Garry Breitkreuz

[Ethics, May 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, after reviewing just a sampling of today's 70 news clippings on the subject, I must report to the House that the term Liberal ethics is an oxymoron.

After hearing these headlines the Liberals will likely try to shoot the messenger: National Post , “PM 'offended' Canadians”; Charlottetown Guardian , “PM didn't go far enough”; Montreal Gazette , “Money at the root of the rot”; Ottawa Citizen , “Federal cabinet is failing ethics 101”; Winnipeg Sun , “Leadership vote behind purges”; Toronto Star , “One reason PM finally acted: Rumblings about poor approval ratings”; Windsor Star , “Cabinet shuffle just a public relations stunt”; London Free Press , “Prime Minister's double standard”; Globe and Mail , “The arrogance of power”; Ottawa Sun , “PM's willingness to flaunt his integrity has done him in”; Edmonton Journal , “Prime Minister's con job” and “Open up fundraising books”; and Vancouver Sun , “What? Not again! How could you, Mr. Prime Minister?”

Mr. Speaker, I wish I had more than one minute. There are many more.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member should go back and check the records in his own department. He talks about a tiny fraction of errors, but through access to information we have already found out that over 90% of the registration certificates and applications that come in have errors on them. That is not exactly a tiny fraction.

The member says that firearms owners are responsible for making sure that the information is accurate. He should try to use the system some time. The frustration that firearms owners have with trying to get and convey accurate information is unbelievable.

The RCMP has confirmed that 42% error rate in registration applications, for the description of the firearms alone. That means that there are 222,000 firearms that have the same make and serial number.

This answer that I have been given makes a mockery of what we do in this place. It is just not right to have these kinds of so-called facts brought out.

It is just not working.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on April 23 the Minister of Justice must have misunderstood my question because he did not answer it. Consequently I ask it again.

The provinces have registered 18.1 million vehicles in Canada, each one with the owner's name on it. The justice department has spent $700 million to register only 3.3 million guns without the owners' names. How can the provinces get it so right and the justice department and the federal government get it so wrong?

The minister went on to brag and I would like to quote from his answer:

The registration, licensing and mechanisms are working quite well.

That is not a joke. That is what he said. This will come as a big surprise to police on the street who continue to ridicule the gun registry and all the bonehead mistakes made by the justice minister and his bureaucrats.

Everybody knows what happens when a police officer checks their driver's licence and vehicle registration. It will be interesting to see what will happen when a police officer checks someone with a gun in their car.

After confirming the identity of the driver of the car and matching it up with the firearms licence, the officer will turn his or her attention to the firearm in the vehicle. The driver will say he is going out to hunt gophers on a nearby quarter section of land. The officer will examine the firearms licence to determine if the hunter is authorized to be in possession of the type of firearm in the car.

Then the police officer will ask for the registration certificate and the hunter will produce the certificate because the law requires it. But the police officer will see that the firearms registration certificate does not have the registered owner's name on it so the officer will ask the hunter if it is his gun. When the driver answers yes or no, the police officer will have to check the computer system to see if the driver is telling the truth.

In this case the driver who is in possession of the firearm will tell the officer that he borrowed the rifle from his neighbour, which is perfectly legal as long as the rifle and registration certificate are together. In order to confirm that the driver is telling the truth, the police officer will be forced to go back to verify this information on the police computer system.

There are two possible outcomes to checking a gun registration certificate on a police computer system. The officer finds the record of the gun or he does not.

In scenario number one, because of the hundreds of thousands of errors in the registry, the officer will not find a record of the rifle in the registration system. The officer will seize the firearm until the ownership can be confirmed.

In scenario number two, the officer's check of the gun registry computers will confirm that the rifle is indeed owned by the hunter's neighbour. To be sure that the hunter is telling the truth, the officer will call the neighbour, but the registered owner of the gun will not be at home and the gun owner's wife will have no knowledge of the firearm being lent to the neighbour. To be on the safe side, the officer will seize the firearm until he can confirm the legal ownership of the firearm with the registered owner.

A week or two later this routine stop by the police officer will be successfully concluded when, first of all, the officer is finally able to sort out the computer errors and confirm that the firearm is in fact registered to the driver's neighbour or when it is confirmed that the hunter did in fact borrow the rifle from his neighbour.

In those scenarios the embarrassed police officer, who has wasted scads of police time checking out the perfectly legal lending of a firearm between two individuals and who has completely irritated and frustrated two law-abiding firearms owners, will be forced to return the perfectly legal firearm to the hunter he took it from and apologize for the mix up.

All this extra work will have been caused by not putting the name of the registered owner on the firearms registration certificate, one colossal bureaucratic blunder caused by politicians trying to meet impossible arbitrary registration deadlines.

Does anyone really think a police officer will go through this complicated, time consuming, useless process a second time? I do not think so.

[Protection of the Unborn Child, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it should be pretty obvious by the debate that has taken place and the 300 to 400 letters per day that I have received in support of my motion that the debate is not over. It should be obvious that the government's contention that the debate is over is absolutely not true. Before today's one hour debate is over we need to review a bit of the history on this life and death issue before we let it drop.

Prior to 1969 all abortions were illegal. From 1969 to 1988 Canada had a law in our criminal code providing for an abortion only when a therapeutic abortion committee of three doctors agreed that the continuation of the pregnancy would cause harm to the life or health of the mother and the word “health” was not defined or limited. In 1988 the supreme court struck down the abortion law as unconstitutional.

The supreme court ruling commonly referred to as the Morgentaler decision provided constitutional parameters for a new abortion law. Based on the instructions from the supreme court justices in 1990 the government of the day introduced, debated and passed Bill C-43 in the House of Commons but the bill was defeated by one vote in the Senate.

Since that time the government has not restricted abortions in any way and all unborn children have been without any rights. Since then more than one million babies have been aborted.

Most politicians were hoping the issue would just go away. I sensed that from the government again today. In 1988 the supreme court said that this was an issue best left to parliament. I say it is time for parliament to assume its responsibility.

Many key moral and legal issues such as reproductive technologies, rights of the unborn and a mother's duty of care for her unborn hinge on when the law says a child becomes a human being.

In May 1991 Bill C-43, an act respecting abortions, was debated in parliament. That was the last time there was any serious debate about the rights of the unborn in the House. That is a disgrace and it should change.

The unwillingness of the government to even debate or study the issue or to ask Canadians what they think about the issue is negligence on a grand scale. If the United Nations contends that babies need the government's protection before as well as after birth, then this 14 years of government neglect amounts to a clear case of criminal negligence.

Every time I raise this life and death issue in the House I am always asked what about a woman's right to her own body? It happened again today. People ask if approval of my motion results in a change in the definition of a human being in Canadian law, whose rights come first, the baby's or the woman's? I agree that everyone has a right to their own body until it interferes with someone else's right to their own body.

The problem is that under Canadian law the human being growing inside the woman has no rights until he or she has fully emerged from the birth canal. I maintain that at some point during the pregnancy the unborn baby's rights are equal to the woman's rights. Even the United Nations agrees that every unborn child has rights and that these rights need the protection of the Government of Canada.

Passing my motion would start a debate in parliament and in public to determine at what point during the pregnancy the helpless unborn child deserves some protection, any protection under law. Perhaps those who are heckling me right now would like to support my motion and start that debate rather than just heckle.

I respectfully request that the House give consent to refer this motion to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights so that parliament can hear what Canadians really think. I would like that to be done at this time. If consent is given I would be pleased to do that.

There are questions that face us right now. What is the unborn? Does the size of the human being matter? Does its level of development define its essence? Does its environment affect its humanity? Does its degree of dependency determine its value? Those are all questions that we should be talking about and it all hinges on this. That is why I am asking for consent to refer this motion to the standing committee.

[Protection of the Unborn Child, May 23rd, 2002]

moved:

That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights review the current definition of “human being” in section 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada and report (a) whether the law needs to be amended to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child so as to provide appropriate legal protection for a child before as well as after birth; and (b) whether the law should be amended so that an unborn child is considered a human being at the point of conception, when the baby's brain waves can be detected, when the baby starts to move within the womb, or when the baby is able to survive outside the womb.

Mr. Speaker, a little over a year ago on March 22, 2001 we debated my Motion No. 228 to reword the definition of a human being in the Criminal Code of Canada. One Liberal MP and one Bloc MP refused my two motions for unanimous consent. The first would have made the motion a votable item. The second would have referred it to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

Today with Motion No. 392 I am not trying to redefine a human being. I am trying to convince the House the issue is important enough to be referred to committee to be reviewed and reported back to parliament. Motion No. 392 is self explanatory. It urges:

That the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights review the current definition of “human being” in section 223(1) of the Criminal Code of Canada and report (a) whether the law needs to be amended to comply with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child so as to provide appropriate legal protection for a child before as well as after birth; and (b) whether the law should be amended so that an unborn child is considered a human being at the point of conception, when the baby's brain waves can be detected, when the baby starts to move within the womb, or when the baby is able to survive outside the womb.

I do not know why my motion was not made a votable item. Maybe it makes so much sense the subcommittee on private members' business thought it did not need three hours of debate to make a decision. I guess we will see in a few minutes.

Why is the issue so important that it needs to be studied by the justice and human rights committee? There are a few reasons. First, all my constituents told me it was important to them. Last July I had a professional polling company conduct a scientific survey of my constituents. Some 75% of them said Canadian law should be amended so the definition of human being includes unborn children. They objected to the current definition of human being in section 223 of the Criminal Code of Canada. It reads as follows:

(1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not

(a) it has breathed;

(b) it has an independent circulation; or

(c) the navel string is severed.

According to the current criminal code definition of a human being, which is scientifically incorrect, a baby must emerge completely from the birth canal before it becomes a human being. It is obvious to the vast majority of my constituents that a baby is a human being before it is born. This is what they object to.

Only 12% of my constituents thought the definition of a human being did not need to be amended. Those who thought section 223 of the Criminal Code needed to be amended answered the second part of my question this way: Some 56% indicated that an unborn baby should be a human being in Canadian law from the moment of conception; 16% indicated that this should be so from the time the child's brain waves can be detected; 7% indicated it should be so from the time the child starts to move in the womb; and 9% indicated it should be so from the time the child is able to survive outside the womb. An unscientific household survey in my riding produced similar results.

Second, the issue is important enough to warrant serious review by the standing committee because of the overwhelming response of the general public. Since Motion No. 392 was selected in the private members' business lottery a month ago I have received literally thousands of letters, e-mails and faxes from citizens telling me what they think about the contents of my motion. There have been so many responses I could make a lectern out of them if I wanted to. We are receiving hundreds of responses each day. In the last couple of weeks we have only had time to tabulate the results from 3,511 responses. Many members are getting the same information from their constituents.

This is what Canadians are telling their members of parliament: Of 3,511 respondents, 3,450 or 98% said they were not satisfied with the current definition of human being in the criminal code; 3,421 respondents or 97% said the definition should be amended to protect the unborn child from the point of conception; 21 respondents said it should be amended to protect an unborn child from the point when the baby's brain waves can be detected; 3 respondents said it should be amended to protect an unborn child from the point when the baby starts to move in the womb; only 7 respondents said it should be amended to protect an unborn child from the point when the baby is able to survive outside the womb; and 12 respondents said it should be amended to protect an unborn child from the point when a child is developing inside the womb.

Third and most important, the matter should be referred to the committee because of the cold, hard statistics from Statistics Canada. StatsCan reports show that since 1988 more than a million babies have been the victims of therapeutic abortions. If we did not hear anything else here today, is that not reason enough to have the human rights committee review the current definition of a human being?

During last year's debate on my previous motion the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health bragged about the government's policy governing research using gametes, zygotes, embryos and fetuses. Only the Liberal government could be so two faced and hypocritical. A year ago according to the government zygotes, embryos and fetuses had the right not to be used for research but a perfectly healthy baby growing inside a perfectly healthy mother had no rights whatsoever.

Yesterday National Post editorials editor Jonathan Kay pointed out that after introducing the bill on assisted human reproduction the Liberal government is still confused. Mr. Kay said the proposed legislation was “morally incoherent”. He quite correctly pointed out that under the current definition of a human being in Canadian law a woman is “free to create an embryo if all she wants to do is abort it”, but the new legislation proposed by the health minister would make it a crime to create a human embryo for the purpose of saving a life.

The moral incoherence of the Liberal government was pointed out a year ago by a number of members in the House. The hon. member for Scarborough Southwest in Ontario spoke eloquently in support of my motion. He said:

Do you not find it interesting, Madam Speaker, that on the one hand it is perfectly acceptable and legal in Canada at the present time to kill an unborn child at any point of its development, right up until it comes out of the womb, yet on the other hand we are wringing our hands about the ethics of experimentation on zygotes? Where is the logic in that? How can it be logical to permit a third trimester abortion at eight months without blinking our eyes and wring our hands about whether or not a fertilized egg is going to be flushed down a scientist's drain?

The hon. member for Mississauga South in Ontario and then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services also spoke in support of the motion. He said:

All one needs to do is go to a baby shower and ask what everyone is celebrating.

The minister pointed out that in a number of jurisdictions in the United States chronic drinking during pregnancy is a criminal offence. This stands in stark contrast to the law in Canada where unborn children have no rights at all.

The hon. member for Dewdney--Alouette in B.C. pointed out the hypocrisy of the legal definition of a human being during his remarks. He said:

We know that in one room we may have a doctor performing microsurgery with the latest technology to save the life of what some may call a fetus, an unborn child who might be six months in its development, while in the very next room we might have somebody else in a very similar situation having the termination of a pregnancy or an abortion. That is a big dilemma. How do we explain that? How do we deal with that?

The Department of Health is not helping resolve the moral incoherence. On the department's website the words child and fetus are used interchangeably in 175 documents. The words baby and fetus are used interchangeably 56 times.

The Department of Health further confused the issue in its response to my access to information request. Last year I asked the department for documents, reports and correspondence that provide evidence that abortions are medically necessary.On March 8, 2001, the department responded:

I regret to inform you that after a thorough search of all likely record holdings, departmental officials have confirmed that they have no records relevant to your request.

No records. Is that not amazing? More than 100,000 unborn babies lose their right to life every year and the Department of Health does not even have one document that says abortions are medically necessary. If they are not medically necessary or therapeutic, why are we performing them? Why are taxpayers paying for them?

Last month I asked the Department of Health for documents, reports and correspondence in the department with respect to the total death risk by women having an elective abortion compared to women carrying their baby to term. The department's response to this question was just as unbelievable as the one last year. The health minister's bureaucrat said:

I regret to inform you that following a thorough search the department must confirm that it has no records relevant to your request.

No records. Can any member believe that?

The department does not have any documents showing that abortions are medically necessary, nor does it have any documents showing that abortions are medically risky. Is not one of the main purposes of the Department of Health to advise Canadians about what medical procedures are medically necessary and which ones pose a health risk?

Talk about burying heads in the sand and moral incoherence. Recently the Minister of Health contributed even more to the moral incoherence of the government's position. On May 10, the National Post reported that the justice minister had this to say about the fate of so-called surplus embryos at Canadian fertility clinics:

“Do you know what happens to them?” she asked reporters. “They go in the garbage. So, the donor can choose to have them thrown out, which is quite clearly their right, or they can also chose to let those surplus embryos be used for the purposes of medical research,” she said.

Talk about a slippery slope. What does the minister think happens to more than the 100,000 aborted fetuses every year? That is right, Madam Minister, they are thrown in the garbage. In a CBC Newsworld interview on March 4, 2002, ethicist Maureen McTeer had this to say about research on human embryos:

In terms of research on embryos, you want to talk slippery slope, that was the argument used in Nazi Germany; these are only Jews. Now we are saying these are only embryos.

At least the Canadian Alliance position is morally coherent. The official opposition minority report on reproductive technologies recommended:

That the final legislation clearly recognize the human embryo as human life and that theStatutory Declaration include the phrase “respect for human life.”

Most Canadians believe it is time to end this moral incoherence. In fact it is 14 years overdue. It is time to have a House of Commons committee review the current definition of a human being. That is all my motion is asking. A far less convincing reason, but a reason nonetheless, for referring this matter to the human rights committee is Canada's failure to comply with one of the terms and conditions of the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.

I am no big fan of the United Nations. I find most of the articles in the UN convention on the rights of the child a gross intrusion on parental rights and liberties and most articles are definitely not in the best interests of the child. However the Liberal government chooses to cherry pick sections from the UN convention on the rights of the child. It ignores sections that would violate the government's policy on moral incoherence. The United Nations convention on the rights of the child, which Canada signed, states:

--the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.

In Canadian law there is simply no protection for a child before birth. The Government of Canada has never met its legal obligation to this section of the UN convention. The government cannot discharge its legal obligations under this international agreement, an agreement the federal government and 10 provinces have ratified, unless and until it amends the definition of a human being.

Therefore, I request unanimous consent of the House to make the motion a votable item.

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated how my colleague put into context the whole issue we are debating today. We as the official opposition are not doing this from some position of moral superiority, but the government has complete responsibility for the administration of government. It has control over $140 billion in tax dollars, so when grants go to certain firms with little or no work done or an open accountable process is not followed and then donations flow into the Liberal election fund coffers, not other party coffers, that strikes at the very heart of democracy, and that is corruption.

Would my colleague from Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam not agree that this does strike at the very heart of democracy? Money is the stuff that helps win elections. It can be used to give the public an impression via the media at election time that things are just fine. That is why the misuse of tax dollars undermines the democratic process.

That puts this issue in perspective. In essence, the decision making process at election time is tainted because tax dollars are used to gain votes. I would like his comment on that, please.

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

What is your point?

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. member knows what the words transparent, open, honest or integrity mean because his speech was the exact opposite. It was very deceptive. I want to raise five issues that completely disprove what he said. The so-called democracy that those members say is here is being thwarted.

I served on a committee for private members' business. That committee operates behind closed doors. It is never open. It has never allowed private members' business to become votable.

I have put in over 267 access to information requests on one narrow topic alone. Sometimes it takes over one year for the information to come back and then it is out of date. That is not open and accountable government.

We do not have an ethics commissioner who is accountable to parliament. He is muzzled by the Prime Minister. That is not open and accountable government.

We do not have whistleblower legislation in this parliament whereby someone in the bureaucracy who sees a problem can come forward with it and have something done about it. Any democracy in the modern world has that kind of legislation, yet the government blocks that legislation.

We do not have a committee to examine the 5,000 different appointments to the bureaucracy. That is done behind closed doors. That is not open and accountable government.

The Prime Minister chooses when he will be a dictator and when he will be a democrat and unfortunately it is very seldom that he chooses to be a democrat. The whole system is designed to allow for corruption because there are no appropriate checks and balances in the system.

[National March for Life, May 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, at noon today the National March for Life will congregate on Parliament Hill as they do every year. They meet to mourn the 100,000 children who lose their lives through abortion every year.

For the nine months a baby is in the mother's womb the baby has absolutely no legal protection in Canada. This is because the criminal code states that a baby does not become a human being until they have completely emerged from the mother's body.

Eighty-nine percent of my constituents say that the current definition of a human being is unacceptable and, I suspect, if the government were brave enough to ask, it would find that the vast majority of Canadians agree.

For that reason I introduced Motion No. 392 that asks the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to examine this life and death issue and determine if the definition of a human being needs to be amended.

I thank those who have the courage and take the time to speak up for those whose voices cannot be heard.

[Public Safety Act, 2002, May 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am addressing Bill C-55 which is before the House at present. The point I want to make right off the top is that there is nothing in the bill that would have prevented the terrible events of September 11 last year, in fact it could have the opposite effect.

If the bill goes through unamended it could actually do the exact opposite to the government's stated objective.

I will elaborate. The federal government is using the September 11 terrorist attack as an excuse to continue its anti-gun, anti-hunting, anti-farmer, anti-sport shooter, anti-firearms collector, anti-historical re-enactor, anti-licensed firearm and ammunition dealer, anti-guide, anti-outfitters and anti-aboriginal hunting rights agenda.

Those are the honest, law-abiding, taxpaying Canadians the Liberals have targeted with these 10 pages of proposed explosive act amendments in the bill.

The amendments were so urgent that the Liberals have waited four and a half years to bring them before parliament. After all, it was on November 14, 1997, that former the deputy prime minister, Herb Gray, signed the Organization of American States inter-American convention against the illicit manufacturing and trafficking in firearms, ammunition, explosives and other related materials in Washington, D.C.

Those wanting proof of the government's anti-gun agenda, here is what the former deputy prime minister, Herb Gray, said when he signed the OAS convention in Washington, in 1997:

This could be the start of a global movement that would spur the development of an instrument to ban firearms worldwide that would be similar to our land-mines initiative.

That source was from the Montreal Gazette of November 15, 1997, “Canada signs deal to curb illegal sales of guns”.

If we need more proof, I will make the point that these proposed amendments are more about inexplosives than explosives. The term inexplosive ammunition component appears 26 times in these 10 pages of amendments.

The government already has total control over the explosive part of bullets and shells, namely gun powder. What possible public safety, anti-terrorism objective can be achieved by controlling parts of ammunition that cannot go anywhere without the gun powder?

The proposed amendments to control inexplosive ammunition components are plain and simple government harassment of tens of thousands of responsible firearms owners who happen to load their own bullets and shells for their own legal recreation and sport.

Terrorists and their deadly operations will remain unaffected and undeterred by these amendments. Explosives are easily obtained by terrorists by criminal means and just as easily manufactured with everyday materials that are available in most food and hardware stores.

The only part of the bill that is any good at all is the increased penalties for the criminal use of explosives. The trouble with these sections is that they will most likely hit the wrong target by potentially criminalizing tens of thousands of law-abiding citizens who load their own ammunition for their legal pastimes and sports.

Instead of writing the law the way the government intended, the government assures all concerned:

The people responsible for applying the amended act do not think that the proposed measures will interfere with supplies for hunters and people who manufacture their own agenda.

If that is what the government means then why does the government not say who the laws are intended for and exempt everyone else?

The danger with these amendments was pointed out in a Library of Parliament research paper prepared on January 18. The lawyers reported:

Those who presently make their own ammunition are already regulated under the Explosives Act since an explosive (gun powder) is a regulated product. Thus, licences are currently required, for example, to import explosives. Clause 36 would replace section 9 of the current Explosives Act by requiring a permit to import, to export and to transport in transit through Canada not only for explosives but also for inexplosive ammunition components.

Consequently, law-abiding citizens who manufacture their own ammunition would end up being charged with the new offences proposed in these amendments, offences that call for fines up to $500,000 and imprisonment of up to five years in jail.

Offences that are targeting law-abiding Canadians in this act include: acquiring, possessing, selling, offering for sale, transporting or delivering any illicit inexplosive ammunition component and making or manufacturing any explosive from an illicitly trafficked inexplosive ammunition component. The government has not told us how it thinks anyone can make an explosive from an inexplosive ammunition component. The definition in the act states “inexplosive ammunition component” means any cartridge case or bullet, or any projectile that is used in a firearm as defined in section 2 of the criminal code.

Even the government's own definition clearly demonstrates that no one could possibly make an explosive out of inexplosive ammunition components. I would like to propose at the appropriate time that an amendment be made to remove all references to inexplosive ammunition components from the proposed amendments to the explosives act.

I also would also like to bring the attention of the House to another matter that concerns me and my constituents greatly. Farmers and dealers are examining this bill right now.

A spokesman with the explosive regulatory division, minerals and metals sector of Natural Resources Canada indicated that at this point it had only one component in mind. The component to be restricted by this act is ammonium nitrate, one of the substances used in the Oklahoma City bombing a few years also.

Presently a person can buy this product without having to show any link to the agricultural industry. The goal is that the regulations will impose tighter control on the retail sale of this product. The actual controls would be set out in proposed regulations and would need to go through the regulatory consultation process. It is clear that in the future other components may be added to the restricted list as needed.

This proposed legislation enables the government to go well beyond the parts of this bill and that causes us concern. This is enabling legislation. We do not know what regulations in future the government will bring in. These could be very harmful to farmers and dealers who deal with this particular type of fertilizer.

I would like to conclude by restating what I said at the beginning. There is nothing in the bill as it now stands that will affect the events of September 11 of last year, yet it is being used as an excuse to respond to that. I believe there is something else here that the government has not come clean on. That is why I would like to propose the amendment that I did.