Dick Harris

[Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, in not allowing their elected representatives to speak on their behalf, the taxpayer has no say in the distribution of lands to the remaining 10 bands in the Yukon. This is not acceptable to the people of Canada. This is not acceptable to the values of democracy that were present in this House until this government got on that side of the House.

I repeat again, our amendment to clause 5 will preserve the values of democracy. It will give security to the Canadian people, security to know that bills will not be rammed through Parliament in the back rooms of this place.

I say it again. Shame on this government, shame on the way it has desecrated the democratic principles of this House. I hope they all sleep well tonight.

[Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act, June 21st, 1994]

As I was saying, this government has the audacity tonight to ram through a bill which will take away the debating privileges of this House on legislation that will be in the interests of all Canadians. It will not be debated in this House because this government has brought in closure on the further debate on Bill C-33.

I consider it only appropriate for the good of all Canadians, for the good of Canada, and for the good of the reputation of this House, that our amendment to clause 5 be adopted.

We are officials elected to represent the views of our constituents indeed, the views of all Canadians. This government would think otherwise. Government members would self-serve their private agendas, but this part of the House and this party speaks for the Canadian people, not for the special interest groups that supply support for the party.

The constituents, the taxpayers of this country, pay our salaries. They expect us to look after the best interests of Canada and Canadians, especially when it comes to the appropriation of land under public domain. They have paid for federal territorial and aboriginal negotiators who have drafted these land claim settlements. With clause 5 this government is telling the taxpayers that future settlements will not even come before this House

for scrutiny by their elected representatives. Shame on this government.

With clause 5 the negotiators are no longer accountable. They are no longer accountable to the taxpayers since their settlements will simply be rubber stamped in cabinet. No debate, just a rubber stamp. That is something government members are very familiar with as they sat on this side of the House and accused the previous government of rubber stamping legislation. They learned very well from the Tories as they were sitting over here. Their apprenticeship is now complete and they are doing exactly the same thing they railed upon in this House in the last Parliament.

[Yukon First Nations Land Claims Settlement Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the House concerning amendments to Bill C-33, but first I want to say one thing. The ghosts of the champions of democracy that have passed on from this House will be moving very slowly with their heads bowed tonight. Because of this government this respected House of democracy has become a House of shame. This government has prostituted the principles of democracy. It has prostituted the fundamental values of democracy and it has prostituted everything sacred about democracy.

Members of the party at this end have sold their souls for 30 pieces of silver and they will find their potter's field before their term is over. It is a shame what has happened in this Chamber tonight. Those who value the fundamental richness of democracy will indeed be hanging their heads in shame tonight.

In relation to Bill C-33, I would like to focus on one of the amendments put forward by my party. It deals with clause 5, the first amendment. The existence of clause 5 in this bill is a contradiction to the election promise of openness and transparency the government made. It takes away the democratic values and rights of this House to debate bills, to debate legislation which affects Canadians. This government has squashed that value.

We in the Reform Party have come to this House as the servants of the people of Canada. We have been entrusted to speak for the good of Canada, to question moves like this one tonight, to question the government's determination to ram through legislation that generations of Canadians will be paying for over and over again. The very thought that this government would ram through legislation that would take away the public debate-

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to settle down a little bit here. This member has such a nice tone to his voice I cannot see any point in arguing with him.

I would like to point out that his statement about the cigarette smuggling was so far out of proportion it was almost impossible to control. I would like to humbly suggest that if this government had reacted when cigarette smuggling was in its infancy and the problem was much smaller, we would not have had a problem that was so far out of proportion.

The present government will say it started in the previous government. Undoubtedly it did and the previous government failed to address it as well. But when this government took over in October, the problem was not as large as it was later on in the season. The government had the opportunity back then when it first took over. It knew about the problem and could have done something then. It did not and the problem grew. What does it do? It goes into competition with the cigarette smugglers trying to put them out of business. That is not the way to run a railroad or a country.

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it appears the member opposite wants to get into a shouting contest. I am for that if he wants to do that. When I was talking about considering the military I was talking about enforcing the law.

The member talks so piously about protecting his constituents. That member's government has turned its back on law enforcement. The RCMP clearly defined the areas of smuggling to the government. Unfortunately those areas happened to be primarily on reserve land on the border between the U.S. and Canada, but this government has a hands off policy for the reserves. If there is criminal activity anywhere in this country it should be addressed to the full extent of the law. Apparently this government has special areas where it does not want to enforce the law. I wonder what the reason is for that.

The government says it does not have enough money to patrol the areas of cigarette smuggling. That is the excuse it uses. It says: "You in the Reform Party are talking about spending money for law enforcement". We would be prepared to do that.

I suggested to the hon. member last week on the same subject that if the government does not have enough money to put more police officers in that area, then why not use the military? The government is having a problem in defining the role for the military. I was not talking about a military invasion. I was talking about orderly patrol to stop smugglers from coming across the border. There is a whole lot of difference between that and sending in the tanks and the bazookas that the hon. member is talking about. He tends to continue to blow things out of proportion, but we can disseminate the verbiage coming from the other side.

I talked about higher export taxes on cigarettes. I support that. I will stand by that proposition. I believe that instead of lowering the taxes on cigarettes in Canada to combat smuggling the government should have made the price of the product at the source more expensive so there would not be such a huge profit margin. I know the government could have received the co-operation of the United States.

It all goes back to whether this government has any backbone to enforce the laws that currently exist in Canada. The answer to that is no. It has chosen a back door method which is going to cause considerably more problems to Canada's health care system, instead of standing up and enforcing the laws like it should have. This government has no guts when it comes to enforcing the law. We will not see it in the next four years no matter what the justice minister says. This is evidence of what is to come.

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

They could have got the $8 a carton. Big deal, $8 a carton. They take $20 off the price of a carton in Canada and add $8 south of the border-such a deal, that really makes a huge impact.

The U.S. was willing to co-operate with Canadians on this one too but it ignored it. We know why it ignored it. I hope that this new lobbying legislation is going to be effective because we have just seen an example of what happens when lobbyists are not controlled in this country. You can bet that the tobacco lobbyists got to this government before it came up with Bill C-32.

If it had imposed a larger export tax on cigarettes this would have thwarted the ability of smugglers to buy the cigarettes at a cheaper price south of the border, bring them back to Canada and make a tonne of money on them. No, they would not do that. They will not enforce the laws and they will not stand up to the powerful lobbyists who support this party with their influence-I was going to say money, but they would never admit that.

Back in 1992 the government of the day did establish an export tax but it was withdrawn a few months later because of pressure brought to the previous government by the tobacco lobbyists. I would like to meet some of these guys. They must be awful big and walk with clubs because they have a lot of influence on these people across here and they had a lot of influence on the previous government. The magnitude of the smuggling problem today I believe with a little more resolve the government could have stood firm on such attacks. I welcome the hon. member back to hear the truth.

If the government had increased the export tax on cigarettes it would have allowed us to maintain high taxes on tobacco products, discouraging the increase in smoking and reducing the possibility that our hospitals would become unworkable as those with smoking related diseases clog the system.

In league with this strategy the government could also attempt to convince the administration of the United States that higher taxes are in the interest of Canadian and U.S. citizens when it comes to tobacco products. Some of our contraband cigarettes are American made. Higher U.S. taxes coupled with our own export tax would present a significant deterrent to the smuggling problem that confronted this government and which it failed miserably on.

If this government is serious about its concerns over the health care of Canadians it would not in any way be implementing Bill C-32. It never would have come up with this. That is evident because of the questioning we have had to the health minister in the past who simply cannot give us any answers about the future health care system. Why should we expect that the government would be serious about health care concerning Bill C-32?

Studies have shown that lower prices mean more younger smokers, more of the population affected by smoking related diseases. It all adds up to increased health care costs which mean increased taxes for Canadians in the future. It is the taxpayer of this country who is going to have to pay for these increased health care costs.

To a government that has said it would love to reduce taxes in this country, if this is an example of it, again, this country is in a lot of trouble and the Canadian taxpayer under this government is going to see tax freedom day go from about June to three or four weeks later by the time this government is through with its term.

If this is how the government proposes to combat cigarette smuggling, the Reform Party and I must defiantly oppose it.

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to debate the truth of how the country should be run with any member or members opposite any time they want.

I believe the bill will create more smokers because of the lower cost of cigarettes. In particular it will target and encourage younger smokers, people who have never smoked before, to begin to smoke because now the cost is so affordable. All this will create a huge demand on the already strained health care crisis in our country.

The government sought to battle smugglers at the expense of the health of its citizens. There is no doubt about that in the bill. It should have been looking at stricter ways to enforce the laws against smuggling. That is where the answer lies. It is not in trying to go into competition with the smugglers by selling cheaper cigarettes than they can.

With the introduction of the bill the government simply acquiesced to smugglers and is now trying to undercut their pricing. This is a shameful way to deal with law breakers. The government should be ashamed of itself. Without an attempt at stricter enforcement the government has now entered into competition with the smugglers. What a fine way to uphold the criminal justice system in the country: go into competition with smugglers.

I could give a few examples. If that is the way the government is going to treat people who break the law, by going into competition with them by offering a cheaper price, it could really get carried away. I will not cite some of the instances we talked about earlier.

No one disputes the fact we had a serious problem with respect to contraband cigarettes. It was a big problem. In 1981, 1 in 176 packs of cigarettes were smuggled into Canada. By 1992 that number had risen to 1 in 6 packages. We had a problem.

It is estimated that smuggling represented a yearly loss to Canadian retailers of some $1.2 billion. The government should have been looking into tougher laws and increased enforcement of those laws rather than going into competition with the smugglers. People looking at this action from afar would say that the government was dealing with law breakers and would expect that it would enforce the laws. However the government lowered the price of cigarettes and went into competition with them. Those people would have to scratch their heads and ask what is going on down there.

The government talks about the cost of enforcing the law and asks why the Reform Party is going off on tirades about spending more money on law enforcement. As a matter of fact the Reform Party has always advocated increased spending in law enforcement areas. We have always advocated that and we always will. The government would like to cut back and take a more middle of the road approach or it is society's fault approach to it. Canadians are demanding that we get tougher on people who break the laws.

At present some provinces have chosen not to reduce any provincial tax on cigarettes. What has happened? It has resulted in the creation of smuggling within Canada. We have taken one problem, smuggling between the U.S.A. and Canada, and have created another. Now a package of cigarettes can be bought in Ontario for about $2. They still cost $6 or $7 in B.C. This is sort of free enterprise, but it is against the law and the government created it with Bill C-32. The bill does nothing to stop interprovincial cigarette smuggling.

It proposes that interprovincial smugglers will be susceptible to a tax penalty of three times the excess tax avoided. This is only a slap on the wrist. Interprovincial smugglers with this kind of penalty are still making a fortune in what they are doing.

Such a penalty is of little significance to these people and would impact little, if any, on the profit margins of smugglers shipping cigarettes from Ontario or Quebec to western Canada. I return to my previous point that the lack of resolve of this government to enforce the laws of the land has led to a government attempting to make its cigarette prices appear more attractive than those of the smuggled cigarettes.

This strategy founded on the reduction of the tax on tobacco will ultimately lead to an increase in the numbers of smokers in Canada and a subsequent increase in the number of Canadians hospitalized for smoking related illnesses.

Of particular concern to me are the number of adolescent smokers who are going to be created as a result of the implementation of the government strategy in this regard. Even before the reduction of cigarette taxes, some studies have shown that the number of teens taking up smoking is on the rise for a number of reasons, peer pressure probably being one of the biggest causes.

In 1991 statistics showed that 120,000 children and adolescents began to smoke for the first time. With cigarettes selling for $2 and some cents a package in the stores and being available to adolescents, let us not be fooled about the corner store penalties that this government is talking about.

If these adolescents want cigarettes, they will get them, believe me. At $2 a package it makes it all the more attractive for them to buy.

In 1994 the number of adolescents smoking for the first time is going to rise dramatically. Despite the anti-smoking advertising campaigns that the government has talked about, this year the Minister of Health admitted in the House that the government's anti-smoking advertisements targeted at adolescents were not working.

Bill C-32 works in direct contradiction to the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act which serves to protect the health of young persons by restricting their access to tobacco in light of the risks associated with the use of tobacco. What a contrast in thought and deed.

On the one hand, the government is saying that it wants to protect the health of young persons regarding the use of tobacco and yet it lowers the price of cigarettes by taking the tax off and making them around $2 a package. It is certainly a contrast.

With these new tax measures, young people will now have greater access to tobacco products because of the cheaper price. There is no doubt about that.

As well, in June 1993 the Department of Finance reported that with respect to cigarettes teenagers are more sensitive to price changes than adults. Further, in 1991 the Department of Health began a program known as the national strategy to reduce tobacco use.

This program started with the premise that tax on tobacco products was a crucial element of reducing tobacco use. In other words, the higher the price, the lower the use. It was a deterrent.

Here again, as we have seen the government's attitude toward criminal justice and law enforcement, this government does not know the meaning of deterrents. Why would it be likely to understand the reasoning of this statement using tobacco tax as a deterrent?

The Minister of Finance is moving a bill that would see the reduction of taxes on cigarettes, a move that will dramatically increase the number of teenage smokers in this country. This bill promotes more smokers, particularly younger ones, and creates substantial increases in health care costs for the future.

It is estimated that 38,000 Canadians die as a result of smoking related diseases.

To help offset the criticism of promoting tobacco by lowering taxes the government has introduced this health promotion surtax on tobacco manufacturers and it will raise about $185 million a year. It is supposed to go toward advertising to deter adolescents from smoking. This is wonderful. It takes a billion dollars off the cigarette taxes and encourages young people to smoke because they are now more affordable and now it puts $185 million back into combating the problem it is creating with lowering the price of cigarettes.

Someone said in this House a few weeks ago that it is like trying to bail out the Titanic with a teacup. This surtax will only apply until 1997. What is it going to do then? Is it going to raise the cigarette taxes back up and create the smuggling problem?

Through Bill C-32 the government promotes the use of highly addictive substances and then as an afterthought creates a tiny program to remove people's addiction to that substance.

It is interesting to note in the red book, the infamous red book, in relation to health care the Liberals promised: "Our approach to problems in our country will be based on our values". I shudder to think that the values of the Liberals are demonstrated in Bill C-32. If their values and their attitude toward health care in this country are demonstrated in Bill C-32, this country is in deep trouble. This is a sad commentary considering the implication Bill C-32 will have on our already strained health care system.

Even within my own riding there are examples of people waiting months and years for needed operations. The health care system has had cutbacks. What is going to happen with the increase in tobacco related illnesses? It is going to swell the lines of people waiting for health care and it is going to create an even bigger backlog to our already strained health care system.

This will be the legacy of this government's action in reducing tobacco taxes; the legacy of a health care system that is going to be far worse than what we are experiencing currently. This will be the legacy of Bill C-32 which this government is trying to put through this House.

The government should have been looking for alternate ways to curb the smuggling of cigarettes. We suggested, but obviously the tobacco lobbyists got to the government first, why not a higher export tax? Why not put on a $22 a carton export tax on cigarettes and raise the price south of the border so they could not be sold cheaper in Canada. No, the lobbyists for the tobacco industry were at work and they got to the people in the government who were making that decision.

[Excise Tax Act, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to address Bill C-32.

The bill introduces amendments to the Excise Act, the Excise Tax Act and the Income Tax Act for the purpose of combating cigarette smuggling in Canada. The phrase combating cigarette smuggling in Canada is a bit facetious. When we talk about combating smuggling, an illegal act that involves breaking the law, we would automatically assume we are talking about law enforcement.

As we have clearly seen in this session of Parliament the government opposite is not interested in talking about real law enforcement. I would like to talk for 20 minutes on ways to enforce the laws of the country, but unfortunately it would fall on deaf ears on the other side of the House. Instead of talking about law enforcement, which should have been the thrust of combating the smuggling, I want to talk reluctantly about the health crisis the bill will create.

As I look across the floor and hear the truce from this side of the House it reminds me of a verse I learned in Sunday school. I am not a biblical scholar, but it was something to the effect that the devil shall flee from the truth. When I see the benches opposite emptying as Reform Party members on this side speak the truth about the bill, I am wondering whether my teacher did not have some application in mind for today.

I am going to talk about the health consequences of the bill. I would like to address my remarks to some specific areas of the

bill which I believe display the government's sheer callousness when it concerns the health of Canadians. Specifically the bill reduces federal tax on cigarettes. It makes cigarettes cheaper. There is no doubt in my mind and in the minds of right thinking Canadians that lower prices on cigarettes creates more smokers. That is undeniable no matter what the government opposite says. In particular it encourages smoking.

[Petitions, June 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present three petitions from residents of the Houston, B.C. area of my constituency, petitioners which I personally support in the strongest terms.

These petitioners are concerned about section 241 of the Canada Criminal Code which states "everyone who counsels a person to commit suicide or aids and abets a person to committee suicide whether suicide ensues or not is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment of a term not exceeding 14 years".

The petitioners therefore pray that Parliament not repeal or amend section 241 of the Criminal Code in any way and to uphold the Supreme Court of Canada decision of September 30, 1993 to disallow assisted suicide or euthanasia.

[Petitions, June 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am pleased to submit under Standing Order 36 is from several petitioners in an area known as Houston in the Prince George-Bulkley Valley constituency.

Fundamentally the petitioners humbly pray that Parliament not repeal or amend section 241 of the Criminal Code in any way and uphold the Supreme Court of Canada decision on September 30, 1993 to disallow assisted suicide or euthanasia.