Dick Harris

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member for Halifax who mentioned quite truthfully that there was not a vast number of lawyers in the House and that there was not a vast number of intellectuals. I agree with her. The problem is that we have a vast number of Liberals in the House. That is where the problems come from.

The hon. member spoke about the benefits of establishing the law commission. Let us go back and look at the history of the law reform commission holding hands with the Liberal government. For example, the law commission came into being in 1971. Lo and behold in 1976, and I assume at the suggestion, advice and direction of the law commission which is there to represent the will and the opinions of the people, we find section 745 of the Criminal Code was amended in the House to eliminate capital punishment in Canada, to provide for the eligibility of first degree murderers given a life sentence of 25 years to apply for early parole after 15 years. These provisions were brought forward by the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce who was a Liberal and still is a Liberal, working hand in hand with the Liberal appointed law commission.

Poll after poll has shown when polls are taken in an honest fashion of average Canadians, something that the Liberal government does not relate to, that they would support capital punishment and always have. Poll after poll has shown that Canadians are disgusted with the fact that violent murderers given life sentences can apply for early parole and in most cases get it after 15 years. Poll after poll has shown that the people of Canada do not appreciate these parts of the law.

How can the member for Halifax stand and say that the law reform commission, holding hands with the Liberal government, is reflecting the will of the Canadian people? I should like to ask her some specific questions.

These are some of the things Canadians have told us are wrong with the justice system, some of the things that would have been fixed if the law reform commission had been an effective body that listened to the will of the people.

First is the delay in implementing the use of DNA testing, which at the insistence of our party the government finally got around to. Had the law commission prior to being disbanded in 1992, and maybe it did, recommended to the government of the day that DNA testing be brought in, perhaps we would not have had to wait so long and perhaps some of the murderers who have gone free because we did not have access to this way of gathering evidence would be behind bars right now.

If the law commission was so effective, how come it took us until 1995 to deal with the drunken defence used in the courts? Why did it take us that long if the law commission was so good?

I talked about parole eligibility. If the law reform commission was so good, why has it not closed the loopholes in parole eligibility? What about violent criminals being let out of prison early? If the law reform commission was so good, why do we have violent criminals walking the streets because some parole board has screwed up its decisions? Who is charged with fixing those mistakes?

Let us talk about what upsets Canadians most of all, the grand idea of condoning plea bargaining in our justice system. Canadians are fed up with seeing people accused of crimes plea bargaining away the more violent sections of the crime in order for the courts to give a lesser sentence and get a sure conviction.

If the law reform commission is so good, why do we have so many things wrong with the criminal justice system? The fact remains that the laws of the country are made by lawyers for lawyers with little regard for the opinions, concerns and wishes of Canadians. If it were not that way we would not have so many problems with the justice system.

Canadians have had enough with law commissions and a Liberal government that treat criminals as if they have special rights. In 1982 the Liberal government brought in a Constitution and in the section on rights granted more rights to people who break the law than to people who keep the law. That is an absolute disgrace and the legislation will not change a thing.

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Reform Party members will do it for nothing.

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question. Clause 6 does say that, but let us examine what accountable through the minister to Parliament really means. In other words, Parliament will have no opportunity to question members of the law commission, only the minister. That is sort of a misleading explanation of accountability.

We all know that unfortunately the Liberal Party has a majority in this House. Quite frankly, on very few occasions do I see the Liberal Party or any of the ministers really paying any attention to what the opposition members say. Every amendment that we ever put through to the Minister of Justice has been defeated by the government. This indicates that the Liberals have a clear agenda that they are going to follow regardless of what arguments the opposition members bring up in the House.

The idea of the law commission being accountable to Parliament through the minister really is just a smoke and mirrors thing. The only way that could work would be if we had a minority govern-

ment, where the government did not have an absolute majority in the House.

If our party put amendments or recommendations for the criminal justice system to the law commission, if the minister did not want it to happen it simply would not happen because of the majority in this House. Although I appreciate the structure of the words in clause 6, I believe they are totally unworkable as far as accountability is concerned.

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order I want to make it clear that I do not support Bill C-106.

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is no wonder that I stumble on my words. The word confusion comes up right now because I am so confused about the motives of this bill. The minister is not telling the people what he is planning on doing.

I am confused about how this bill has come into the House to be debated and will come to a vote when we found an announcement that the minister is going to create this law commission. What does this debate count for? Anything? Is this a waste of time? Surely the government must have some other business to put forward.

We are going to waste time debating something that is already a done deal. If this deal is already a done deal as we saw by the announcement the other day, that means I have wasted my time in the House. The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra has wasted his time in this House. The member for Calgary North has wasted her time in this House. The Bloc member who spoke on this has wasted her time. Could we not be doing something more constructive than debating a bill that apparently already is a done deal?

I join with my Reform colleagues and the hon. members from the Bloc in opposing this bill in the strongest possible terms. It is inconsequential. It will not achieve any realistic reform to the criminal justice system. It cannot in the form it is proposed.

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, could this possibly be part of the new Liberal job creation program? I thank my hon. colleague for bringing that to mind.

The commissioners' work can in fact be done in the private sector. I would like to suggest that more average Canadians be involved when it comes to making reforms in the justice system. The hon. member for Calgary North offered the services of the Reform Party of Canada free of charge to the government. We would not charge $3 million; we would work for nothing on this.

If the Reform Party were part of this commission for nothing, at no charge, it would be possible to have a truly independent body at no cost to the government and no cost to the taxpayers. We would pick 24 Reformers out of here and we would form the commission at no charge. We would give input to the Minister of Justice which truly represented the views of the Canadian people, not the views which come from his friends in Toronto. They would be views that were representative of the Canadian people all across the country.

There have certainly been enough questions raised lately about just how Canada's criminal justice system is supposed to work. There have been many instances. There are cases out in B.C. recently where a band of militant natives held the RCMP at bay for a number of days. The people in B.C. were saying: "My God, what is going on when people can draw arms against our country and hold a whole province and the national police force at ransom with seeming impugnity?" We saw the same thing at Ipperwash.

We see serious criminals who have committed violent acts being let out on parole and day passes and for what reason? For reasons that just boggle the mind of the average Canadian, only to have criminals go out and kill, rape and maim again.

These are the concerns on the minds of the Canadian people, not some airy-fairy ideas that come from the minister's friends in Toronto. These concerns come from average Canadians. These concerns are not going to be addressed by the people he appoints to the law commission. They will be there only to do his bidding and not the bidding of the Canadian people.

Mr. Speaker, you can probably imagine that I do not support this bill either. In confusion, in conclusion-

[Law Commission Of Canada, October 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-106 today. I listened to my hon. friend from Vancouver Quadra make his presentation. I have the utmost respect for him. He is a man of much accomplishment in his career. He is certainly an academic and has contributed a lot to his profession and has many accomplishments.

I have one fear, though, as I listen to the hon. member, that the average Canadian is not getting a grasp or is not able to understand exactly what the member is saying. I want to bring this debate away from the level used by hon. member from Vancouver Quadra, a level which, no disrespect intended, was far above the average Canadian.

The hon. member talked about the people who should be involved in this commission. I will use some of his words and reflect on what he said. He said the law commission should be comprised of people in the law profession and people of high intellectual distinction.

Nowhere in his presentation has he indicated in any way that the opinions reflected by the minds of average Canadians should be represented in the commission. That has been the problem with the Minister of Justice's decisions and the government's bills in the two years I have been in the House. Nowhere in the bills introduced has there been any sense of realism between what is in the bill and what is on the mind of the average Canadian.

As parliamentarians we have a profound responsibility first and foremost to represent the concerns and the opinions of average Canadians. This recreation of the law commission is certainly far from that.

The predecessor to the law commission was abolished by the Tories in 1992. The Tory government was never known to be frugal but for some reason it found the commission a luxury it could not afford, which was a surprise considering its record of spending. It had grown as a quite natural progression into a large bureaucracy.

The Tory government in its wisdom decided it could get the same advice from outside sources at a better price. No doubt those outside sources were Tory advisers because the old line parties have a habit of rewarding their friends after they get into government. I have no doubt that this recreation of the law commission is another form of thanking Liberal friends for their participation in helping them get to government. We have seen this over and over again.

The law commission was established in 1971 to review Canadian federal laws and to make recommendations for the improvement or modernization of reforms within the justice system and develop new approaches that would be responsive to the changing needs of Canadian society.

In all honesty we have not seen a lot of evidence that the former law commission responded to the concerns of average Canadians. Its recommendations and work seemed to come out of some academic legal nirvana in which the recommendations were made on behalf of the people of Canada because, in all honesty, as the people formerly of the law commission would probably rightly determine, the Canadian people do not really have the wherewithal to make up their own minds and make reasonable choices about how the justice system in Canada should operate.

At its elimination in 1992, the commission had a budget of about $5 million and a staff of about 30. That was a lot of money. Now the Liberal government wants to revive this law commission. It has set a budget with a benchmark of about $3 million a year. It says the money will come from existing government resources. Anyone who believes that tale I honestly think believes in the tooth fairy; a wilder belief is maybe the Liberal government will some day get its spending under control.

The Liberal government is simply adding another level of bureaucracy to government operations. We have seen over and over again commissions with budget overruns like it is the natural thing to do.

The Canadian people have no reason to believe this commission will not be independent. It will not be accountable to the government except to the wishes of the Minister of Justice.

My hon. friend from Calgary North spoke earlier about this so-called independence. She pointed out very clearly how this commission would operate. There is no doubt the terms of reference for setting up this commission will be at the absolute direction of the Minister of Justice. Despite what the Liberals have said there is no substantive evidence to back up the claim that this will be a truly independent body. We have no reason to believe that. The Canadian people have no reason to believe that.

We have seen how the Minister of Justice operates. We have seen what he does when he wants to give some sort of credence to some of the ludicrous bills he has introduced. He goes out in the field and gathers together some of his political friends who happen to form associations and he gets them to back him up on his decisions.

The Canadian public is not buying that any more. The Minister of Justice now wants to give some extra support to some of the decisions by setting up the law commission. He will then stand in the House and present a bill without any reality of what the Canadian people believe. He is going to present the bill. He will stand up and say: "I would like to inform the House that the law commission has recommended that this reform be made to the criminal justice system". Recommended. I have every reason to believe that the law commission will simply be a rubber stamp for the Minister of Justice. It is a very dangerous situation for this House of Commons and for the criminal justice system in Canada.

The bill will permit the governor in council to appoint-and how many times have we heard that word-a president and four other commissioners and an advisory council consisting of 24 members. I have every reason to believe that every single member of the law commission will be a card carrying member of the Liberal Party of Canada. There is no possible way that a law commission set up by this government, by appointment of the Minister of Justice, can be independent.

There is no doubt that more Liberal appointees will be feathering their nests at the expense of taxpayers. The Liberal government knows that it will have to fight an election in two years. The Liberals want to keep their friends; it is only natural.

The justice system in Canada cannot afford to have a rubber stamp law commission which is held up as an advisory board to help the Minister of Justice put through the law reforms his cappuccino friends in Toronto want. We cannot afford that.

I doubt that when the commission is set up the justice department's budget will be reduced by an appropriate amount. I would like to be able to look into the future to see whether the justice department's budget will be reduced by $3 million. I do not believe the figure of $3 million, but I would like to see the reduction. I do not think it can happen.

If the Liberals have proved anything, it is the ability to mismanage taxpayers' money. Whenever I start talking about Liberals and budgets, I have to remind Canadians that using the Liberals' numbers of 1993, in their term of office the national debt will increase by $100 billion to some $650 billion. The interest payments will rise by some $10 billion to around $55 billion. This is ample evidence that Liberals do not know how to manage money. This gives more credence to the fact that I doubt very much the budget of the Department of Justice will be reduced by the amount which will be spent to finance the law commission.

There is no compelling reason to re-establish the law commission. Law reform is possible without the creation of another government agency which will be supported by Canadian taxpayers. As I stated earlier, the commission will be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Minister of Justice. No doubt he is desperately seeking some official body to back up his autocratic decisions on gun control and the death penalty. What better way to save his image than to spend $3 million a year to establish a panel of yes people beholden to the Minister of Justice, prepared to put forward or support his personal decisions?

We should be getting our spending under control some day, but most definitely it will not be within the term of office of this government. Consider that the commissioners, the president, the board of advisers are going to be appointed by this government, by the Minister of Justice himself no doubt-

[Excise Tax Act, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the extra time. I am sure my colleagues will be pleased to hear that.

Before question period I was talking about some of the free spending habits of the Liberals. I pointed to the U.S. department of energy receiving $35,000 from the Liberal government. It really needed the money. The United Steelworkers of America received $116,000 from the Liberal government; Prison Art Foundation, $51,000 from the federal government; and Feminist Literacy Workers Network, $57,000 from the government.

This is where the taxpayer's money is going. This is what is contributing to overspending by $30 billion every year. Why are the Liberals continuing to do this, continuing in the same habits as the prior Tory government? Because all of these special interest groups that are receiving these funds year after year are constantly in Ottawa lobbying the government, talking to the government, yapping away at the government for more money, being obnoxious almost to the point the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway was earlier in question period. All these special interest groups are standing in line for this free-wheeling, free-spending handout from the Liberal government.

In order to continue these free-wheeling, free-spending ways, what does the Liberal government do? It simply raises taxes, as it did in the February budget. It seeks approval in Bill C-90 to increase the taxation on gasoline by a cent and a half per litre to raise another billion or two billion dollars or so. This goes on and on and on. Canadians are tired of the deficit spending of this Liberal government and they want it to stop.

Study after study after study has shown that deficit spending will not create a buoyant economy. Study after study by economist after economist has said that we cannot spend our way out of a recession. The only way we can get out of a recession is to get the economy going again, and we are not going to get the economy going if we keep increasing the taxation levels on the Canadian workers and Canadian companies. This is not rocket scientist stuff. Why can they not understand this?

One of the reasons most of the economists around the world agree with the Reform Party's method of getting this economy back in shape and getting Canada out of its fiscal crisis is because when the Reform Party stands up to talk about fiscal responsibility and curing the fiscal ills we are prepared to put it on paper, in writing, very clearly and very distinctly showing exactly how we would get the economy going again, how we would reduce taxation and reduce overspending without seriously harming the Canadian people.

This Liberal government stands up every day and calls us hackers and slashers, saying that we want to cut off all these programs for the Canadian people, the programs that we never could afford in the first place and that this group over here have used year after year-and the Tories before them-to get elected.

I would like to suggest something that is not only my own opinion but also the opinion of many economists. The biggest threat to the social programs in this country is the out of control spending by the Liberal government. The biggest threat to the social programs in this country, to medicare, to education, and to things Canadians have come to depend on is not the fiscally responsible Reform Party on this side of the House but the out of control Liberal spenders on the other side of the House, and the Tories before them.

It is time this government got serious about getting the economy going again. It is time this government got serious about addressing the concerns the Canadian people have about the high taxation levels in this country. It is time this government got serious about what it takes to create real and long-lasting jobs in this country. It is time this government got serious about its out of control deficit spending.

I guess I am sad to say that I cannot believe for a minute that this party and this government ever will get serious. Let me make a suggestion to this government. If they are not prepared to get serious about addressing the concerns the Canadian people have about the economy, jobs, and taxation, maybe they should just move over and let someone else move in who will get serious about it. That of course is the Reform Party of Canada.

Unfortunately, the Canadian people are going to have to bear the pain for another couple of years. I wish it were over sooner, but it looks like another couple of years of out of control deficit spending.

I am sorry, I forgot to mention something in my speech. The hon. member for Beaver River reminded me that I should never stand up and talk about out of control spending by the Liberal government without talking about the pensions. I thank the hon. member for Beaver River for walking by at the right time.

The Reform Party did the responsible thing in this Parliament when 98 per cent of the Reform MPs in the House opted out of the pension, giving our personal commitment to the Canadian people that we are serious about cutting spending. We intend to save the Canadian taxpayers some $35 million by our simple act of opting out of the MP pension plan.

It is interesting to note that while 98 per cent of Reform MPs chose to opt out, chose to do the right thing, unfortunately 98 per cent of the Liberal MPs chose to stay in, chose to do the wrong thing. What kind of a message does that send to the Canadian taxpayers, who are watching their disposable income shrink more and more on a daily basis? What kind of message does that send to the Canadian middle income taxpayer who is suffering under a 63 per cent tax burden on their gross income? Does that send the message to them that this government is prepared to get serious about the financial crisis we are in?

I just hope that before this Parliament ends we will see the Liberal government make some distinctive, specific plan to reduce the spending habits they have, which they acquired from the Tories and which they taught to the Tories.

We have heard the Minister of Finance talk about targets, but he will never let a target stand still. He uses the phrase of "rolling targets". Rolling targets are a good way to set them, because if you miss them you can always blame the fact that they were not standing still.

The IMF, the C.D. Howe Institute, and almost every economic think tank in Canada and many in the U.S. have sent a clear message to the Canadian government, this Liberal government: "Get your spending in control and get your level of taxation down or you guys are going to be in a whole bunch of trouble". I hope they got the message.

[Excise Tax Act, October 17th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in opposition to Bill C-90. This is a Liberal taxation bill. I want to comment on how easily the words "Liberals" and "increased taxation" flow together; they seem to be a naturally united phrase.

This bill amends the Excise Tax Act and the Excise Act in order for the Liberals to bring in the increased taxes they proposed in their budget last February. Mr. Speaker, I am sure that you and probably every other working Canadian will agree that this country simply does not need any more new taxes. Canadians are probably one of the most overtaxed people in the entire world, and we have a government in power that is intent on continuing to make sure we do not lose that mantle of taxation.

Taxation ultimately drains the lifeblood out of our economy. This is something Canadians are very aware of and very concerned about, how the high taxation levels in our country have such a devastating effect on the economy. We will talk about two areas of harmful effects of taxation, which probably account for 90 per cent of how we build and keep our economy buoyant, and that is investor confidence and consumer confidence.

High taxation levels have delivered a tremendous level of uncertainty to the investors, the people who would build and expand businesses in our country, who would hire Canadians to run their factories and operations, creating jobs in the country. Because of the rising taxation levels there simply is no certainty of the future for these investors, who have no incentive to increase their investments.

The average working person in Canada probably has less disposable income than ever before. There is no certainty that disposable income will not continue to shrink. Therefore consumer spending has been drawn back, thus creating a harmful effect on our economy.

The Liberals respond not with a plan to decrease their spending, to decrease their deficit spending, not with a plan to offer some tax relief to Canadians, the two things that would probably serve in more ways than any other measures to restore some buoyancy to our economy. No. The Liberal Party does not respond with these two natural solutions. Instead, they implement more taxation in

their February budget. Now they are seeking the authorization to put that into force.

Prior to the election in 1993, the Reform Party said that if the Liberal government were elected, using their own red book predictions on the financial aspect, over the term of this 35th Parliament the Liberal government would add $100 billion to our national debt and would increase the annual interest payments on that debt by some $10 billion. That is $100,000 billion and $10 billion. The Liberal Party is right on target.

By the end of the 35th Parliament our national debt will have increased by $100 billion, our interest payments on that debt will be up somewhere in the neighbourhood of $50 billion to $52 billion, and all because the Liberal Party has not taken what could be considered a common sense solution to the financial crisis in this country, which is to reduce taxes and reduce its deficit spending. Instead the Liberals chose to increase taxes. Bill C-90 gives them authorization to implement, for example, the 1.5 cent a litre tax on gasoline, which is going to add $500 million more taxes on the middle class alone.

While the government talks about tax fairness, in its last budget it in fact raised taxes by over $1 billion. In fact if we look at tax increases in the last two government budgets, the Liberals have increased taxes by about $2.5 billion, with another $500 million in user fees or hidden taxes.

Canadians should be pleased that these increased taxes have in fact been put to good use. I would like to give some examples of Liberal good use. The U.S. Department of Energy-and this is small potatoes, but there are about 5,000 of these, I understand-received a $35,000 grant from the Canadian government. The United Steel Workers of America received $116,000 from the taxpayers of Canada via the Liberal government. Here is a good one: the Prison Art Foundation received $51,000 from the Canadian taxpayers, compliments of the Liberal Party. And the Feminist Literacy Workers Network received another $57,000 from the taxpayers of Canada, thanks to the Liberal government. This is only part of about 5,000 or 6,000 of these grants that have gone out.

This type of money does not fall down from the sky in some miraculous manner. We do not pick it off a tree, as some Liberals would like to believe. This kind of money comes from the pockets of hard-working Canadians, who are among the most highly taxed people in the world.

It is said that the average middle class Canadian worker in this country in all forms of taxes pays about 63 per cent of their gross income in taxation. In a country as rich as Canada is, with the potential and the opportunity Canada has, the fact that Canadian workers are paying this much taxation out of their gross income is absolutely obscene.

[Employment Equity Act, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-64. I want to preface my remarks by making a comment on behalf of all the members of the Reform Party. We do not support in any way, shape or form discriminatory hiring practices. We do not support the premise that a person from one of the four groups mentioned in Bill C-64 be denied a job based on the fact that he or she is within one of these four groups. To have some of the previous speakers of the Liberal Party allude to that is utter nonsense.

At the same time, I do not support and I know many of my colleagues do not support the fact that someone would be hired specifically because he or she is part of one of those four groups. Let us be very clear about what the Reform members are trying to say in the House today.

I was really pleased that I was present today when we saw Ms. Alexa McDonough presented to the Chamber today. She was just elected president of the New Democratic Party, not because she was a woman but because she had the confidence of the delegates of the NDP convention that she was the best person for the job. I congratulate her for that.

We heard today in the House from the hon. member for Edmonton-Strathcona about a Mrs. Chicoine who was awarded a Canada Volunteer Award Certificate of Merit not because she was a woman but because of the efforts that she put into doing the things that she truly believed in.

We heard earlier today from a member opposite about a woman who had just received an entrepreneurship award of merit in an international competition for a process that she created and developed regarding the use of furs. She did not receive this award because she was a woman. She received it because of the creativity, the training and the work she put into her business.

We heard about the women from Alberta who were honoured today in Ottawa for their service to their country. They were honoured, not because they are women but because they believed so passionately in something that they readied themselves for the task and they succeeded. They succeeded not because they were women but because they wanted to succeed.

If the principles of Bill C-64 were applied to the women who were honoured today in the House, they might very easily find it insulting. There could be the allusion that they received these awards or accomplished their tasks simply because they were women and not because of their own individual efforts.

All members in the House, including Liberal members even though they will not admit it, are aware that Bill C-64 will impose employment equity provisions on the public service and on those firms that have over 100 employees and do business with the federal government. I use the word "impose". They use the term "employment equity". The term "employment equity" was coined by Justice Rosalie Abella in 1984. It is a convenient term for our Liberal social engineers since it is much more deceptive and less threatening than the term "affirmative action".

In the United States people call it like it is, affirmative action. That is exactly what employment equity really is but it is called employment equity to make it a less threatening term.

We are all aware that affirmative action or employment equity, whatever one you choose, is not working in the United States. Recently the U.S. Supreme Court dealt affirmative action a severe blow. It ruled in favour of a Colorado company that brought an action against the U.S. government because the government had awarded a contract to an Hispanic controlled company despite the fact that the Colorado company submitted a lower bid and was more qualified to do the work. This was because of affirmative action or employment equity. Naturally the U.S. government's rationale for taking such a course of action was rooted in its affirmative action policy.

While this recent decision in the states does not spell the end of affirmative action in the U.S., I and those who believe employment would be better based on merit would hope that it signals a return some day to common sense and fairness.

The Americans have gone through the process and have experienced the detrimental effects of affirmative action policies. Here we are in Canada, with a Liberal government that is hell bent on pursuing it. Do we not learn from the experiences of other countries?

We cannot even find common sense and fairness in our Constitution. Section 15.2 of the charter of rights and freedoms entrenches employment equity in the Constitution. However, if we read the section we note that it specifically overrides section 15.1, which is intended to promote equality among all Canadians.

The charter of 1982 is drafted in typical Liberal fashion. It promises something but only if the state can have absolute control over it. That is a scary thought. Promise equality but deliver on the promise only when the state decides where and when equality will exist. Is that not a scary thought, that the state will decide where and when equality will exist? This is the effect of section 15.2 of the charter.

Now we are facing Bill C-64, a manifestation of section 15.2, a bill which arbitrarily discriminates against one group in favour of another. However, these Liberals will tell us that discrimination will not result from this bill. Just because some groups are being promoted over other groups is not discrimination. It is equity. That is the Liberal's definition of the word equity. Their social engineer's vocabulary does not end there. It goes much further. The Liberals argue that Bill C-64 will not set quotas but rather numeric goals.

As David Frum wrote recently, speaking of numeric goals and deceptive wording: "It is also true that undertakers say casket instead of coffin and loved one instead of corpse. Does it make Aunt Tilly any less dead by changing the words around so that they sound a little less threatening?"

We must ask if we really need Bill C-64. Where is this systematic discrimination that is constantly referred to by the proponents of employment equity Bill C-64? Where is the proof? Where are the statistics and hard numbers? There are none. In fact the Economic Council of Canada, which I am sure the Liberals recognize as a respectable body, did studies in 1991 and 1992 which found Canada successfully assimilates its newcomers and that there was no evidence of systematic pay discrimination. Furthermore, a Statistics Canada report this summer demonstrated that visible minorities enjoy rates of employment and rates of pay comparable to that of other Canadians.

Therefore, we ask where is the proof. Systematic discrimination is in no way entrenched in the Canadian workplace as these Liberal social engineers would have us believe. Indeed, in pushing Bill C-64 without any hard evidence to back it up, it seems that the Liberal government and its special interest group cohorts that helped it get elected, would declare Canadian firms simply guilty by accusation.

I forget that these Liberal members have proven that they know little about law and order. Therefore, such concepts as innocent until proven guilty would simply mean nothing to them.

Ultimately, employment equity or affirmation action as it is more correctly known, is in fact a lose-lose situation. People who have become victims of employment equity legislation demand that it be scrapped and merit be returned as the sole principle for hiring and promotion.

Typical of the government, it tends to march to the beat of a "we know what is better for you" attitude, in economic, judicial and social matters and therefore it will continue to dictate to us. This Liberal government and Liberal governments for the past 30 years have been intent in getting in the face of free and independent Canadians. I say Bill C-64 is another attempt to do just that. I therefore must oppose it.