Dick Harris

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it would not take me long to talk about the good management of the government because there is precious little to talk about.

The member is quite right when he talks about the neglect of the Liberal Party in being here to engage in substantive debate. Last night was just another example.

The Liberals are gone now, but the fact is that we had 25 members here to prevent a procedural trick the Liberals tried to pull this morning. That is why we were absent for a short time from the committee meetings, but when the trickery of the Liberal Party and the House leader was exposed and defeated our members diligently went back to the committees where they are now. They are keeping the Liberals accountable for everything they do.

We do not care if it is three to nine on a particular committee. I say once again three Reformers can easily handle nine Liberals on any committee. We could actually bring some back and handle them on committee.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the deputy whip of the Liberal Party got her information. At the justice committee as we speak and as it has been for quite some time now, there have been three Reform members present which 100% of our membership in that committee. But apparently there are only about three Liberals there and that is 33% of their membership of that committee.

Let me tell the hon. deputy whip of the government what the subject is this morning. The subject is victims rights. Surprise, it has taken two years for the Liberals to start talking about victims. This is one of the points I made in my speech. After the motion passed in this House, two years later they decide just maybe we should have a little committee talk about this victims rights issue. With all due respect to the deputy whip, the MADD organization is there to talk about victims rights. It would love to come to the justice committee and talk about impaired driving. But nothing is being done to allow that by this government.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure the members who just ran in came to hear the rest of my speech. I thank them for showing up today.

I will address some of the points made by the member for Bourassa where he incorrectly accused the opposition parties for not showing up for committee meetings. He will find out if he looks because it is documented that many times in this session the chairman of the Indian affairs committee could not get a meeting together because not enough members from her own party showed up to make quorum.

Therefore the committee meetings had to be cancelled or delayed. I think it is astonishing that the government itself cannot get enough of its own members to a committee meeting.

This whole thing is about the government's having respect for the opposition, for the points the opposition party has made and I want to talk about two very good examples. There may be some heads hung over there as I remind them of how they have shown their contempt for decisions that were made in this House.

I start with a motion put forward concerning the victims bill of rights. This was brought into the House in the last parliament. It was debated and voted on and it was carried unanimously in this House, that the government would take steps to enact a victims bill of rights. Its own members voted for it. But to this day, and it is well over a year, there has been absolutely zero done by this government.

This was on a motion passed unanimously in this House two years ago. The government has done nothing to bring it into some sort of legislation. That is a slap in the face to the democracy that is supposed to go on in this House and it is certainly a slap in the face to the millions of Canadians who were supporting in their own way a victims bill of rights, certainly to victims of crime when a government will not deal with a bill that has been passed in this House. Its refusal to deal with that bill was another example of its contempt for the opposition parties and the ideas that we bring forward in this House.

I want to deal with another matter dear to my heart, the Reform supply day motion that called on the government to examine all areas of the Criminal Code that dealt with the crime of impaired driving in order to enhance deterrence and ensure that the penalties for this very serious crime reflected the seriousness of the crime. That motion was debated in the House. It was passed unanimously. A minister of the government made amendments.

He made an amendment that would send it directly to the justice committee and also another amendment that instructed the justice committee to deal with this whole issue and report back to this House with appropriate legislation as a result of its findings by May 15, 1998. There was a mix-up when it was reported in Journals . We approached the government and this was cleared up on a Speaker's ruling.

The government has totally disregarded the will of this House. It still has not dealt with that motion. The chairman of the justice committee as I understand, and I wonder how much power chairmen of committees have, has been telling the government that she will not handle this motion. This was a motion that was passed in this House and sent directly to the justice committee with a timeline directive and the justice committee chairman has told the government and this House and all the people in Canada concerned about the serious crime of impaired driving that she simply will not deal with it, notwithstanding what has happened. That is astonishing.

This is another example of the disdain and contempt of this Liberal government that allows her to get away with this. We still do not know when the justice committee is going to deal with the issue of impaired driving in this House. We go on waiting for it to change the Criminal Code to try and stop the epidemic of impaired driving.

Every single day that has been wasted by this Liberal government, statistically four and a half people have been killed in this country by impaired drivers.

In the six or seven months since this motion was passed about 50,000 people have been injured by impaired drivers. The government still refuses to deal with that issue. That is another example of the disdain of this government and the contempt it holds for the opposition parties. It does not understand democracy.

The member opposite who just spoke said that the first thing she learned in this House was the democratic fashion and the way it operates. I suggest that the first thing she learned was to do exactly what her whip told her to do.

Obviously some Liberal members are going to be taken to task for not doing exactly what they were told to do last night, not to mention the deputy whip. I will not dwell on that. She is the one who is really in trouble today.

We in the Reform Party find a lack of attention given to issues we represent. We are a federal party and represent Canadians not only who voted for us in our ridings but across this country from coast to coast. We bring those issues before this House to be dealt with, we trust, by the government in a sensitive and intelligent manner.

We do not come to this House to frivolously debate issues that make no sense. We bring very serious issues to this House only to speak to empty chairs opposite because this government has no interest in showing up for debate unless it has to speak. There might be one.

We can go on and talk about closure and time allocation. Closure is simply put in by this government because it does not want to hear any more. It never wanted to hear from the opposition in the first place and it finally ran out of time on its agenda and so it implements closure.

We are here today because the Liberal government got caught last night doing what it does best, having no interest in the debate in this House. Apparently now the House leader for the government is lashing out at the opposition members and at the Reform Party which caught him by coming to this House like a petulant child and saying “we are going to get you, we are going to sit until 4 a.m.”.

That is fine with us because maybe now we will get some more time to debate the issues that are important to Canadians. We will be here until 4 a.m. and we welcome the Liberal members to join us en masse to have a good discussion about a lot of the issues that concern Canadians.

I know my time is just about up. Lots of members from the Reform Party are anxious to continue debate on this. I wish the deputy whip well today as she climbs out of her tight spot. I am sure she will.

By the way, we probably will be supporting this motion to extend hours because we think it gives us a lot of good parliamentary time to bring forth the issues that concern Canadians.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is actually amusing to watch the Liberals' response to the motion put forward by their House leader earlier. The reason we are here today is that the Liberal government was caught in a very visible way last night at a practice it has been doing since the 1993 election when the Liberals were elected as government. That practice has been to continually show utter contempt and disdain for the opposition parties in this House. That has been shown very clearly on an ongoing basis by their lack of presence in the House.

In other words, what the Liberals were saying to the opposition parties as we debated issues that were important to all the people of Canada was that they simply did not care enough to be here. They do not care enough about what we are saying to even show up in the House. This is evidence today. We are debating the Liberals' own motion and there are only three Liberal members in the House.

I know where two of them are. The deputy whip is looking for a safe place to hide today, no doubt. The House leader is out on a massive pout trying to figure out how he can get even with those dastardly Reformers who caught them in the act last night of their utter contempt for this House of Commons and the opposition party.

The hon. member for Bourassa spoke so loudly earlier about the presence of one Reform member at many of the committee hearings. The simple answer to that is that one Reform member can handle six Liberals in debate any time of the week. Mr. Speaker, you will like this. One member of the Reform Party appropriately handled the entire Liberal government last night. One of us is worth a thousand of them.

The House leader certainly put forward this motion because the Liberals got caught last night. They got caught with no members in the House. Mr. Speaker, as you well know and could probably confirm, this is typical of what we see during debate most times. We see a goodly amount of opposition members while across the way we see no government members. We certainly see no ministers when we are talking about issues. That shows they do not really care about what the people of Canada who are represented by this side of the House have to say.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. If the hon. member is going to quote numbers, he should at least quote them accurately. As a matter of fact the Reform Party has three—

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Surely, the calling of hon. members in this House a bunch of clowns has to be unparliamentary language. I would ask the member to withdraw that statement.

[Business Of The House, June 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure that the whole House heard the hon. member accuse the Reform Party of a cover-up. I would like him to either explain what he meant or withdraw that comment.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I think it is very irresponsible of this government, of any government, to take a position of picking and choosing which court decisions it is going to challenge.

In every law of this country that is changed unilaterally by a judicial board or a supreme court, if in their decision they rewrite the law, it is the obligation and responsibility of the government of the day, whatever government it is, to challenge that rewriting of the law. The government must say clearly to the courts “In case you have forgotten, it is not your position to rewrite the laws. It is our position. Therefore we will take up the challenge. We will challenge that decision. In fact, at the end of the day when we have successfully won that challenge, we will then take your decision as a recommendation and an urging for us to deal with it in the House of Commons and the Parliament of Canada”. That is the position the government should be taking.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion the role of judges is certainly not to rewrite the law. The role of judges is to examine the Criminal Code as we see it, to examine the Constitution as we see it and to make recommendations to the Parliament of Canada as to their opinion as to whether there is validity in the points of concern for them. They make recommendations and urge the Parliament of Canada to consider making changes in the areas that they feel are necessary. That is the role of the judiciary in my opinion when it comes to the Constitution and the Criminal Code.

We can never allow the courts of this country to make new laws. That is our job. If we do not fulfil that responsibility, then we should not be here.

[Supply, June 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on this supply day motion.

Let me start out by saying that although I am not surprised I am somewhat disappointed that some members of the Liberal Party have lost sight of the issue we are debating today. They have chosen not to put forward substantive debate backed up with sound thinking but have resorted to slander and vicious attacks on members of my party.

I point out particularly the Minister of State for Multiculturalism and the Status of Women who spoke earlier, the member for Kitchener—Waterloo, the member for Windsor—St. Clair and now most recently the member for Mississauga West.

If I had to choose a title for my debate today it would be just who is running the country anyway. I chose that title because I am often asked it as a member of parliament by constituents who have become aware of a seemingly insane or idiotic judicial decision been made somewhere in the country. The phone rings in my riding and I hear from a mad constituent who is asking “What on earth are you guys doing allowing judges to make decisions like that? I thought parliament was running the country. Just who is running the country?” That is the question which I think supports the supply day motion today.

In this supreme court decision we have a body of judges that was given the power through the 1982 constitution to undermine laws made in the Chamber. There was a time before the 1982 constitution when the House reflected democracy in a rather pure form. Representatives who came to the House were sent here by the people who elected them to represent the views of their people.

As I understand it, that is what a House of Commons or a parliament is for. Elected, accountable parliamentarians should be able to come to the House to debate and truly represent not only the people of their ridings but the overall feeling in society. Perhaps that is where some Liberal members have become confused. Maybe they have forgotten exactly what democracy is.

Through the constitution power and responsibility were passed on to judges to undermine laws that have been debated and set in the House. I accuse former Prime Minister Trudeau of making a provision in the constitution that forever allowed parliament to abrogate its responsibility to make decisions that may not be seen as popular by some factions in the country. He simply provided the tool through the constitution so that parliament did not have to do anything but sort of maintain the status quo, carry on and make decisions that can be called, at best, middle of the road, fence sitting type laws. That responsibility was given to the judiciary. It is wrong that judges should have the power to say to parliament that they will rewrite the law and at the stroke of a pen simply do that.

The case mentioned in the supply day motion today, the Rosenberg case, is an example of that as the member for Dewdney—Alouette pointed out so appropriately. This body of judges took a standing law of parliament and did not make a recommendation that in their opinion parliament should redress the particular law. They did not say that. They did not recommend or come up with a report that parliament should revisit and debate it. They unilaterally made a decision to rewrite a law which affects the lives of every Canadian living in the country. The judges rewrote it. It was not debated in the House. It was made by a small group of appointed, unelected and unaccountable people.

We as politicians, as representatives of the Canadian people, simply cannot allow that to happen. We can allow judges to interpret the law given their best judgment. We can allow judges to carry out the laws that were laid down in the House. That is their job. However we cannot allow judges to make new laws. That is job of the House.

The fears pointed out by the member for Mississauga West about how a majority of one party, a government, could simply run roughshod over parliament and the people of the country is actually a supportive position for a triple-E Senate.

That House in a true democratic fashion should be elected. It should have equal representation from all parts of the country, even the areas that simply have rocks and trees and a few people. It should be able to be effective in changing the views of this House which is represented by population. I thank the member for making our case on a triple-E Senate. If we got that, some of the fears that this member had would not be present.

This is not an isolated case of judges making laws. As the member for Calgary Centre pointed out, there are a number of different cases and he pointed to the Feeney case. Here was a case where the police were carrying out their job of catching the bad guys—which I think is what they are there for—and bringing them to justice. The supreme court ruled that they can no longer carry out their job in this fashion. They can no longer go into a place where they know there is substantive evidence to convict unless they get a special warrant. This has thrown the whole concept of police work into huge uncertainty.

This decision was made by a judge, not by this place. Not by the Parliament of Canada. As a result of this judge's decision, a person who was convicted of a savage murder is walking free. In some fuzzy logic of a judge's mind, this decision was made.

The court in the Delgamuukw case has taken upon itself the responsibility to deal with the aboriginal land claims in this country. It has to be the Parliament of Canada that does that, not a body of judges. The body of judges may make recommendations to the Parliament of Canada and urge the Parliament of Canada to deal with them. They cannot make decisions themselves.

We can talk about the Singh case, the immigration case regarding refugee hearings. This decision, made by an unelected, unaccountable board, a group of judges, caused a huge upheaval in the refugee system. It cost the taxpayers millions of dollars and created an untold backlog of cases because the courts, the judges, chose not to make recommendations but to change the law.

I hope the members opposite will see clearly the point of this debate. The debate is that it is the Parliament of Canada that must become and continue to be supreme in the law making of this country.