Dick Harris

[Supply, December 7th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is my understanding that we are not to refer to members by their names, even when quoting from a document.

[Renewal Of Canadian Federalism, November 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of cheap politics, there is clear evidence that old style Tory-Liberal federalism and politics are alive and well as far as central Canada is concerned.

For instance, the unity minister says the west should sacrifice its own concerns for the good of the country.

I ask the Prime Minister if he would explain why western provinces should yet again sacrifice their concerns and support a unity plan that is aimed solely at appeasing the separatists of Quebec.

[Renewal Of Canadian Federalism, November 29th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

While the Minister of National Revenue from B.C. contends that recognizing Quebec as a distinct society will not amount to very much, conversely the Minister of Natural Resources from Alberta said that distinct society status in Quebec would amount to something very substantial. One wonders whether it is substantial or not.

I ask the Prime Minister to explain how he intends to promote national unity across Canada when he is having such a problem getting unity even within his own cabinet.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, November 27th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the answer of the hon. member.

I want to key in on a phrase which he used and that was the phrase "potential health hazards". Either we have a health hazard with the use of MMT or we do not. Surely, with the science which is available to us to study the effects of a fuel product using MMT, we can determine beyond a shadow of a doubt whether there is or is not a health hazard.

The hon. member said that he has read studies which indicate that MMT is fine and that no conclusion has ever been reached that there are health risks involved with it. On the other hand, the reports and studies which came from the auto industry said that there is a health hazard with MMT and that we must stop this devastating product immediately.

I am surprised that the government is ready to jump to a decision to ban MMT without having a conclusive scientific finding. When there are two reports on the product which are at absolute opposites, I wonder what is behind the government's enthusiasm to jump in and ban MMT. It is all right to say that the sky is going to fall, but that might only be opinion. The sky may never fall.

I believe that the Liberals are playing "Chicken Little" with this bill. The sky is falling and MMT is going to pollute the earth. In

fact, the sky has never fallen and there is no scientific evidence that MMT is a health hazard.

[Manganese Based Fuel Additives Act, November 27th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the hon. member present his case. I want to make a point and ask a question.

The member speaks as if there is absolute, conclusive opinion regarding the detrimental effects of MMT. I listened to the member speak. I believe that he believes that.

The fact is that there are conflicting reports on the effects of MMT. I would like to ask the member if he has read the reports that say that MMT is not the bad additive that the report says. Has the member read both reports? Could he comment on what is his opinion of the report that supports the continued use of MMT and the effectiveness of it as a product that helps the gasoline to burn more clean and effectively? Has he read both reports?

[Department Of Public Works And Government Services, November 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-52, particularly the motions put forward by the hon. member for Québec-Est.

I know what the hon. member is thinking in proposing these amendments. They would allow government contracts to be placed before committees and before members of Parliament. The committees would look at them and either approve or disapprove of them. Quite naturally, this is an unworkable and unrealistic concept. It simply does not work.

We must take into consideration when considering MotionNo. 8 the fact that the government enters into literally thousands of contracts over the course of a year with thousands of individuals and hundreds and hundreds of companies. To suggest that these contracts could be effectively analyzed by the government operations committee is unrealistic. Considering the sheer number of contracts in no time the committee would be simply choked with paperwork. Ultimately this would achieve nothing.

While I do not support the amendment I share the opinions of the member for Québec-Est, particularly those on non-competitive contracts. I share his concern in all contracts laid out by the government. It is a well known fact that Liberal governments past and present and Tory governments past and hopefully not in the future have built their party fortunes on the practice of patronage.

We can look at the who's who of business in the country and find Liberal and Tory friends, big time. We have seen time after time where Canadian companies that are well known supporters of the Liberals or the Tories end up with a multitude of contracts.

One that comes to mind since I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago is in the area of Canada Post, a crown corporation, and SNC-Lavalin. I know it is a little removed from what we are talking about. However SNC-Lavalin is a huge consortium, a huge company, a well known friend of the Liberal Party. In the last three years hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts have been let out by Canada Post. They have been uncompetitive and given with no public tender to SNC-Lavalin.

It does not take a rocket scientist to go through the political contributions over the last 10 or 15 years. Almost on an annual basis SNC-Lavalin and friend companies come up right at the top of the list as contributors to the Liberal Party. We wonder why.

I share the concerns, but to put thousands of contracts before the government operations committee, before members of Parliament, is simply unworkable and unreasonable. Let us talk about whether, if they did go before committee, the matter of committee examination raises larger issues with respect to how committees operate anyway.

The Liberals promised that committees would play a greater role in Parliament and that members would have input into the legislative process by way of their roles on the committees. What a joke.

Let us start with some of the more notable initiatives of the government when it comes to committees. One of the vice-chairs of committees is automatically given by tradition to a member of an opposition party in the House. There are two recognized opposition parties in the House. One is a federalist party that believes in Canada, that loves the country. Its power base in the last election just happened to have been in the western provinces, from Manitoba west. It was a good result for our first time out. We will wait until the next election. We will let the people of Ontario, Quebec, the maritimes and the rest of Canada determine our future.

We are a federalist party. We put forward a member's name from our party to sit as a vice-chair. The separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois, put forward a member. It is a party determined to break up the country. The Liberals had two options. One was a separatist who wants to destroy Canada and the other was a federalist who wants to keep Canada together and make some changes so that it will stay together. Who did the Liberals vote for en masse? They voted for the separatist member. In every vice-chair position the separatist member was supported by the Liberal Party.

The chairman of the public accounts committee is always an opposition member. The Reform Party, a federalist party, put forward the name of the member for St. Albert and the Bloc Quebecois put forward the name of a member of its party for the chairmanship of the committee. One would think the government would want someone in that position who has the interests of the future of Canada at heart. I would think that. Most Canadians would think that, but not the Liberals.

The Liberal whips were there to make sure all their committee members did exactly what they were told. They promptly voted in a member of the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party whose goal is to break up the country, to be chairman of the public accounts committee. What a joke.

We can talk about the effectiveness of committees. Given the fact that government members dominate the committees in number, and they are the government so let us give them that credit, the effectiveness of the committee is nullified. If there was patronage going on, and I am sure there is, it would quite likely continue because the committee members would simply rubber stamp everything their party whips and powers that be told them.

We should look at how effective opposition members have been in committees and the way Liberals have bulldozed bills through committees. We need only look to Bill C-45, Bill C-64, Bill C-89 and Bill C-91 to find that the Liberals had no intention of listening to what the Reform Party or the Bloc party had to say.

When Bill C-64, the employment equity bill, was before the committee the Liberals allowed four witnesses from the Reform list to appear before the committee and debate on each clause was limited to five minutes. We are talking about a major piece of legislation the Liberals wanted to push through the House. What did they do? They sent the whip down to the committee examining

the bill to give Liberal members their instructions and the bill was rammed through.

Motion No. 8 has some merit in so far as the intent of the hon. member for Québec-Est. I agree with his intent but unfortunately it is simply not workable.

Motion No. 9 would cause a list of all government contracts in each constituency to be distributed to the appropriate MP every month. This would incur a tremendous amount of cost. The Reform Party is a fiscally conscious party. It wants to see government operations decreased rather than increased. Although we agree with the intent of the motions we have to oppose them and that we will.

[Bank Act, November 27th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I share the zeal with which the hon. member for Broadview-Greenwood campaigns on behalf of small businesses. I know exactly what he is talking about. I have spent my entire life in small business and I know the problems small businesses have had with banks. Quite often the small business people I talk to feel like third class citizens when they go to these big banks to try to get some financial help.

I agree that it must be demanded of the banks that they get serious about dealing with small business in a substantial manner. As far as I am concerned, one per cent is a bit low. I would like to see it higher.

I believe there is an inherent and traditional conflict of interest when it comes to the relationships that governments, whether they be Tories, Liberals, or whatever, have had with the banks over the last several years. The major contributors to the federal parties, both the Tories and the Liberals, have been these very powerful banking institutions themselves. The banks are the most powerful financial institutions, but they are also probably the most influential institutions as far as political direction.

I hope this government has the guts to stand up to the banks and hold a hammer to their heads and say the way they have done things in the past with the Liberal Party and with the Tory Party does not go any more and that the government wants to see them make a profound effort toward helping small business to thrive and prosper in this country. Until a government is prepared to do that, mean it and stick to it, nothing is going to change in the attitude of banks toward small business. That is the key to all this.

We can talk all day long about legislation, and we are going to put this in and we are going to make this amendment, but the government has to be prepared to back it up. I hope this is the government that does it.

[Members Of Parliament, November 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, in my short period as a member of Parliament this will be the third private member's bill I have had the pleasure to speak to and in favour of. The first two were from the member for York South-Weston and the member for Hamilton-Wentworth.

I am happy to see a motion such as this with the common sense attached to it the Canadian people have been talking about for many years, with government not listening. I am dismayed that common sense motions that reflect the mood of the Canadian people have not been forthcoming from the government and the ministers themselves. They primarily come through private members' motions.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Motion No. 39 today put forward by the member for Scarborough-Rouge River. I understand the intent of the motion. It is a terrific motion. It is long overdue.

The motion seeks to open up judicial and quasi-judicial hearings to members of Parliament. The member is quite right when he talks

about how an MP's daily role now takes on the form in many cases of an ombudsman. We are elected to represent our constituents. The people come to us with many concerns they want us to help them with.

A number of constituents have asked me what is wrong with the system. Why is this person in the country when he has such a terrible criminal record in the country he came from? Does no one know about these things? What goes on in those hearings?

The case the hon. member was involved with, the Malik case, was an example. It was not, as I understand it, criminal activity, but the individual had entered Canada under pretences. I understand he applied for a visitor's visa and the member went to bat for him on it, and then when the person arrived as a visitor he promptly claimed to be a refugee. Without the knowledge of this the refugee board would have no idea about the deceptive method by which the person came to Canada.

I disagree with the member for Bourassa when he said that this person's position could have been prejudiced. Truth never prejudices anything. Truth is always what we as MPs should be looking to see prevails in every case.

In his motion the member refers specifically to such hearings held under the Immigration Act, the Young Offenders Act, and the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. As members know, in our lifetimes we have been absolutely frustrated and bewildered at times by some of the decisions that have come out of these three institutions.

We ask how the parole hearings can possibly release this person into society. We may never know why some of these things happen. We would never know unless somehow we as MPs, as the ombudsmen for our constituents, had some form of access. I am sure the member is not talking about intervener status or advocacy status. I believe that in the bill he is simply talking about automatic observer access to hearings, so that when he as a member of Parliament, a representative of the Canadian people, sees that something is going on that is simply not right, he will be better able to speak about it in the House of Commons and maybe in some legislation to try to correct the wrong that is being done or the interpretation of the rules that is not conducive to what the Canadian people feel.

Certainly the three institutions the member lists are the very three I have had the most trouble with in my lifetime with regard to their decisions. I support the member's bill with regard to these three institutions.

I am aware that particular members of my own party, the Reform Party, have been involved in the process and have experienced first hand some of the barriers that face MPs when they attempt to attend some of these quasi-judicial hearings. I am referring to the members for Fraser Valley West and Calgary Northeast.

The member opposite thinks this is a joking matter. But the fact is in these two instances a refugee had committed some serious crimes in Canada and the immigration people were trying to get this person out of the country. The person went before a hearing and the member for Fraser Valley West was in fact prevented from attending it. The member had personal firsthand knowledge of some of the things that may not have been brought out there. He was not allowed to present them. I understand that; that is proper. But the members of this quasi-judicial committee were not regarding this case in the fullest sense of the circumstances.

This was of great concern to the member for Fraser Valley West, because he had the protection of society as his first thought in mind. There was the very real possibility that if this individual had been granted refugee status he would have been a threat to the public safety of the citizens of British Columbia. He had a lengthy criminal record, including a charge of rape. However, as these MPs found out, the safety and the rights of victims are secondary to the rights of a criminal before a quasi-judicial body.

I know that the member for Scarborough-Rouge River has had personal incidents where he has run up against the same type of situation, where he was barred from attending a hearing. Motion M-39 would seek to change this situation by permitting automatic observer access to these hearings. Based on the member's own experience, I can fully understand the intent of the motion.

There are a couple of things we have to be very clear and very careful about. I am sure the member in his motion does not imply this in any way, but we have to be careful that MPs are not permitted to interfere in any way with the operations and decisions of these hearings as a participant. Nor should an MP be permitted to put pressure on the people who are conducting the hearings.

I suppose the motion-and perhaps the member for Bourassa has taken this opinion-could be interpreted in such a way that an MP would have some sort of official status or presence in the hearing. I do not think that is the intent of the motion. The wording should be examined very carefully: specific measures should be adopted to enable and ensure access for MPs. The word that needs to be clarified is "access". This could be taken to mean a whole range of things. I agree with the hon. member for Scarborough-Rouge River that his meaning of this is very specific and narrow. However, it could be interpreted, as it was by the member for Bourassa, as being perhaps prejudicial to any of these hearings.

Time goes quickly when speaking on a bill of such importance, and so I will close. Although this bill will certainly enable the MPs to do their job as ombudspersons for the people they represent and it will go a long way to helping us, I really believe that ultimately this government will have to take a look at the legislation that covers these institutions and make major reforms to them so that

the Canadian people once again can have some confidence in these quasi-judicial bodies that are supposed to protect our society.

My party and I will support the member's motion. We wish him success in this motion, wherever it may travel from here.

[Criminal Code, November 24th, 1995]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-358, an act to amend the Criminal Code (consecutive sentences).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to introduce my private member's bill. The bill would see consecutive sentences imposed upon those convicted of multiple violent crimes against a person. I believe such an amendment should be supported by all MPs. I know the changes would be welcomed by the millions of Canadians who have lost faith in the operation of our justice system.

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

[National Unity, November 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. I was reflecting the thousands of comments I have heard. If I was out of order in the House, I do withdraw that.