Derek Lee

[Middle East, February 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to make some remarks tonight on the issue which will hopefully reflect the views of Canadians on just what we should be doing now in connection with the Iraq enforcement action.

The backdrop is the Iraq war following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the ceasefire which followed and required the destruction of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. UN inspectors have taken possession of and destroyed a number of such weapons, including 480,000 litres of chemical material that has been referred to along with other weapons in the debate tonight.

I am splitting my time with the member for Mississauga South.

The job following the Iraq war is not complete. Iraq has bucked, obstructed and prevented completion of that task. We now live in a world where we cannot tolerate the existence of such weapons in the hands of those who would threaten the world order. Perhaps I do not need to point out that Iraq has not just developed such weapons but it has used them domestically and threatened to use them internationally.

In the face of these Iraqi threats and the complete absence of trust or confidence in its leadership, the world community is determined to eradicate these weapons. The question is how and what should Canada's role be. We are not in a position to do nothing. We are not only a UN member, we are also members of NATO and of the Commonwealth. We are already part of these alliances. When our UN, our NATO and our Commonwealth partners reach a consensus on an essential common goal, we must stand with them. It is now a given that international enforcement and peacekeeping are a part of our new world order. They are essential to global stability.

Here is my short list of what Canada should be doing which I present on behalf of my constituents. Our government must be in a position to accept or verify the latest intelligence data gathered by the United Nations and the alliance partners. Canada and its alliance partners have invested large amounts in assets that gather intelligence. While most of this data will not be released so as to protect procedures and sources, they will be available to our government members who must make the decisions, and they must assure Canadians that they have done this.

We must reassure ourselves that all United Nations and diplomatic initiatives have come to an end. There may well be some additional poker playing by the Iraqi leadership in the few weeks or days to come. I would personally rather win in a poker game than in a military engagement. Only then should we make a determination to support the alliance in a military engagement. This would be consistent with our Canadian history, over 100 years of Canadian history of participating in alliances of this nature.

As a partner in any such alliance, we must ensure the alliance will operate to secure the United Nations objectives and will not act contrary to the UN rules. We should provide such support to the alliance as is consistent with our ability and what its needs are.

We should continue to assert Canadian ways within the alliance. Only if we are present will we have the ability to assert these Canadian ways. Remember that Canada has developed over a long period of time its own ways of acting internationally. Sometimes we are rather good at it. We must not miss opportunities to influence the way in which the alliance carries out its task in this instance.

This enforcement action must be limited and must be contained almost at all costs. I realize that once one enters into a military engagement one runs the risk of losing control of it. I cannot accept that we would enter into this where there was any material risk of an expansion of the engagement beyond what the partners had agreed to.

I have three more points to make. First, this enforcement action should not be seen as a one-off exercise. There is a message here for all countries that would flaunt the evolving modern rules of international order. All this is important to our collective global future.

Second, the targets of any enforcement action must be military. In an action like this we anticipate that there may be some military engagement on the ground and special operations to secure the goals of the action. However, it is my view that Canadians will not accept but will in fact reject any alliance operation which puts civilians at risk.

Third, it will be very difficult to replace the leadership in Iraq without leaving a power vacuum. In my view, a power vacuum in that region is almost as dangerous to the world order as the current circumstance.

Where would we be if we all did nothing? Would we simply wait meekly for the sucker punch that would inevitably come, with the attendant violence and instability? I do not think we want to wait meekly. I think we want to act internationally.

I do not believe that we can do nothing. We must act responsibly as Canadians in the way we have done in the past. We are now called to act to protect the international order with our partners. On the terms which I have outlined tonight, I believe that Canadians will be prepared to do that. I do not believe they have much choice.

[Privilege, February 3rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am generally supportive of the remarks of my friend from Winnipeg—Transcona. However, I would not agree that the same rules apply to parliamentarians in this place as apply to judges.

I do not think there is a reciprocal rule at all. I think we in this House are very free to comment on matters in front of the bench as we see fit. We in this House have a historic immunity that is there for the people of this country. It is there for a reason. It may be correct that judges are restricted. I will get into that in just a moment, but I do not agree we in the House are.

In terms of the matter at hand, I suggest there are at least two perspectives on this event on the remarks of the judge. The first one is that the judge, in making his remarks, appears to have embraced the role or mantle of a citizen and felt that it was in order for him to pass comment.

Any citizen in this country is free to pass comment in words such as those used by the judge outside the courtroom on this House. We are a nation that embraces our freedom. Comments about how we do our business in this place are most appropriate. We love to hear it. Keep those cards and letters coming.

That is one perspective. The judge apparently, in my view, respectfully forgot that he was on the bench. As a judge, he is not free to meddle in the politics of this place. As I understand it, he is not free to meddle in any of the politics of the nation. He is there to do a job on the bench interpreting the law and fact.

Others in here may stand corrected if the facts turn out to be other than those reported. That meddling is worthy of rebuke and I regret the apparently profound ignorance that judge has of the purpose of this place and the role we fill as members of Parliament.

That ignorance is reflected only in his remarks made perhaps by the seat of the pants while on the bench, I do not know. However, those limited back of the envelope comments were a disappointment to me and certainly worthy of note on the record in the House here.

In terms of how the House should respond, I realize this is a matter of privilege. I realize before anything can go further we have an obligation here to put in place a prima facie case that a privilege of the House has been breached, in this case an alleged contempt.

I regret this House would have to take the step of finding a prima facie contempt on the part of a judge. If that were to be the case, I am sure the judge would perhaps want to have looked back and done it differently.

As an alternative to placing on Mr. Speaker the burden of finding there was perhaps a contempt, perhaps it would be appropriate—I offer this to colleagues in the House in the hope that it may be viable—to unanimously agree that the issue is one that has been brought to the attention of the House, is of concern to members of the House, and we would ask the Clerk to refer the matter to the Canadian Judicial Council for comment, if any.

Should the matter be responded to by the council, that the Clerk make the House aware through Mr. Speaker and, if so advised after that, the House deal with the matter, if it is a matter of contempt or otherwise as you may give us your advice on.

I offer as an alternative to invite through the Canadian Judicial Council the judge in question to clarify. If it is not to be viewed as a matter of contempt, we will at least have taken note of it and moved on to other important issues.

[Petitions, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition signed by over 2,300 individuals from all across Canada. The petition organizers, representatives from food banks and national anti-hunger groups, are here with us in the gallery today. The petitioners point to Canada's commitment under the United Nations covenant on economic, social and cultural rights to maintain a decent standard of living for Canadians while poverty and hunger for too many have become a fact of everyday life in Canada.

The petitioners therefore call on Parliament to restore national standards for social assistance, to ensure that such standards are maintained through adequate funding to the provinces and to provide leadership in eradicating poverty and hunger in Canada.

[Privilege, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a few comments on this question of privilege. I do regard it as a serious matter. I understand the Speaker is considering this matter. In his consideration I hope it will not be simply regarded as a matter of order in the House.

What appears to have occurred yesterday was a series of acts and words that I believe amounted to intimidation of a member while the member spoke. From my point of view and respectfully on the Richter scale that is quite a bit higher than a matter of simple order. It affects the right of free speech for all of us in this House. What occurred yesterday may have crossed the threshold into the impairing of free speech. If the member who had the floor at the time perceived intimidation—I had an opportunity to review his words and he did use the word intimidation—and if there was intimidation, then it was perceived as such. Setting aside completely any reference to the Criminal Code definitions, we have in this House a standard of conduct which we must uphold ourselves.

I refer the Speaker to an incident that occurred in the 34th Parliament in which a member impaired the movement of the Sergeant at Arms who was carrying the Mace. The member was asked to account for that at the Bar. Depending on how the Chair deals with this case, I would like the Chair to consider that as an option to deal with this issue once and for all so we do not have any repeated incidents of this kind.

[Housing, December 5th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, one of the areas in which Canadians have world acknowledged expertise is energy efficient housing. With the international community gathered in Kyoto to develop an international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, mostly caused by wasted energy, what is the government doing to increase the export of Canadian housing technology to world markets?

[Violence Against Women, November 25th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, some 51% of all Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual assault by age 16. November 25, the international day to end violence against women, has been set aside as a reminder that senseless acts of violence are committed every day against women in every corner of the world. And Canada is no exception.

This day helps to raise public awareness of the damaging consequences of violence against women and girls. Too many women have had their lives and their spirits broken by such violence and attempts to control them. In Canada the annual cost of sexual assault, psychological and physical abuse is estimated at between $1.5 billion and $4.2 billion.

We all have a collective responsibility to ensure that women and girls are not subjected to violence because of their gender.

This is a call to action. It is a rallying cry to Canadians to work together to bring an end to these crimes against women.

[Committees Of The House, November 4th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Joint Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a good question. Obviously members at the committee stage will have to make sure the design and procedure work. The committee and the stakeholders will be consulting with the police community. Whether we are talking about telephone authorizations or telewarrants or whatever, we have to make sure when the bill leaves committee and comes back to the House we have a procedure or a mechanism that works and addresses the hon. member's question.

I am ready to go to work on it and I hope he is too.

[Criminal Code, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, the record is fairly complete here today in describing the background of the legislation. I want to acknowledge the anticipated co-operation of colleagues on all sides of the House to dispose of the issue today and allow the matter to go to a committee where it can be treated with a bit more introspection.

However, I do want to address a particular issue. As a bit of a preamble, lot of MPs are curious about why from time to time we in the House have to revisit legislative areas because of decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. It should not be a surprise. Since the charter was adopted as part of our Constitution we have had to adapt some of our laws to the guidance and interpretation of that court. It was inevitable that some of this was going to happen.

As one legislator, I wish that when the court deals with these things it would assess the impact of its decisions on criminal procedures on Canadian life. In this case, I gather it did not want to make the decision and then the government lawyers had to go back and ask for a stay of six months. We are now at the end of that six month window and we are attempting to correct that area of law.

I regret that the paradigms within which we must work to do this are set by the courts. I would rather we go back to square one and design a procedure that we all believed was appropriate and in compliance with the charter and fair to Canadians. We will probably have a chance to address some of those issues at the committee stage.

In the interests of brevity, I will get to the issue I want to discuss. As a result of this decision there is a gaping hole in the criminal procedure which applies to police entering private dwelling homes for the purpose of arresting someone or securing evidence.

Prior to this decision, before entering a dwelling home without a warrant for the purpose of executing an arrest peace officers had to have reasonable grounds to believe they could arrest someone in the home, someone they had the right to arrest. The person must have been guilty or believed to be guilty of an indictable offence.

In addition to the reasonable grounds peace officers would have to announce their entry: something equivalent to a knock on the door and a statement as to whom they were, followed by the entry. That was the way it was for almost 100 years based on what is called the Landry test. It seems to have worked relatively well.

I am wondering if the following scenario is proper. Let us say an individual is suspected of either a rape or a bank robbery. Three weeks later the victim spots the perpetrator. The person does not know his or her name but the perpetrator is spotted. The victim then goes to the police and says “I have seen the person who raped me” or “I have seen the person who robbed the bank”.

The police officer under the old rules would have said “Let's go and get him” and if he is in a dwelling house he would have made entry. In this case the peace officer has to obtain a warrant if the accused happens to be in a dwelling house even if it is not his own dwelling house.

The only difficulty is the warrant procedure we have just designed in the bill requires that the accused be identified by name. In my scenario we do not have a name. We have an identification. We know he is there but we do not know his name. Therefore we cannot get a warrant with the bill and the peace officer cannot go into the house. In theory the accused can sit there for 30 years while we figure out how we can get into the house.

It may be a problem with the legislation. We will have a chance to address it in due course. I am sure colleagues will co-operate as we address it. I will leave my further remarks on the legislation for committee stage.

[Justice, October 31st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice.

Why is it that our courts do not accept the devastating and traumatic impact of sexual assault and rape on the lives of young victims?

Our Ontario community is outraged that such crimes can be treated so leniently, as in the sentence in the recent Stuckless case where he received two years for multiple child assaults.

How can such lightweight sentencing possibly protect our young and provide deterrence and how will the Minister of Justice fix this shortcoming in our sentencing system?