Derek Lee

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I too thought it started off as a pretty good speech until I realized I had heard it before as well. I realize that we all have to rely on good solid researchers. Even I have to rely on researchers here.

The hon. member referred to the growth in program spending. There might be a reason why there might be a blip in the increase in program spending. I will ask him to confirm whether or not he agrees with this or not.

After the Liberal government of 1993 had to face program review and get rid of that $42 billion deficit and the $580 billion debt, there was a huge cut in program spending. I remember the average in 1995 and the cut across the board average was 15%, and that was huge.

All of us in this House had to carry that on our backs at that time. Canadians realized they had to do some belt tightening and they did it. We went through that period. After that there had to be some increases.

The member has criticized the increase in program spending. However, Canada's program spending as a ratio of GDP is away below the G-8 average and was the third lowest in the G-8. According to the OECD this will continue in both 2005 and 2006. Why is he complaining about the growth in program spending? We are almost the leader of the pack.

[An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to make Certain Payments, June 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, this is so political and some time soon we are going to get a chance to vote on this, but I want to ask the hon. member a question for clarification.

We are talking tonight about $4.6 billion. That is really over a two year period, not one year, so if we are talking about a one year budget it is $2.3 billion. That involves about $800 million for affordable housing, $750 for education, $500 million for the environment, and $250 million for foreign aid. That works out to roughly 1% of the $180 billion the government spends every year. I do not think it is irresponsible at all.

We are going to be dealing with some of this spending in the future supply votes next December, next June, and in the December that follows from that. It is not irresponsible. The OECD and the International Monetary Fund are saying that Canada is the only G-7 country that is going to remain in surplus in 2005 and 2006, precisely the periods that this budget is covering.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I know why the opposition wishes to convert the issue of the expiry of Mr. Reid's appointment to other political issues, but the hon. member in his remarks referred to the applications being made to Mr. Reid. In fact, applications for access to information are made under the existing statute to the departments involved. All of the departments have bureaucracies created and managed to provide the information that is requested under the terms of the act. All of that is going on. It is not like we are reinventing access to information here.

The hon. member has personalized this, in the sense that Mr. Reid has become the focus of the whole access to information exercise. I would like to ask him to consider whether or not we should be distinguishing between the person and the office.

Mr. Reid's appointment is expiring. It was a seven year appointment. It was intended to be a lengthy appointment. That is what the statute provides for, to give sufficient time for the appointee to get into the office, to bring about good management, and to work through more than one Parliament. That is what Mr. Reid has done in an exemplary fashion.

For some reason the opposition wants to extend it for a year. The opposition has not really explained why it would want to extend an appointment for just one year. A reappointment might be rational, but extending it for one year might not. It is not clear to me, so I would ask the hon. member to focus on the issue here of extension.

The hon. member also referred to extending a contract. This is not a contract. This is a seven year appointment by the government for Parliament. It is not a simple contract that can be extended. Could I ask the hon. member to address those two issues?

[Fisheries, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House debated Bill C-52, a bill to correct legal defects in the enforcement provisions for the regulation and management of the Ontario fishery and brought to the attention of the House by the Standing Joint Committee for Scrutiny of Regulations.

It now appears that the Conservative opposition is refusing to allow quick passage of this one line bill in a situation where orderly management of the Ontario fishery could be put at risk.

Could the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans advise the House of his position and that of the Ontario government on this situation?

[Delegated Legislation, June 8th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Scarborough Southwest for his remarks. I agree with all that he has said. I want to point out that he has served on the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations for an uninterrupted 16 years. I do not know whether that is a record, but I challenge anyone to improve on it. It is certainly worth a medal.

In any event, today's matter is serious. The standing joint committee has done its work. It has found a regulation to be ultra vires, essentially illegal, and it did so for good reasons, as explained earlier. Simply stated, this House, Parliament, cannot let the public service create offences unless they have authority from Parliament to do so. Our citizens would not allow us to do this and would not want us to do this. This is the situation that has existed for historic reasons.

The fishery in Ontario and in other parts of Canada has relied on this infrastructure of enforcement, which, in the view of our committee, is not properly founded. The minister and the ministry have taken steps recently to correct that by passing legislation. In fact, the bill to correct this problem, as before the House now, has only one section in it and all it does is put into statute form what was in regulation, thereby correcting the problem the committee found.

What is not comprehensible to me is why, when the source of the problem is technical but real and the bill put forward by the minister and the ministry to correct it is technical but real, the House would not pass this bill on an expedited basis. It seems as though there are some members in the House who wish to debate the bill in a bit lengthier fashion in a way that would not allow quick passage. The net result of disallowing a regulation, which will happen within 30 days of the debate here today if we do not adopt the minister's motion, and of not getting a correcting bill in, is that the enforcement regime in the Ontario portion of the Canadian fishery would be put in jeopardy.

It is not like there cannot be terms and conditions attached to licences after this, but the enforcement regime, as it exists there now, is based on enforcement of terms and conditions of licences in an offence regime. I do not think that we in this House should be disallowing a regulation if it is going to give rise to that type of public interest problem. Only in extreme circumstances should we do that, where rights and liberties are clearly at risk.

In this case, although I stand firmly behind the report of the committee, as does my friend who spoke prior to me, and as other members of the committee would stand behind the report, we see the public interest reason in this case in referring that report back to the committee. That would have the effect of stopping the disallowance, or postponing it, I suppose, depending on what the committee chooses to do, but it would achieve the public interest objective in causing the government to fix the problem.

The fix is not in the report. The fix is in the statute, Bill C-52, which is before this House. I urge members opposite and those on this side of the House too, who may differ with me, to endorse quick passage of Bill C-52. That would solve the problem for the committee and solve the problem for the House. The government has already committed, prior to this, to undertake a comprehensive review of the Fisheries Act and its infrastructure.

I also endorse the comments of the member for Sackville--Eastern Shore on some of the bells and whistles attached to that public policy issue.

I also want to note the historic nature of the debate today. It is the first time in history that this House has debated the disallowance of a regulation under the terms in the Standing Orders and in the statute. I trust we will deal with it appropriately. I intend to support the motion, but I do not intend to put the file away forever. I am sure the minister will act in good faith to have that bill passed and I encourage members in the House to please consider that option.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the remarks by the member opposite have been helpful. We may not agree on all elements but I do want to recall for him, because he said that he could not remember an agreement or understanding at the committee involving what might happen if the government introduced legislation such as this, and read the words of the member of his own party who was in the chair at the time we discussed it. The chairman said:

We have another...meeting on June 2. Until then, we will keep the communication channel open and watch to see if any legislation is on its way or being introduced....In case we have to withdraw that disallowance report in lieu of the assurance that we will get, then probably we can talk with each other and the House leaders to seek unanimous consent to withdraw, if we can.

The issue, therefore, was clearly discussed and a consensus was reached to consider the withdrawal of the disallowance motion if the legislation was introduced. I am very disappointed that his party is not prepared to support the legislation as introduced. In fact, I suggest an implication of this non-support, even from members of the standing joint committee in that party, is to undermine the disallowance process.

If this position persists, I suppose I and perhaps the other Liberals and who knows, other members of the committee, will have to take a different view of the disallowance matter when it comes forward. That can only impair the future work of the standing joint committee and I very much regret the position taken by members opposite.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the member should be careful about putting words in my mouth. I actually agree with the contents of the letter sent by the committee. In fact, I think the committee was unanimous on this matter.

The committee was also unanimous that if the government introduced a bill such as is before the House now, it was prepared to withdraw, if it could, the disallowance motion currently on the table. The committee acted in a non-partisan way without personal interest in an effort to force the government to achieve the end being sought by this bill.

The member opposite continues to personalize this. It is his prerogative to do so if he wishes. As a member of that committee for a very long time, I can tell the House that the contents of this bill resolve completely the concerns of the committee in relation to the legality of the regulation. If members opposite do not want to see it that way, that is their prerogative.

However, in turning this into a partisan issue, because the committee has never made issues partisan and deals only with legality, he runs the risk of causing the committee to go off course and fail in its future work in scrutinizing the regulations made by the government on behalf of the House.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

I will not apologize for anything because it is a fact.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, I really regret the rhetoric of the member opposite because it is at least in part misleading the House. This bill contains an analogous provision to what was in the regulations.

The government introduced this bill because it was requested by the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations and the member opposite knows it. He does not seem to be able to figure out why the bill is here. The bill is here because the committee requested it, even to the point of putting a disallowance motion on the table, which will be dealt with by the House later this week.

The member's assertion that regulations will not be published or scrutinized is nonsense. Regulations will be scrutinized in precisely the same way that this regulation was scrutinized.

I regret that he has taken this so personally. He might have taken an opportunity to advise the House that he himself was charged under the Fisheries Act. I believe he was charged and I stand corrected if I am wrong. He has a personal grievance and vendetta, and I regard that as a conflict of interest. I think he should have mentioned this to the House. I hope he will address that when he makes his remarks.

[Fisheries Act, June 6th, 2005]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member must misunderstand something. I have not changed my position at all. The regulation as it stood was, in my view, ultra vires. That is the position the committee took and that is the position contained in the report.

The statute put forward by the government is an attempt to rectify the alleged ultra vires status of the regulation, to replace the regulation with a statute. The House is capable of creating statutes and offences. That is what the bill does. The difficulty with the offence being contained in the regulation was that the House as a body never gave sanction to the regulation. The House did not create the offence. The regulation did and the regulation was put in place by bureaucrats, by government officials, and we do not accept that. I have not changed my position at all.

The second point he has raised has to do with whether it is still possible to do enforcement in the fishery. I suppose one has to have two feet in rubber boots on the ground in the fishery to understand this. The enforcement regime, as it evolved, was based on an offence enforcement regime. When the fisherperson made a mistake and went offside, the sanction was a prosecution, not a licence revocation. There has not been developed in the fishery, at least not in Ontario, a licence revocation regime to enforce the conditions. The regime that is there is a prosecution regime where a person is prosecuted for breaching a condition.

The only problem, as has been pointed out, is that the offence allowing the prosecution was created by and contained in a regulation. I, the member opposite and the House are of a view that we cannot let public servants create offences. Offences are created by the House. Prosecution happens outside of here, but we in the House create the offence.

That is why I agree we need the new statutory provision. Over time if the province creates a licence revocation regime, that is fine, it can do that. However, it is not there now and not having it now could create a big problem in the Ontario part of the federal fishery.