Dick Harris

[Telecommunications Act, November 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time. What my hon. member has just said, the word liberalizing really strikes terror in the hearts of fiscally conservative free enterprise reformers in this House.

Whenever they hear the words financial fund put forward in a bill by the Liberals, they just shudder at the thought that the Liberals are going to establish another lever to pull and use to pay off their Liberal friends, in particular in the communications business under this bill. I did not see the numbers on the fund, but given the history of the Liberal Party we can imagine that it is not pocket change.

We want to be sure that the Reform Party is on record as saying that we have always opposed grants and handouts to business, as the business council and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and every major business organization in the country have opposed grants and handouts to business. However, the Liberals choose to ignore this and establish yet another fund to use in a patronizing way to friends of the Liberal Party.

That is a comment which I think is quite in order in this debate today.

[Telecommunications Act, November 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of comments that concern us about this bill. I get back to the point that business has been wanting government to get out of its face and just let it do its business.

This bill in fact will give the CRTC, pertaining particularly to the telecommunications and communications business, more powers to restrict or issue licences based on what the CRTC believes it should be doing with its businesses, for example, how much Canadian content, how much Canadian culture and how their philosophy might fit with the applicant.

I find this particularly offensive when appointed bureaucrats are going to have such powers to wield over free enterprise business. Our party supports free enterprise.

The other comment I have is on the financial fund that is being set up. This is another opportunity for the government to expand its patronage program.

It is going to give Liberal MPs simply another avenue to dole out government grants to Liberal-friendly businesses in their ridings.

[Telecommunications Act, November 21st, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the hon. member and certainly there are parts of this bill which we can support. Perhaps overall it will improve the system. However, one of the things that really concerns us is something which has confounded Canadian business, especially the telecommunications business, and that is that this bill confers additional powers of jurisdiction to the CRTC.

Canadian business is asking the government to get out of its face and let it do business. We see sections of this bill which enable the government, via the CRTC, to get more into the face of Canadian business.

In view of the fact that Canadian business basically wants to say leave it alone to just do business in this country, create jobs and a healthy economy, this bill gives the CRTC more dictatorial powers which may serve to further confound the efforts of Canadian business.

I would like the hon. member to comment on this, please.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

Oh, one Liberal. That shows just how much the Liberal government is interested in what the people of Canada have to say. We are truly representing the farmers from the prairie provinces over which the Canadian Wheat Board has jurisdiction. It shows how much the Liberal government cares about representation on this side of the House on this very important issue.

We are talking about the livelihood of western Canadian grain farmers. We are talking about the livelihood of families. We are talking about the buoyancy of the economy in the prairie provinces. Those farmers depend on good prices for their product. They depend on good markets for their product.

In huge numbers they would like to have the ability to grow agricultural products and sell them without having the government in their face every step of the way and so that they get maximum value for the fruits of their labour.

This has to do with rights. We are talking about the right of Canadian citizens to work hard, to toil long hours at their occupation, which in this case is farming, and to expect the harder they work the more they will be rewarded. Is that too much to ask?

Bill C-4 takes away that right. It gives the Canadian Wheat Board more power to say to prairie farmers that it does not care how hard they work. It does not care how big their farm loans are. It does not care how many kids they have to educate. It does not care how many mouths they have to feed.

The government will tell them how much money they can make from what they do for a living. That is what it is telling prairie farmers by way of the bill. That is simply unacceptable. I am embarrassed for the Liberal member in the House today, who is not from the prairie provinces incidentally. The member sits and represents the government on this line of thought. It takes away our right to succeed as a result of our hard work and labour.

The government has been famous for being in the faces of Canadians and holding them back from success and opportunity. This is simply one more example of that.

[Canadian Wheat Board Act, November 20th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill. It appears the government is trying to ram through a bill that will strengthen the dictatorial powers of the Canadian Wheat Board and will give it a tremendous amount of power to operate within a scope that is pleasing to it.

I am not from a prairie part of the country, but it has always been my assumption that the Canadian Wheat Board had a responsibility to operate in the best interest of prairie wheat farmers. If this is the case certainly the bill we are debating today does not do that. It gives the Canadian Wheat Board the power to operate in the best interest of itself and of its political influence in the House.

The government of the day is dominated by members from the province of Ontario and other provinces that are not involved with the Canadian Wheat Board. They have a lot of authority in the debate and will have the power of the vote by sheer numbers. The government is influenced by a part of the country that has no particular interest in the Canadian Wheat Board because it does not apply to the growing of grains in those other provinces. They will ram through a bill that will impose a detrimental effect on wheat farmers on the prairies and in the west.

I have some personal knowledge of the operation of the Canadian Wheat Board. I return for a moment to the fact that it should be assumed the purpose of the Canadian Wheat Board is to get the best possible price for grain products for prairie farmers.

If that is the case it would only seem logical the wheat board would be willing to sell products on behalf of farmers in a manner that would be in the best interest of farmers, which means whoever approaches with a proposition that would bring a good price for the product.

From second hand experience I know that over the last three years the Canadian Wheat Board was approached to supply large quantities of barley and grain at the top level of pricing for the day. These were to be cash deals. There was no government to government financing involved. It was cash on the barrel head.

The Canadian Wheat Board would not supply the product. It would not take the products it had in the elevators and sell it through this additional source of marketing for cash money at a higher than average price.

To make matters worse, I have absolute knowledge that the sales offered to the Canadian Wheat Board never went through any of the other sources of established marketing of the Canadian Wheat Board. They were lost to other countries that supplied the same product to customers willing to pay cash to the Canadian Wheat Board, if it would sell it, but it would not sell it.

They not only lost several cash deals. They not only lost finding another source of marketing for their product in addition to what they already had. They not only lost the opportunity to have a clean sale with no government financing required. They lost the sale, period. It never happened. The purchase went to another country.

I have been in business all my life, not in the grain business but in business. If those in the private sector have a product to sell, they want to sell it where they get the best price for it, the cleanest deal and the best benefit for their business. Certainly that is not the case with the Canadian Wheat Board. It cannot be the case with the Canadian Wheat Board based on the examples I have expressed today.

It begs a question. How on earth could a government, which happens to be the Liberal government of the day and the Tory government before it, support an organization like the Canadian Wheat Board which has shown by example that it does not work in the best interest of prairie farmers?

I am happy to see there are Liberal members in the House today who have a direct interest in this matter and who have a responsibility.

[Dna Identification Act, November 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the bill today, an act to provide for the establishment of a national DNA databank.

The way to approach the topic is by clearly determining the obligation of the government when it comes to dealing with people charged with offences, people who commit offences and break the law.

The government has a responsibility in the area of public safety to do everything possible to ensure that families, communities and streets are safe places. While there are those who will argue the government has gone too far in its policing of our citizens, communities and neighbourhoods, a huge majority of Canadians do not believe the government has gone far enough in areas of providing policing and of giving municipal, city or regional police enough tools to fight crime. The government has not gone far enough in its commitment that victims of crime should be the number one priority of the criminal justice system. That is fact.

With regard to DNA testing no one in the country of any consequence in numbers has a problem with fingerprinting. Fingerprinting is an automatic act when one is charged with most crimes. It helps police forces to identify the person who has been arrested. It enables them to check the records to see whether the person is wanted on any outstanding warrants in another part of the country. It allows them to check the fingerprints against the record of fingerprints that may have been found at another crime scene. It serves as a very effective and useful tool in fighting crime.

The bill does not go far enough. I will speaker about that later. It is trying to take that identification tool one step further. I might add that the way science has determined the value and the accuracy of DNA is a tremendous step forward. It is not just another small step. It is a huge step forward in determining the absolute innocence or guilt of people charged with crimes. It works both ways.

Mr. Speaker, you are a person who appreciates the country and the safety of our communities. You regard the safety of communities as a number one priority. I am certain you cannot disagree, as members of the government cannot, that police forces should be given every tool they need to catch the bad guys. That is not a bad thing to do. I do not think anyone could disagree. That is what we want to do here. We want to catch the bad guys, the people who are committing crimes. We want to ensure that somebody who has been picked up on a lesser charge of robbery, for example, is identified upon arrest while awaiting trial. If the DNA identification of the person indicates that there is a DNA match in a more serious crime such as rape, assault or murder three or four years prior, the person is identified when arrested on a subsequent robbery charge, for example, if they were not caught the first time.

The last thing we would want to do is grant bail to a person arrested on a robbery charge, knowing that the police may be getting closer to solving a previous more serious crime and knowing the person could not identified because of no DNA testing. If the person skips out on bail it eliminates getting caught. We have to be careful of that.

I do not think it is too much to ask for the bill to become more encompassing as far as identification is concerned. I see no problem with an amendment to the bill that would include the taking of DNA samples in the same manner as we take fingerprints.

If the person were found not guilty, in answer to the NDP member, the DNA sample would be treated the same way as fingerprints when there is a request to have them destroyed. No one would deny that.

The bill provides automatic samples for a very primary list such as murder, sexual assault, et cetera. It requires application to court for a secondary list of what the writers of the bill and the Liberals could call less serious crimes.

We should amend the bill to include all people arrested for indictable offences. At the time they are arrested, DNA samples could be taken and used in the same way as fingerprints so that the cross-checking and identification can take place. We should amend the bill to cover this aspect of police work. If we do not do so we would be missing a huge opportunity. It is the time to do it. It is before the House now.

We should amend the bill to give it the teeth it deserves. It should be amended so that police forces are given the tools they need to do the job.

All of us want to see the safety of families, communities and the country as a high priority. It is our obligation as parliamentarians to ensure that community safety is foremost in the criminal justice system.

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend was quite right. This is not a popular position to take.

I am sure he need not look to the House because he knows where most MPs stand on that question. I suggest he look outside the House, out there to real people land where people are seeing travesties of justice being committed every day in our courts across the country by appointed judges who tend to reflect the philosophy of the government of the day, whether it be federal or provincial. That is where we are going wrong.

The former minister of justice of this government clearly said in this House, as recorded in Hansard , that the priority of the justice system shall be the rehabilitation and reintegration into society of people convicted of crimes.

I find that philosophy to be absolutely in contrast to what my party and I believe. It is also in profound conflict with what the Canadian people think. The philosophy of the former Minister of Justice is being reflected by judges day after day after day. Not only that, but current sentencing is reflecting the desire of provincial and federal governments to cut costs in the prison systems to the detriment of Canadians by not putting people who break the law in jail but rather turning them out so they do not have to pay the costs of keeping them.

There is a fundamental wrong here. When a person commits a crime there must be consequences. Life is all about choices. We make some choices that are good and we carry on with our lives. Some people make choices that are very bad and they must pay the consequences of that.

I tend to think—and we may get to this in the justice committee some time during this Parliament—that if there is a way to ensure that judges sitting on the bench have only one goal in mind and that is to ensure true justice is given in their decisions I hope we find it. I hope the hon. member will contribute to the process of reaching that goal.

What we have now does not work. I do not believe the appointing of judges is the right way to go. It does not reflect the will of the Canadian people. I do not buy for a moment that the Canadian people simply want vengeance or revenge, but they do want justice.

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his presentation today and for indicating that he will support this motion.

He asked if we could be doing more other than making penalties stronger. The fact is that we do quite a bit of educational work in schools and in the media. Some very effective advertising is being run on a constant basis. In particular as we approach the heaviest drinking season of the year, the ads will pick up considerably in an attempt to educate people to not drink and drive.

In spite of all we are doing now, the number of impaired drivers is still rising. The number of accidents and deaths is still rising.

What we are saying in the motion is that to complement what is being done in the education area, we have to consider the effect that stronger deterrents will have. As I stated earlier, if ever there was a case for deterrence, impaired driving is the case. Surveys have shown that the reason some people stop drinking and driving is because they fear being stopped by the police and being charged.

The reason some people continue to drink and drive is because they do not fear the charges. The charges are too light. They have no fear of having licence suspensions because they will drive anyway and a strong deterrent does not exist when they are picked up for driving under suspension.

Deterrence has a huge role to play. If we are going to examine the Criminal Code we must be prepared to examine the effect increased deterrence will have, as well as continuing on with the educational side of it and the treatment side of it.

I am a big advocate of mandatory treatment. When someone is imprisoned for a substance abuse problem whether it be alcohol or drugs, the judge must have the authority to impose mandatory treatment.

I hope I have answered my colleague's questions.

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to my colleague's questions about lowering the blood alcohol content limit, he is not correct. Many countries including Norway, France, Denmark, other European countries and some states of the U.S., have lowered it to .05 and there has been a marked decrease in the instance of impaired driving. It does work.

What causes an accident or what causes someone to be convicted of impaired driving is when they make the choice to get in a car. If ever there was a case for deterrence it is impaired driving, stronger deterrence. As a matter of fact studies have shown that the number one reason people who do not drink or do not drive when when they have been drinking is that they are afraid of getting stopped by the police and being found in that state. That is the number one reason.

In answer to the member's question, stronger deterrence overall should include first offence impaired driving, second offence licence suspensions, lifetime licence suspension and automobile confiscation. We have to send a message that it will not be tolerated, and the government can do it.

[Supply, October 30th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his support.

The .05 is a recommendation by MADD Canada. If the government will take the initiative, show leadership and instruct the committee to go forward with the hearings, the recommendation of .05, .03 or whatever could come forward. The rationale behind it would certainly be related to the committee and may show up in the report as .04 being the recommendation. I understand what he was saying, and I certainly agree with him.

To address the second question, the problem we have in the courts today is that there is a profound initiative to try to keep people out of jail. The courts are backed up. The prisons are full. The philosophy of provincial governments, under direction from the Minister of Justice, is not to put people in jail. Therefore we find that the judges are more open to hearing suggestions of lower sentences to qualify for the conditional sentencing provisions.

We find the judges more concerned with getting into the flow of what the attorney general of the province or what the justice minister of the country is thinking about keeping people out of jail. They seem to be more open to lenient sentences.

One way to fix it is to tighten up the latitude the judges have. They have a latitude now from 0 to 14 years. That is a huge range. We find people walking out of courts every day who have been charged with serious impaired driving offences, because the judges have simply said that they will be given two years less a day with no rationale. Immediately they qualify for conditional sentencing.

In a case in my area the judge erred in his decision. When the decision came down at 3.5 years I got on to the media saying the judge was out to lunch on his sentence. I stated all the reasons why.

We also encouraged the crown to appeal the sentence and the crown did so successfully. Lo and behold all arguments the crown put forward in the appeal were the things I had said were wrong with the sentence.

As a result the court of appeal added two more years to the sentence. The fact is judges have the option of choosing to accept whatever precedent the defence lawyers are putting forward. In a majority of the cases they are choosing the precedents on the low end of the scale. We have to tighten them up and we can do it through minimum sentencing.