Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. While the member for Mississauga West may have taken a Playboy magazine to school, I can assure you that none of our members did. He should retain the exclusivity of that.
Won his last election, in 2011, with 56% of the vote.
Supply June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. While the member for Mississauga West may have taken a Playboy magazine to school, I can assure you that none of our members did. He should retain the exclusivity of that.
Supply June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sure you will agree that the comment just made by the member opposite regarding the health problems that the member for Wild Rose has are no part of this debate. It certainly served no interest for him to make that comment. I would ask him to withdraw it.
Foreign Affairs June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, let us stay with the point of the issue. The fact is that the Minister of Finance and the former minister of defence signed off and agreed to a $1.5 billion loan guarantee for the sale of these nuclear reactors when their own department officials gave sworn affidavits that the details of those contracts never reached the minister's department.
I ask the minister, why did the finance minister and this cabinet approve a $1.5 billion loan guarantee to China for the reactors without first reviewing the arrangements?
Foreign Affairs June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, the Minister for International Trade has just told the House that AECL and EDC have all the responsibility for putting together this nuclear reactor deal with China. He even went so far as to say they did all the contract and all the financing. He knows very well that the AECL and the EDC do not have the authority to authorize a $1.5 billion loan guarantee to finance those.
How on earth could this government give that loan guarantee? How could the finance minister give a loan guarantee without even looking at the contracts or the details of the sale? How could he do that?
Judges Act June 3rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, the Liberals hate to hear the truth. I was talking about things that go on in the prisons which tie into the judicial system. Pornography is rampant in prisons but according to the Liberals that is okay because prisoners need some form of entertainment within the prison system.
We could never support the bill until the Liberal government put some form of accountability into the legislation to deal with the insane decisions of some judges. If the Liberals are serious about fixing things in the justice system, why do they not fix the things that are wrong and not give the judges more money?
I will not support the bill. My colleagues will not support it. No one in their right mind—
Judges Act June 3rd, 1998
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-37. I would like to say right off the bat that I am in absolute opposition to this bill as are my colleagues but perhaps for different reasons.
My reasoning is that nowhere in this government's philosophy, nowhere in any type of justice legislation it has brought down pertaining to judges and the judiciary have I ever seen the word accountability. The fact is there is zero accountability for judges in this country. There is no effective mechanism that this government or the previous Tory government have put in or would be prepared to use to remove judges from the bench.
In many cases in their fuzzy logic they have let violent criminals walk out of the courtroom with little or no penalty. Judges have used the conditional sentencing law that the Liberal government brought down in the most insane ways we could possibly imagine. Judges have continually bewildered our society with some of the decisions that have been made in this country.
I can give the example of something which is near and dear to my heart, the issue of people who choose to drink and then to get into their cars, drive and kill people. Judges have a latitude of sentencing from zero to 14 years. Historically the sentences have been on the low side of three and a half years.
There is no way to hold these judges accountable for the insane decisions they make. Now this government has the audacity to bring in Bill C-37 to give them more money. The insane legislation in Bill C-37 takes no back seat to some of the insane decisions that are made by the judges in this country. They do it and there is no accountability. Before this House begins to even consider any type of salary increase or a compensation increase for judges, the government had better darn well do what it should do. It should bring in some legislation that will make judges accountable before it even considers giving them a single cent more.
Then they have the audacity to suggest an 8.3% increase over two years plus they want to talk about annuities, payments and survivor benefits. It is very clear these are the very people who are setting the bad guys free after the RCMP have worked their butts off to get them to court. The RCMP are getting little or nothing by way of salary increases, the ones who do all the work, only to see all their work for naught because the bad guys are set free by some judge with some fuzzy logic in his head about what his or her definition of justice is.
Never in my lifetime would I ever support this package on Bill C-37 until there was an ounce of accountability brought in by this Liberal government. Never.
I want to get off judges for a minute and talk about the way this Liberal government deals with the justice system or, as my colleague from Prince George—Peace River said quite appropriately, the legal system in this country.
All over this country people are upset about the legal system and is it any wonder when we look at the Liberals in government and the Tories before them. A good percentage of them were lawyers anyway in their past life. Not their real life; they say their past life. Why would they do anything else but support their friends who are still in the system out there? That is what they have done.
The legal system, the so-called justice system we have in this country is not doing what it is supposed to do. It is not protecting society. It is not punishing the bad guys. It is feeding the coffers of the legal people who make a very good living defending the scoundrels who come before the judges. They are very good at it and they charge lots of money. Why would a government want to do anything to hurt its buddies out there in the legal business?
This government should be making the number one priority in the criminal justice system the protection of law-abiding citizens and the protection of society. That is what it should be doing. The former Minister of Justice, now the disgraced Minister of Health, said in this House last year that the number one criteria in the justice system is the rehabilitation and reintegration of criminals back into society.
That made us all sleep well that night. It made Canadians feel really good that the Liberal government was looking after the safety of their homes, the safety of their streets, the safety of their families, the safety of their wives and their husbands. It gave them a really empty feeling inside that they were not living in a safe society and they had little hope of it because the Liberal government under the former Minister of Justice had no concern about the safety of their streets and their families.
Government members would do well to listen to Canadian people instead of their lawyer friends out there in legal land. They would do well to get out in the street and talk to the people instead of drinking cappuccino with their lawyer buddies in the restaurants beside the law courts. They would do well to listen to the real people out there. If they did they would start to address some issues where there is a huge void.
Let us talk about our prison system. In case anybody does not know, a prison is a place where bad guys go when they are incarcerated to pay a penalty for committing crimes. That is what prisons are supposed to be for. Prisons are not supposed to be places where there are prisoners' unions which tell the warden what kind of meals or what kind of recreation prisoners should have.
I understand that people are not supposed to have drugs in prisons. Safeguards are supposed to be in place to make sure drugs do not get into prisons. Canadians know that many times it was the drugs they obtained outside prison that got them into prison in the first place.
Logic would tell us that if there were no drugs inside the prisons people might get better. They might be rehabilitated so they could somehow go back into society. Drugs put them there. Liberals have a hard time making that connection: drugs put them there so let us give them more drugs so that when they get out they will be better citizens. They do not stop the flow of drugs. They say they will give the poor guys in there clean needles so they can use their drugs in a safer fashion and condoms so they can have sex—
Nunavut Act June 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order.
It is abundantly clear that law-abiding firearm owners all across this country want to—
The Late Robert Lorne McCuish June 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, as the member of parliament for Prince George—Bulkley Valley, I knew Lorne McCuish. I met him in 1965 when I joined the Kinsmen club and I feel privileged to pay tribute to our departed former member of parliament who served Canadians from 1980 to 1988 in my riding of Prince George—Bulkley Valley.
Lorne moved to Prince George in the early 1950s after serving with the RCAF in World War II. From there he launched his career as an independent insurance adjuster. Lorne was a tireless worker in the community, having worked for many charity organizations and service clubs, including the Kinsmen club where we met. Lorne's volunteer efforts played a huge role in the building of Prince George into the great city it is now, a great place to live.
He was an alderman for the city of Prince George from 1973 to 1977. During that time he gave freely of his time and energy to help in the planning of the emerging city of Prince George and all the infrastructure that was to come to make it the great city it is.
His integrity and devotion to work were an example to all. Lorne made in his career and in his life many friends and acquaintances. He will be missed by those friends and acquaintances and of course by his family members.
On behalf of the riding of Prince George—Bulkley Valley and the Reform Party of Canada, I send our sincerest condolences to his family and friends and express our gratitude to Lorne McCuish for his many services to Canadians as he served the riding of Prince George—Bulkley Valley.
Parks Canada Act June 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
I think that maybe it would be appropriate for the member for Yorkton—Melville to tell us the substance of his petitions in order that we can make—
Committees Of The House June 2nd, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that everyone in the House can support this issue. I hope the Liberal government will take those steps to ensure that our veterans who were enslaved in camps in Hong Kong during the war will be adequately recognized and compensated. That compensation will be claimed from the country of Japan.
I ask the member if he could give us an explanation as to why Canada has not acted on this issue prior to now. Why does it take until 1998 for a government, whether current or previous, to act on this very important issue?