Garry Breitkreuz

[Points of Order, September 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, in my question I was referring to an evaluation that was done in April. When the Solicitor General gave me his response, he had the impression that this evaluation was done previous to the action plan that was raised in February. I wanted to clear the record. The action plan was done before the report I was referring to was even released.

[Points of Order, September 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to correct the Hansard record from yesterday's question period.

In response to my question, the Solicitor General said at page 7749 of Hansard :

If he would read the most recent evaluation, and read it appropriately, he would see that the evaluation was done back last spring. We announced an action plan after that.

The Minister of Justice and the Solicitor General tabled their action plan for the gun registry on February 21, 2003, and I can table that. I have a copy of their news release right here as well, or the Speaker can also find the announcement in the minister's statement on pages 3867-8 of Hansard for that day.

The Department of Justice Canada Firearms Centre evaluation I referred to yesterday in my question is dated April 2003. I have a copy for the Speaker as well.

Obviously the 90 problems with the gun registry identified in the evaluation have not been addressed by the minister's action plan because that was tabled two months earlier. The action plan was tabled before, so the Solicitor General's statement in question period simply was not true. There is enough confusion about the gun registry. I simply want to correct the record.

[Privilege, September 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I think most people listening to this are probably more confused than they were before the hon. minister rose to try to answer the question, because it is very clear, on page 88, that this is a new appropriation.

I want the Speaker to rule on this in the context of, and I think this is the key question here, will this amount in vote 7a be treated procedurally as new money? I believe that is what you have to rule on, Mr. Speaker. In other words, will we be allowed to oppose this amount on the last allotted day? That is what we need to know. Will the members of the justice committee be allowed to reduce this amount if that is in fact the case? I am sure the government will have some kind of opinion on this as well.

The other thing I would like to add is that what the minister has just said only applies to schedule 2 departments and agencies, according to our research. I do not believe the Solicitor General or the justice department is a schedule 2 department. It only applies to agencies such as the CCRA or Parks Canada, things like this.

That is what I would like to advise the Speaker of in addition to what the minister has just said in reply. It is pretty clear to me that in the supplementary estimates (A) this $10 million under the heading of “New Appropriations” is clearly there and it is not a $1 amount.

[Privilege, September 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Solicitor General misled this House and impeded my ability to function as a member of Parliament.

Yesterday the President of the Treasury Board tabled supplementary estimates (A) in this House. On pages 13 and 88 of the supplementary estimates it is stated, “Canadian Firearms Program New Appropriation $10,000,000”.

Later in the day in response to a question during question period, the Solicitor General said, and I am quoting from page 7705 of Hansard :

We are not, through these supplementary estimates, asking Parliament for one more cent for the firearms program. Not one more cent. The money is not new money. The money was approved by Parliament and the money is within the spending targets that we announced earlier.

If the Solicitor General is right, then the supplementary estimates are wrong. If the Solicitor General is right, then Parliament is going to be voting for the same money twice. This cannot possibly be.

Page 22 of the supplementary estimates (A) clearly states, and I quote:

Vote 7a

Canadian Firearms Centre--Operating expenditures--To authorize the transfer of $84,840,694 from Justice Vote 1, Appropriation Act No. 2, 2003-2004 for the purposes of this Vote and to provide a further amount of ...$10,000,000.

I repeat, “to provide a further amount of $10,000,000”. Do the words “further amount” not mean new money?

The Solicitor General's statement yesterday put in question the status of a particular item in the estimates. That status, as the minister described it, would prevent members from proceeding in what I would consider the normal process for considering the supplementary estimates.

Its status has a significant impact on my role as a member of Parliament. All members of the House need to know if they can treat this item as a typical item in the supplementary estimates, namely, whether or not members can (a) reduce this amount at committee, (b) oppose the item on the last allotted day in the supply period and (c) include it as the subject matter of a supply motion in the context of “new money”.

On page 733 of Marleau and Montpetit it is stated:

Supplementary Estimates often include what are known as “one dollar items”, which seek an alteration in the existing allocation of funds as authorized in the Main Estimates. The purpose of a dollar item is not to seek new or additional money, but rather to spend money already authorized for a different purpose. Since “estimates” are budgetary items, they must have a dollar value...the “one dollar” is merely a symbolic amount.

Vote 8a on page 88 of the supplementary estimates is a symbolic dollar amount. Vote 7a, Canadian Firearms Centre operating expenditures, is not a symbolic one dollar amount, but a $10 million amount. When the Solicitor General said the $10 million was “not new money”, he misled me, every member of this House, the media and the general public.

The Speaker will recall that we went through the same song and dance last year when the supplementary estimates were tabled. No one, not even you or your staff, Mr. Speaker, could figure out how much we had voted on in the 2002-03 main estimates. Even Treasury Board officials had to ask the justice department.

But this year is different. When the main estimates were tabled on March 27, 2003, we were assured that they included the entire $113.1 million annual budget for the Canadian firearms program. This as the total program spending was approved by Parliament when the main estimates were approved in June. The Solicitor General's statement that it is “not new money” defies common sense, because it means that we would now have to vote for another $10 million that we already voted for last June.

Finally, if the Solicitor General's interpretation of the supplementary estimates is correct, how many of the other 24 “new appropriations” totalling $5.5 billion fall into the same category? Is the $10 million for the firearms program the only one that is not “new money”?

In the 17th century, the pre-eminent English judge Sir Edward Coke described the House as the general inquisitors of the realm. Ever since then it has become customary to refer to the House as “the grand inquest of the nation”.

Page 697 of Marleau and Montpetit describes the direct control of national finance as the “great task of modern parliamentary government”. On page 225 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , he describes contempt as “an offence against the authority or dignity of the House”.

An attempt to fool members into believing that the $10 million in vote 7a is not new and therefore subject to scrutiny or reduction is an affront to the dignity of the House and disrespectful to its role as “the grand inquest of the nation” and its so-called “great task” of controlling the public purse.

To perform these fundamental functions the House has always insisted on accurate and truthful information. That is why the making of misleading statements in the House must be treated as contempt.

Yesterday the Solicitor General clearly misled the House.

I am prepared to move the appropriate motion should the Speaker rule that the matter is a prima facie case of privilege.

[Firearms Program, September 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I ask you and all Canadians to read page 22 and then find out who is telling the truth.

Eight provinces refused to prosecute for gun registry offences. Two-thirds of Canadians do not support this billion dollar boondoggle. Even the justice department found 90 major problems in its most recent evaluation.

Last week the government refused to answer this question, so I will ask the minister once again, how much will it cost to fully implement the gun registry, including fixing all of those 90 problems, and how much will it cost to maintain it?

[Firearms Program, September 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Solicitor General misled the House. He said there was no new money for the gun registry, but the supplementary estimates show a new appropriation of $10 million.

Can the Solicitor General explain why he misled the House yesterday?

[Supply, September 23rd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the minister being in the House and for realizing that this is a very important issue.

I raised the issue previously as to how this is critical and needs extreme urgency in dealing with it. Many cow-calf operators in Saskatchewan will be taking their feeders to market in October. I think the minister has rightly analyzed the fact that there are politics behind a lot of this.

I do not think it is a secret that our relations with the U.S. are probably not what they should be and that we need to establish a very good working relationship with it so that when an incident like this comes up it will not become the full blown crisis that it has.

I would like to know what the minister is doing to ensure that the Prime Minister and the future prime minister will do all they can to get back to a good working relationship with the U.S.

I know the senators in the U.S. right now are getting a lot of votes because they can use this poor relationship that has kind of developed over the Iraq situation, poking our nearest neighbour in the eye when it was not necessary, as a way of continuing to get votes from their cow-calf producers by keeping the border shut because they are making huge profits there and we of course are on the opposite end of this.

However we also have the Japanese. Is it not true that we did not let them come in and review what we were doing with regard to safeguarding health here in Canada and that we do not allow them to export products here? Could this situation not be resolved, a situation that has been ongoing for seven years. They can use that as an excuse not to let the U.S. export to Japan and that is a way to leverage the U.S. into keeping the Canadian border shut. To me, that is another part of the dynamics that are at play here and part of the politics.

I come back to my original premise, that this is urgent. This has to be dealt with immediately. All these situations are intertwined to create the dilemma we are in right now. Would the minister concur with this and what is she going to do to rectify it?

[Supply, September 23rd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this motion being brought forward today. It is timely and it is absolutely necessary. I appreciate the remarks that have been made.

I just want to relay a little about the situation in my area and underscore the urgency of this, and I will ask the member opposite who just spoke if she would concur that this is an extremely urgent matter and that sometimes that is not grasped here in Ottawa.

In my area grains farming is the backbone of the agricultural economy. As most people realize, in the last decade or so grains have not done well, so many farmers have supplemented their income with cow-calf operations. Those feeders, those calves that will come off those operations, will come off these farms about October or November. That is when the crunch will really hit. If there is no market for them somewhere, such as south of the border where they traditionally have gone, that will become an extreme emergency situation.

Does the member opposite feel that the people here in Ottawa, including the Prime Minister, realize the extreme urgency of this?

I cannot underscore this enough. I get phone calls every day from people saying, “Garry, will you please do something”. They have said that they absolutely need that cash flow, that they need a place to take these feeders and that because of the drought, they do not have feed to feed them and they will starve.

I do not know what we can do but we have to impress on our Prime Minister and all concerned the urgency of this. Would the member concur?

[Firearms Registry, September 19th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it has been nine months since the Auditor General blew the whistle on the billion dollar gun registry. The minister promised that he would be more open and transparent and that he would provide a full accounting of the costs, but he has done neither.

I ask the minister who is in charge of this mess for the umpteenth time: How much will it cost to fully implement the gun registry and how much will it cost to maintain it?

[Petitions, September 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the third petition is in regard to the defence of marriage. The petitioners point out that it is the duty of Parliament to ensure that marriage, as it always has been known and legally affirmed in Canada, be preserved and protected. They petition Parliament to use all possible legislative administrative measures, including invoking section 33 of the charter if necessary, to preserve and protect the current definition of marriage.

The fourth petition is very similar to the third. The only difference is that it calls upon Parliament to hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage, to reaffirm it as it did in 1999 and to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman.