not blame members on the this side when his government is responsible for the strain on the relationship between America and Canada.

Why does he not feel that the Premier of Alberta can speak and other Canadians can speak? Why does he not keep the blame on his side of the House?

[Budget, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak in this debate on the budget.

There has been a substantial increase in foreign aid contributions contained in this budget. As the senior critic for the Canadian Alliance on international co-operation and foreign aid, I feel it is necessary to lay out our point of view on those increases and where we will go with them.

Before I start, I would like to make it very clear where the Canadian Alliance stands in regard to foreign aid and international co-operation. My good friends in the NDP and many members on the Liberal side have their heads in the sand. They stand up and scream wolf whenever the Alliance talks about international development. I want them to listen very carefully to what the Canadian Alliance policy is on international co-operation.

We believe international development assistance is an important part of Canada's contribution to the world community to alleviate poverty and disease, to promote education and good governance and to assist in economic development. That is the Canadian Alliance policy. However we believe in effective delivery of foreign aid.

As I have said many times in this chamber, I grew up in Tanzania in Africa. That country was a recipient of foreign aid. At that time there were good intentions from all sides, including Canada. Huge amounts of money have been poured into that country and into other countries in Africa as well as other countries in Asia and Latin America. After 25 years of such outpouring of aid, we now stand again on the threshold looking for ways to alleviate poverty. Why?

The new minister responsible for CIDA has a new document out. She will be in front of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade on Thursday to talk about this new document. Interestingly, this document talks about delivering effective aid.

The government has been in power since 1993 and 10 years later it produces a document dealing with the delivery of effective aid. What has it been doing for the last nine years? It has been consulting. CIDA is a huge bureaucracy with expertise in that so-called department, yet after 10 years of this government's ruling, it now comes up with this document to deliver effective aid.

I have been in the position of senior critic for international co-operation for only one and a half years. In that little time I have produced a document which talks about restructuring CIDA and utilizing effective dollars. What is wrong? Why did it take so long for the government, with all of its bureaucrats, to come up with that document? When I looked at the document, it contained the same recommendations which I talked about, yet it took the government 10 years to get to this.

This department has close to $2 billion of taxpayer money to spend. Where has the department been spending this money?

This came as a surprise to me as the critic for international co-operation. I travel many times. There seems to be a culture of secrecy in CIDA. When I met the president of CIDA, Len Good, he did not even know that I was the critic for international co-operation. He does not care about a counterpart.

I visited India. I visited Morocco as recently as January. I talked to CIDA officials over there. The moment they find out that I am an opposition critic for CIDA, it is boom, gone, and they do not want to talk to me. They do not want to tell me what they are doing. They are afraid of something. Afraid of what? These are taxpayers' dollars. Why is there a culture of secrecy in this department called CIDA? They should be out there proudly flying the Canadian flag and saying Canadians are compassionate and would like to help. It is no wonder that where I go, and I find it interesting, there is criticism based on CIDA, whether it is the NGOs, which also have excellent expertise, can very well deliver, can become good partners and on many occasions are good partners. There is expertise there. There is expertise in Canada to give effective aid dollars.

In my point of view, this cultural secrecy in CIDA needs to stop in order for them to do effective delivery. We can do very well with small dollars, but effectively, rather than pouring in dollar after dollar and throwing in money without knowing where we are going and what our idea is. Just flying the Canadian flag out there is not going to solve the problem.

Now the Prime Minister has committed Canada until the year 2010, when he is no longer going to be in power, not after next year, to an annual increase of 8%, which will take the foreign aid budget to $4.6 billion by the year 2010. Imagine, Mr. Speaker, that you want to increase this to $4.6 billion and you are not even in power. How does that work? Of course it is a racket. Sure, the Prime Minister stood up in the G-8 conference and said that we need to help Africa. Of course we need to help Africa when we see the devastation there because of AIDS and by a collapse of infrastructure and the education system. Yes, we do, but we really need to take a step back and see what we are doing.

We continue giving aid to countries that I would say are on the threshold of joining the developed nations of the world. I mean India and China. They are on the threshold of becoming developed nations of the world. Proudly the Indian prime minister says that by the year 2020 India will become a developed nation. I hope it happens. I wish it the best of luck. It should go ahead and do that, but let us see where we, as Canada, are going to use our effective dollars, our taxpayers' dollars. We need to use them effectively, so can we not re-prioritize?

I see that CIDA is now talking about it giving money to eight or nine African countries and one Asian country, narrowing down its focus. Yes, I have no dispute with that kind of thinking, because now we are focusing and strategizing where we are going to put our money. That should have been the focus.

Nevertheless, over the whole situation, with that money CIDA is still looking after geographical interests. It is not narrowing down its focus. It has identified these countries but, nevertheless, the minister has stated time after time that she is going to give money to China and India because there are poor people living there and the commitment of the Prime Minister is to alleviate poverty.

Excuse me, but somebody else also has the responsibility. The governments of those nations have the responsibility. Since when did we start taking responsibility away from them? The Government of China has the responsibility. Instead of sending a person into space, it has the responsibility to look after its poor. Since when did that happen?

I see, Mr. Speaker, that my time is up. Of course this is a subject that is very passionate. Canadians love it. Canadians want to help out. We would like to see the effective use of Canadian taxpayers' dollars.

[Petitions, February 28th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition signed by 142 people from Calgary East. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or other activities involving pedophilia are outlawed in Canada.

[Justice, February 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have reintroduced my private member's Bill C-393 now for the third time.

This private member's bill would amend the Criminal Code by providing for the imposition of a minimum mandatory period of imprisonment of two years upon a second or subsequent conviction for the offence of breaking and entering where the offence was committed in relation to a dwelling house.

A break and enter offence is much more than a property offence. It is a crime against the person. It is a crime that violates a person's home, often the only refuge of private ownership and privacy left for Canadians to enjoy. It also has the potential to be a violent crime because every break and enter is potentially a home invasion.

The Liberals have been making this bill non-votable despite Canada-wide support from police organizations. For a change, can the Liberals listen to Canadians and do something about the break and enter problem?