Dick Harris

[Petitions, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition from my riding of Prince George-Bulkley Valley that deals with an opinion and a belief that is shared by a majority of Canadians right across this country. It deals with the fear that the privileges society extends to heterosexual couples could some day be extended to same sex relationships.

The petitioners pray and request that Parliament not amend the human rights code, the Canadian Human Rights Act or the charter of rights and freedoms in any way that would tend to indicate societal approval of same sex relationships or of homosexuality, including amending the human rights code to include in the prohibited grounds of discrimination the undefined phrase of sexual orientation.

This petition originated in the College Heights Baptist Church of Prince George. I am proud to say that I concur 100 per cent with this petition.

[Employment Equity Act, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make the observation that members opposite, in particular the last member who spoke, are confusing discriminatory hiring practices with the term employment equity.

We have laws in Canada that prohibit discriminatory hiring practices. We have laws that prohibit employers from not hiring qualified people because they happen to be a member of a certain visible minority group or because they may be physically or mentally disabled. There are laws which prohibit businesses from discriminating against people based on who or what they are.

This bill ensures that if two people of equal merit, of equal training, of equal ability, apply for a job and one happens to be a member of a designated group and the other one is not, that favour be bestowed on the person who is in the designated group and disfavour be bestowed on the person who is not. I fail to see the logic of the bill.

The government is trying to tell free enterprise how to hire people. The fact is that the government is already in the face of business too much and it is hurting the economy.

The hon. member related a very tragic case. She brought it down to a personal level. I would like to bring it down to a personal level as well.

My oldest son has a learning disability. He probably would fit into one of the designated groups. I expect that my son will become employable because my wife and I are doing everything we can to ensure that he receives training and obtains the ability to become employable, not because he is handicapped in his learning, but because he has the skills to do a job.

I do not want the government to look after my son's future. I want him to be independent. That is why I want him to be trained and to have the ability to hold a job.

The state should not be determining the future of my son. When it does that, it takes away his independence, his ability to function as an independent Canadian, to acquire the skills and to merit getting a job, not because of his disability but because of his strengths.

That is why I am fundamentally opposed to this bill. It will diminish the qualities, the abilities, the training of individuals and will place them in a category that will get them a job because of who they are and not what they are or what they can do.

[Employment Equity Act, October 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, of course I have to say that I support the hon. member in his position on this bill.

The point the Liberals opposite are missing is the principle of this bill. The principle is the social engineers of the Liberal Party are trying to legislate that businesses in this country will have to enter into hiring practices that will be based on things other than merit or abilities.

This country was made strong by Canadian workers who got their education and their training and did everything they could to prepare themselves to be competitive in the marketplace. They did that and achieved individual rewards as a result. As my colleague has pointed out, this bill seeks to destroy that individual initiative by placing special considerations on special groups. What happened to merit? There is no merit mentioned in Bill C-64.

For this member to tell me that businesses in Ontario are supporting this bill, this employment equity idea, over a fundamental principle of hiring people based on their individual merit is absolute nonsense. I would like to meet a businessman who responded to that survey who would tell me in all truthfulness that he does not care about the merit, the qualifications of the employees, but would rather base his hiring practices on this absurd legislation the Liberal Party is attempting to bring in here.

I ask these social engineers across the way to give us a break. That is not the real world any more.

[Corrections And Conditional Release Act, September 20th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I assure my hon. colleagues from the Bloc and from the Liberal side that I probably will refer to Motion No. 1 no less than eight or nine times during my speech. I am sure the hon. member will be checking that.

I am pleased to address Motion No. 1 to Bill C-45. The motion put forward by my colleague from Wild Rose deals with clause 25 of the bill. We find in the bill clause 21 in its current form that would see deductions from the pay cheques of inmates who are involved in work programs within our prisons, deductions to go back to the prisons to pay for their room, board, clothing and things like that.

Like my hon. friend from Vegreville, I find it astounding, as I am sure do many Canadians who probably do not know about it today, that we are paying prisoners at all in our prisons. If someone commits a crime in Canada they are sent to prison as a punishment, although not for long enough, and now many Canadians will be astounded to find out they are actually getting paid.

The first thing that comes to my mind is whether this could possibly be another Liberal job creation program. The Liberals talk about their duty to create jobs. The Prime Minister has said they will give jobs, jobs, jobs. Now we find out our prisoners are getting paid. I did not know until today. The first thing I thought of was Liberal job creation. Now I understand. I find it unbelievable that prisoners are having a Canada pension plan. Are they having unemployment insurance deductions paid for them as well?

The main part of this is that they are being paid at all. Thirty per cent of their pay is being deducted and going back to the prisons. Nowhere in the bill can I see a significant acknowledgement as far as compensation to the victims of crime.

As my hon. colleague from Wild Rose stated in his motion, the least the government can do is recognize the victims in a meaningful way. The amendment put forward by the hon. member for Wild Rose would deal with that 30 per cent. I would rather my colleague had put 100 per cent in his amendment. One hundred per cent of anything paid to a prisoner should go to the victim of the crime that prisoner committed. I would have been happier with that than 30 per cent.

I would like to address the principle of the amendment. It is an amendment which would recognize compensation for the help which many victims have to obtain at their own expense following a crime. In the event that the victim of a crime has died, there should surely be compensation to the family to help them get over the trauma.

Motion No. 1 would see the clause amended so that the 30 per cent deduction would be redirected toward the victims. This is very important since we have seen that the bill does not effectively address the rights of victims. Motion No. 1 would see the 30 per cent turned directly over to the victim or the family of the victim

should he or she be killed or the family is left in a difficult financial situation as a result of the offence.

Every day all across the country millions and millions of Canadians are crying out for justice. Every day across the country hundreds of thousands of victims of crime are left having to compensate themselves in some way for what has been taken away from them by a criminal act. Sadly, all across the country there are victims of crime who have died. They cannot cry out any more for compensation for the death which was caused by the crime. Their families are left to cry out for them and indeed they are crying out.

The government had an opportunity to do something about this situation but it has not in the bill. This is typical of the way Liberals deal with the criminal justice system.

It is always the victim who is left out when it comes to reforms to the Criminal Code, the Corrections Act or the Conditional Release Act. The Reform Party has said for years that the obligation of a government in formulating and creating a criminal justice system which works is to have as the number one priority of the criminal justice system the protection of society and indeed the protection and care of the victims of crime. In this country the number one priority of the criminal justice system is to look after the criminals, to look after the perpetrators of crime.

At one time we did have a criminal justice system. We had it until Mr. Trudeau and his Liberals came into the House. They thought they would rearrange things to make it a more just system. Just for whom? Just for the criminals. In this country when criminals need a friend they call a Liberal. That is the way it has been for more than 25 years. Those colleagues who sit on the opposite side of the House know it. There are many lawyers over there. They know it. They know what the criminal justice system is all about. They know it is made for the legal system.

Every once in a while a government gets a chance to do something about the criminal justice system and in this case a chance to address the victims of crime. Because of their weak-kneed, bleeding heart philosophy the Liberals do not have the guts to turn away from the Trudeauism which has been instilled in that party for the last 30 years. We have heard from the gutless wonders across the way.

Our policy on victims' rights has been clear from the very beginning. As I mentioned earlier Reformers have always stated that victims should be compensated for the crimes committed against them. We have even extended this principle into the stand we have taken on the Young Offenders Act. We have also argued that the Young Offenders Act should include the payment of some form of restitution to victims. The Liberals have not heard this because in their opinion someone who commits a crime is not really to blame because it is society that made them that way. In the Liberals' minds individuals are not responsible for the criminal acts they commit because society has made them that way.

That is why we see our justice system in a complete shambles. We see serious criminals being let out on early parole. We see reoffence after reoffence because of the justice system members of this Liberal Party and the Liberals here before them chose to run with. They have ignored the cries of millions of Canadians. They are ignoring the cries of the victims of crime across this country.

As we talk about amending clause 21 in Motion No. 1 Liberals are making jest of it. They are making jest of the fact that our party believes that victims of crime deserve recognition and compensation. The very idea that they make jest of our motion which was put forward in a most sincere fashion to try to establish a form of compensation for victims of crime is an insult to the victims of crime. They should be ashamed of themselves.

As I have said before there are many lawyers in that party. In their real lives they dealt with crime on a daily basis. They have seen the victims of crime. They know what we are talking about but because their philosophy leans more toward the rights of the criminal than the victim they make jest of our motion.

I have no problem whatsoever in recognizing the many victims of crime, the people who become victims of crime on a daily basis. We ask that all members support Motion No. 1 which deals with clause 21 in Bill C-45.

[Auditor General Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to comment on some of the statements made by the hon. member for Vancouver South.

I think all Canadians recognize the importance of paying close attention to what is happening with our environment, and certainly sustainability in our environment is a most important factor.

The member mentioned that Bill C-83 contains some amendments unprecedented in Parliament in dealing with the environment. We have had the auditor general's department operating as an exclusive body making a critique of the government, scrutinizing the operations for many years now.

We have seen report after report from the auditor general being critical of the different government departments and making recommendations only to have those reports go somewhere on a shelf and collect dust.

It is one thing to appoint a commission, a body or an individual to be independent, to look at how the government runs its business. It is one thing for the reports to be made, for the recommendations to be made, for the observations to be made clear, for that outside body to call for accountability. Another thing is for the government to act on those recommendations. We have not seen a very glowing record of governments acting on recommendations and criticism by the auditor general's department. We have not seen it in many years. Certainly the government has not done anything to stop that record of ignoring the auditor general's report.

As Bill C-83 contains some amendments unprecedented in Parliament in the field of environmental sustainability, I suggest the government begin to take some unprecedented steps in not only acknowledging the reports of the auditor general and not only receiving them but actually acting on them. It would be a most

unprecedented step if the government would start to act on some of the recommendations of the auditor general's department.

I will leave the hon. member with that thought. I am sure he will want to give me his assurances that whatever criticism and recommendations come from the new position will be acted on by the government.

[Auditor General Act, September 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I might just clarify my colleague's point to the hon. member for Peterborough.

He was saying that we have seen example after example in the House, during this Parliament and in Parliaments before, where the auditor general has come down with scathing reports about the operation of government departments and ministries, only to have these reports totally ignored by the government of the day.

Unless the government is truthfully committed to acknowledging, respecting and acting on the recommendations and the findings of the auditor general we could appoint a million government watchdogs and a million auditors general to keep an eye on the government. If the government continually will not do anything about it, what is the use? That is the point.

What assurances do the House and the Canadian people have that this new appointment, if it is to be effective, will act on the recommendations and on the reports and criticisms of this position?

There has been no example in the past of the government making any meaningful move toward acting on auditors general's reports. What assurances do we have now?

[Special Olympics, June 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Special Olympics organizations all across Canada provide opportunities for the mentally handicapped to develop their physical, social and psychological abilities.

I have been involved with Special Olympics for a number of years now and can attest to the benefits that result from these Special Olympics programs.

On July 16, I will be hosting a fundraising golf tournament in my riding in support of the B.C. chapter of Prince George Special Olympics. I invite all members to come out and support this tournament but if they cannot come out I will be happy to take a donation back to the tournament on their behalf.

I also take the opportunity to urge all members of the House to support local organizations that participate in Special Olympics programs. Let me end my statement with the motto of Special Olympians: "Let me win but if I cannot win, let me be brave in my attempt".

[Code Of Conduct, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to digest Motion No. 24 and my thoughts range from somewhat confused about the purpose of this motion to anger.

Let me talk about the confusion first, because I am a little confused about what the Liberals believe. What does this Liberal government believe? What kind of rocket science do they really think is needed to do things that are good, right, and honest? Those are fundamental characteristics of integrity. Yet this government, despite the numerous studies, commissions, inquiries, investigative bodies that have tried to determine what is the right thing to do when one becomes an MP or a government, is missing some basic points: good, right and honest. That is not rocket science. That is what we are taught by our parents when we are kids, when they are trying to groom us into becoming responsible adults: do things that are good, right, and honest.

It is unbelievable that after over a hundred years of this Parliament being in operation we have a government that wants to find out how to restore and keep the trust of the Canadian voters. Let me save the government a whole lot of time. I want to give it five very simple suggestions. It will save the committee time. It will save a lot of MPs and senators time. Here they are, and they are free. I will repeat these after and I will send each of the Liberal members a memo on this. The first one is do not lie. The second one is do not cheat. The third one is do not steal. The fourth one is do not reward your friends with taxpayers' money. The fifth one is if any member of Parliament does this, that member them out.

Therein you have a code of conduct in the first four points and the last one is a deterrent. That is not rocket science. I did not need a committee to come up with those points. This government does not need a committee to come up with ideas on how to be a good, honest member of Parliament. This government does not need a committee to know how the Canadian voters regard politicians at a slightly lower level than used car salesmen or lawyers-with all due respect, some used car salesmen and some lawyers.

In the last 15 years the level of respect for politicians and the level of trust that was felt by the Canadian voter have severely deteriorated. In this 35th Parliament we not only have a job to run the country to make sure the economy, the social programs and everything else are going to run smoothly, we also have a profound obligation to begin to restore the trust of the electorate which is missing.

I have heard it said time and time again that the only reason our current Prime Minister looks so good is that he followed the Mulroney Tories who were so bad. In my opinion our current Prime Minister has a lot of latitude but because of the way this government is running things and because of some of the things which have happened since this 35th Parliament convened, people are starting to wonder if this government is just another wolf in sheep's clothing. Some hon. members have already

talked about them but it is worth going over some of the very disparaging things which have happened.

There is the Minister of Canadian Heritage's now infamous $2,000 a plate dinner and the subsequent perception of his rewarding his friends with government contracts paid for with taxpayers' money of course. We have talked about the monopoly status awarded to Expressvu and the ties between Power Corp. and the Prime Minister. The list goes on and on.

Most recently there has been the appointment of a legal firm in Vancouver. Lawyers were engaged by the government to prosecute drug cases but they had no previous experience in dealing with the prosecution of drug cases, a very serious crime. In prosecuting a drug case in particular, a lot of factors are involved, including the gathering of evidence by the police and putting it together by the crown which is most important in order to win the case. The evidence is clear that the lawyers from the legal firms recently appointed by the Minister of Justice had no experience in this area. However they did qualify for the appointment because one happened to be the president of a Liberal riding and the other was a fundraiser for the Liberals.

The Canadian public was fresh from a Tory regime in which it completely lost trust in the leader of our country and they elected the Liberal government whose red book was trumpeted at every occasion. It promised to restore integrity, trust and honesty to government.

When Canadians think about those promises, about the way the red book was flashed around for everyone to see and then they see those things happening, they ask: "Who can we believe?" They get pretty discouraged. Even some people who did not vote for me come into my riding office and say they thought the Prime Minister was going to change things. They thought the Liberal government was going to bring back some form of honesty to government. They are very disappointed.

Now a joint committee of MPs and senators is going to be formed to try to rediscover life in so far as honesty and integrity goes.

Mr. Speaker, I am not going to speak as long as my hon. friend who just spoke. I do not have the sense of humour he has about this. It is a very serious subject.

At the end of the day and most recently when walking home at 11 or 11.30 at night we might ask ourselves: "What on earth am I doing here?" We hear about some new revelation of conflict of interest the government has and we remember why we are here. I am here because I was so disgusted with the way politics were run in this country that I wanted to come here to do something about it. I am going to try, but at the end of the day if nothing changes in this House at least I can say that I tried.

I want to go back just for a moment and review those points I made at the beginning. This government does not need a committee to understand the things that are good, right and honest. We do not need a committee because those things are fundamental in how we develop character. Any member of Parliament who does not possess those characteristics does not belong in this place.

Free of charge for the Liberal government, let me go through it again. Do not lie. Do not cheat. Do not steal. Do not reward friends with taxpayers' money. Those are the four very condensed codes. The deterrent is that if any of those are broken, they should be thrown out of this place. That is free for the Liberal government and free for every member of this House.

We do not need a joint committee of senators and members of Parliament to try to discover some nirvana being dreamed up by the government, some field of operation that is so clouded no one can understand it. Do not lie. Do not cheat. Do not steal. Do not reward friends with taxpayers' money. That is all that is needed and honesty and integrity will return to this House once that is accomplished.

[Points Of Order, June 16th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, implicit in the response of the minister of Indian affairs to the question of the hon. member for North Island-Powell River was the suggestion Reform Party members in B.C. were responsible for the ongoing blockades in that province. I ask him to withdraw that comment.

[Criminal Code, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know, was that a question?

I would like to make a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This hon. member appears to be under the understanding that I created this story. I did not. It happened. I read it in the newspaper. I read the report. I did not create the idea that-