Dick Harris

[User Fees Act, February 14th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today and speak to on behalf of our party to Bill C-212, the private member's bill which deals with criteria for user fees.

I want to remind the House that this problem has been around for a long time. To support that, I want to quote what the auditor general said in 1993 about the ability to scrutinize this. He said:

We are concerned that Parliament cannot readily scrutinize the user fees established by contracts and other non-regulatory means. There does not exist a government-wide summary of the fees being charged, the revenues raised and the authorities under which they are established.

This caused our member for Medicine Hat to introduce a private member's bill on this very same topic in 1997, which was Bill C-205. I know he intended that his private member's bill would be an opportunity to fulfill those concerns which were raised by the auditor general of the day.

I know the member for Etobicoke North has raised a number of interesting areas and key points that need to be addressed. Quite frankly we agree with him when he calls for the need for more parliamentary oversight when user fees are introduced or changed. We agree with him when he calls for the need for greater stakeholder participation in the fee setting process, which is part of what I just said. We agree with him when he calls for the improved linkages between user fees, the federal department and the agency performance specification and standard.

He talks about the requirement for more comprehensive stakeholder impact and competitiveness analysis when new user fees or fee increases are contemplated. He talks about the goal of increased transparency addressing these fees where applicable. He goes on to talk about the need for independent dispute resolution process and the need for annual reports outlining all user fees. We understand what he is saying and we agree with his observations.

However in addition to having parliamentary scrutiny on user fees, we submit that the following principles should also apply. I know the member will probably agree with a lot of these as well and hopefully, in a collective fashion, we will be able to make some changes.

One, the fees must be based upon the actual cost to providing the service. Unfortunately they are not necessarily set that way now. Some fees are much higher than the actual cost of service being provided.

Two, services must be cost effective. I know the member opposite is a prudent type of thinker and will agree with that. This is a key point. In many cases we believe the services are not being provided in a cost effective way and we have to ensure they are.

The member raised the point that currently $4 billion was going into the federal treasury in user fees. If that cost is reflective of the program that needs to be put in place to administer it in the way which has been just outlined so that the different groups are not paying costs which are not their own or not inflated costs, then that is fine. However in many cases we believe those costs are in fact exaggerated and it is just another form of a hidden tax on the industry itself.

Three, administrative costs must be as low as possible and the documentation requirements must be there in the operation of business.

Four, there should be no cross-subsidization of services for commodities or region. This is a very important point. We have seen too much of this kind of thing in the past. We have seen too many cases where the costs are borne by one area that should be borne by another sector, another industry or another part of the country. Cross-subsidization should not and must not occur.

Five, wherever possible, fees should be directly applied to prevent fee inflation to indirect application through the service provider.

Six, there must be a system in place for tracking the overall incident of fees and the effect on industry with a process for consultation.

Simply put, we do not mind the idea of user fees or a cost recovery. We think that is important. However the user fees must reflect what is a reasonable amount of cost recovery to actually do the job and should not bear out an overinflated bureaucracy that does not adapt quickly to where that individual sector is itself.

It is important that these industries be allowed to function. We have a tough time already in this country. Taxes are very high. We have to compete internationally. Our productivity has fallen against that of the United States for about 25 years and we have to look at ways to cause that to change.

My party has held hearings across Ontario over the last few years. We have been told that regulation is just as big a cost to businesses, especially small businesses, as taxation is. In fact, it is disproportionately higher for small businesses because they do not have the people dedicated specifically to complying with regulation or people who are administrating these cost recovery programs on them.

Regulation is a huge cost. I think in some of the studies done by the Fraser Institute it showed a total regulation cost of $100 billion annually to industry in Canada. That is an astronomical amount. It hurts industry in terms of being competitive. It hurts the economy, and the bottom lines of businesses are tremendously affected.

To sum up, we understand what the member for Etobicoke North is trying to say in his bill. We support it. We have offered some further suggestions. We believe this is the time to get the user fee regime right after so many years. This is a step in the right direction and I suggest that all members in the House should support the bill.

[Justice, February 14th, 2003]

What nonsense, Mr. Speaker. Here is another one that Bill C-20 does not cover.

A Calgary man was convicted of manslaughter after killing his infant daughter by snapping her spine. He received a conditional sentence of house arrest.

Will the minister listen to Canadians and introduce legislation that would ensure minimum jail sentences be imposed on people who commit such heinous crimes? Is it possible he can do that?

[Northern B.C. Winter Games, February 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, Friday, February 7 marks the official opening of the 28th annual northern B.C. winter games. The games are being tri-hosted by the district of Fort St. James, the district of Vanderhoof and the village of Fraser Lake, all located in my riding of Prince George—Bulkley Valley.

Fourteen hundred participants from 35 different central interior and northern communities will compete in 21 different sporting events. Twelve hundred volunteers will support and coordinate the games, all fulfilling the games' mission statement “to be the northern opportunity for community and sport development”.

It is a great honour for me to represent these communities in the great riding of Prince George—Bulkley Valley. I look forward to participating in the celebrations this week.

I ask my colleagues to join me in wishing them well in the most successful B.C. winter games.

[Criminal Code, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, when the Robin Sharpe decision was handed down, the nation was shocked. Society was shocked that the court, in its questionable wisdom in this case, determined in some perverse way that personal writings, musings, poetry or pictures about child pornography, about children in forms of sexual acts, somehow could be determined to have artistic merit. The government did not do anything about this. It still is not doing anything about this. Children wait for the government's protection.

[Criminal Code, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Wild Rose for his question. Since 1993 those cabinet members he mentioned have had an opportunity to stand up in the House on the side of the children of our nation and bring forward and support meaningful measures to protect those children against the perverts and the predators of our country. Sad to say, they have remained silent. Still we wait for the government to protect children from being at the hands of adults by acting to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. Surely it would be a common sense measure. We wait to see pedophiles and perverts who commit crimes against the children of our nation taken out of society so they can hurt no more. We wait for those sentences to become meaningful instead of being a matter of months. The entire nation is crying for these people to be taken out of our society. We wait for the government to understand, to get the message that pedophiles are basically incurable, that medical science has shown that clearly.

We wait for the government to add the names of the people already incarcerated for these terrible crimes to the sex registry, to change the legislation so that can be done to protect our children from these people who will come out and commit offences again, which they will. We wait. The former minister of finance has not helped the children of our country in this matter, nor have the minister of heritage or the deputy prime minister, none of them. Still we wait, and every moment that we wait, our children are still at risk.

[Criminal Code, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing in the bill, nothing, that deals with raising the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16. The Liberals have simply chosen to leave it out, once more standing on the side of adults in our society who would cause actions to have sex with children who are 14 years old.

Where in the bill do we find that the sentencing we have given to pedophiles in our country is made to become more meaningful? As the member for Calgary Northeast pointed out, the sentences for child pornographers, predators and pedophiles are not in the years that one would expect, that any sane person in this country would expect, for someone so depraved and perverted, someone we would want to take off of the streets for as long as we can. Months: that is the average sentence that a pedophile gets in this country for taking advantage of a child. Months, and nowhere in the bill is this addressed.

Where in the bill do the Liberals talk about changing their mind about the sex registry, the registry that is going to keep track of the perverts and pedophiles who have caused harm to our children, who are in jails now and who will be coming out, knowing full well that the recidivism of pedophiles is almost 100%, if not 100%? Where is the action to ensure that those people behind bars who are going to come out and commit again are in the national registry? It is not there. Once more the Liberal government is standing on the side of sexual perverts, pedophiles and predators and against the children of our nation. The actions of the government are disgusting.

We cannot support Bill C-20 in any way unless it is totally amended. We have put forward the amendments, not with much hope given the track record of the government, but it is time for all of us as parliamentarians, including those in government, to stand up for the children of this country and against the perverts of this country.

[Criminal Code, February 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that I am pleased to be debating Bill C-20, which the government purports to be a bill that would protect our children from perverts and predators, the pedophiles of our nation, but as we saw just a few short moments ago the government has no intention of protecting our children from the likes of predators or perverts who would prey upon our children. The Liberals sat in their seats and denied our member for Calgary Northeast from putting forward a purely common sense private member's bill by making it votable.

We sat and watched several ministers vote against making a bill votable which would have added an undeniable measure of safety to the children of our nation. It was a shameful act. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and the President of the Treasury Board should be hanging their heads in shame today, as should their Liberal colleagues who refused the children an undeniable, extra measure of safety against the sick and perverted actions of pedophiles. Shame on them.

I am honoured that I can speak on behalf of the children of our nation. As my colleague from Okanagan--Coquihalla said earlier so eloquently, and has said on many occasions, if the government cannot, or will not in this case, protect the children from predators, then it forfeits the right to govern our nation. No words could be truer, particularly in the case of the Liberal government which has chosen, by its action or its inactions, so many times in dealing with this issue to stand firmly on the side of predators and perverts and against the children. Shame on it.

One has to ask the question, and that is what this debate is all about, do the children of our families have an undeniable right to be protected from pedophiles and perverts who roam the streets? The answer is yes, of course. Does the government have an undeniable responsibility to ensure absolute protection of the children from predators and perverts who roam the streets? The answer to that is yes.

The Liberal government has already made its position clear. Do we as a society believe that pedophiles should have rights under the law that they could use to take advantage of and pursue their perverted activities against the children of our nation? No, but the government allows them to. Time and time again we have stood in the House and demanded that the Liberal government bring in some legislation that reflects what the people are thinking in regard to this disgusting and perverted act of pedophilia or child pornography.

Time and time again we have stood up here and time and time again the government has stood on the side of pedophiles by its inaction. Yes, that is a strong statement. Of course it is, but the government is guilty by its inaction. The government has brought in Bill C-20, supposedly to add a measure of protection for children. Where in the bill, after our years of calling on the government to act, is the mention of raising the sexual consent age limit from 14 to 16? It is not there.

Who in their right mind could imagine that an adult having sex with a child of 14 years is in any possible way acceptable? Who in their right mind could believe that there could be a reasonable argument not to raise the sexual consent level from age 14 to age 16? Who in their right mind could stand up in the House, as some of the Liberal members have done, and say that this is something that is very complex, that we may find ourselves offending some people of different cultural backgrounds who may have differences of opinion?

A 14 year old is a child. This is Canada. Have the values of our country fallen so far into a pit of hell that there are people in the House who can imagine that a sexual act between an adult and a child of 14 can somehow be rationalized?

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice finds this amusing. Sir, it is not amusing.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, January 30th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to talk about Bill C-13.

My party has a lot of concerns about Bill C-13. My colleague from Nanaimo—Alberni has pointed out a lot of concerns and why our party would not support the use of embryonic stem cells in research. He has pointed out the alternatives and the medical scientific breakthroughs that have been made in adult stem cell research.

I want to mention some more concerns that we have. First, there are some things in the bill that we do agree with. For example, the bill does point out that the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction must be given priority. We certainly would support that.

We support the bans on reproductive or therapeutic cloning, chimeras, animal-human hybrids, sex selection, germ line alteration, the buying or selling of embryos and paid surrogacy.

We support an agency to regulate the sector, although we want changes to it that we believe are necessary.

There has probably not been a bill put to this House in the last several years that has caused me to receive more mail in my office than the issue of stem cell research. I can say that the citizens of Prince George—Bulkley Valley have overwhelmingly expressed their opposition to embryonic research over the past several months and have asked me to speak on their behalf in the House of Commons.

Embryonic research is a very ethically controversial proposal and type of medical research. It is dividing Canadians. We have witnessed that in the House with the different views of members of Parliament supposedly speaking on behalf of their ridings. We have seen the numerous petitions that have been tabled in the House calling for ethical stem cell research.

It has been pointed out by my colleagues and in petitions that embryonic stem cell research inevitably results in the death of the embryo, which is the death of early human life. For many Canadians, this practice would violate the ethical commitment to respect human dignity, integrity and life.

There is an incontestable scientific fact that supports the statement that an embryo is early human life. It states that the complete DNA of an adult human is present at the embryonic stage. Whether that life is owed protection is one of the issues we want to talk about today and one of the issues that should be present in this entire debate.

Embryonic research also constitutes an objectification of human life where human life in a way can become a tool that can be manipulated and destroyed for other ethical ends. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are a safe, proven alternative to embryonic stem cells. My colleague from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island has spoken about that at length.

There are innumerable sources of adult stem cells such as skin tissue, bone tissue, and umbilical cord blood. There is no shortage of a source for adult stem cells. We must question why some in Parliament and some in the medical community appear so determined to pursue embryonic stem cell research when adult stem cells are so readily accessible and have been proven to be beneficial in research.

Adult stem cells are not subject to immune rejection and pose minimal ethical concerns. Embryonic stem cell transplants are subject to immune rejection because they are foreign tissue. Adult stem cells used for transplants typically are taken from one's own body.

Adult stem cells are being used today in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, leukemia, MS and many other conditions, and are working very well in that type of treatment. Conversely I must point out that embryonic stem cells have not been used in the successful treatment of a single person. Given a lot of these facts, one must wonder why this drive to get into embryonic stem cell research is so ongoing.

In our minority report from the health committee we called for a three year prohibition on experiments with human embryos corresponding with the first scheduled review of the bill. It should be pointed out that the government disregarded many of the points that were made in the health committee in order to put forward Bill C-13.

When we look at the bill we see many things that were left out. Amendments pertaining to the regulatory agency have not been included in Bill C-13. The health committee recommended many things like an end to donor anonymity. That has been left out of the bill. Our minority report said that where the privacy rights of the donors of human reproductive materials conflict with the rights of children to know their genetic and social heritage, the rights of the children should prevail. That was not included in the bill. When the issue came up during the review, the Liberals defeated our amendment to end anonymity in a six to five vote, so there was a split among the government members.

The bill supposes to support the health and well-being of children born through assisted human reproduction and that must be given a priority. We do support that. We support continued research using adult stem cells in medical research and treatment, as we have seen it being successful now.

However, our party cannot support Bill C-13 as it stands. We have amendments that we will be putting forward at different stages of the bill and we trust that the Liberals and the other members of the House will see the wisdom in our amendments and support them.

[Criminal Code, January 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I sat here listening to the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys and I join in her comments in describing in excellent terms how serious a problem Canada is facing in dealing with child pornographers and the whole issue of child pornography.

I have been watching the government members on the other side. Judging from their disinterest in the debate, we would think that we were discussing actuarial tables of the Canada pension plan or some other dry subject. We are talking about protecting the children of this land.

I wish to ask the member for Kamloops, Thompson and Highland Valleys about the total lack of attention, the disinterest that the government has shown on the whole issue of child pornography. Even members who should be most connected to the bill have little regard for the debate today. Is it just the arrogance on behalf--

[Prebudget Consultations, December 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that is an old trick used by the Liberals as well. As a matter of fact one that they have become famous for.

Here is another thing they do. When they are talking about how much they put into a particular program, they will grab numbers from three and four years ago that have already been accounted for, add them into a pittance, and say they have recognized that this is an important program and that they are putting all this money into it. The fact is they have already put some into it previously.

The estimate is that government spending would increase by $37.5 billion over the next five years. The government still, since 1993, does not have its spending priorities right. It does not have its fiscal management right. It does not have its departmental operations right.

I ask the question again, who in Canada can trust the government with their money?