Geoff Regan

[Points of Order, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I must say first that the patience you are showing with these ongoing points of order, put spuriously maybe, is truly admirable.

To begin with, I would suggest that this is really the same point of order that you dealt with earlier on the question of “should” and “ought”, and the fact that the motion of October 24 has already been dealt with.

I want to quote from Marleau and Montpetit at page 476. It says:

While the rule of anticipation is part of the Standing Orders in the British House of Commons, it has never seen so in the Canadian House of Commons. Furthermore, references to attempts made to apply this British rule to Canadian practice are not very conclusive.

My hon. friend has quoted from some other parts of the same section.

I think there is a key thing to this question, but I want to first say that the motion of October 24 has been disposed of by the House. Second, the substance of that motion was very different. The key substance of the motion really had to do with whether there ought to be an implementation plan. The motion in fact used the word, “should”, that there should be an implementation plan.

My hon. friend has quoted very selectively from the Oxford Dictionary . Let me provide a little more illumination on the definition of the word, “should”. It does not just say it is to express a duty. In defining the second definition of “should”, it says, “to express a duty, obligation, or likelihood”, and then it says equals “ought”. In other words, it means ought. It does not mean that we have to do this or that we are compelled to do this. It means that we likely or ought to do this. As you said, Mr. Speaker, it is the Oxford Dictionary .

It seems to me that they are trying to find all kinds of reasons to delay and avoid this debate.

[Points of Order, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure my hon. friends will agree with the advice I received earlier today that I should rest my voice today. I am unable to do so, unfortunately, because we have so many procedural motions being brought forward. Members would not be that surprised, Mr. Speaker, if, as these went on and on, and we had more of these, that your patience for the length of the interventions might diminish.

However, in this particular instance the hon. leader of the Alliance has brought forward another attempt to derail the Kyoto debate. What he has talked about, referring to Erskine May, is in fact what in the British House is called the Ponsonby procedure. This procedure has been followed in the United Kingdom since the 1920s, but it has never been adopted in Canada. That is the point. He is trying to suggest that the procedure here is quite different from what it is. It is not the practice in the House to follow the Ponsonby procedure that was adopted in Britain. If he had done his homework, he would have known this.

He has tried to ignore a few facts. In today's issue of the Hill Times there is an article on page 2 by Paco Francoli about this matter. He suggests that the Leader of the Opposition had left out some key facts in his argument. The article says:

To build his case, he invoked Maurice Copithorne, a law professor at the University of British Columbia...stating that governments “would normally only ratify a treaty after any enabling legislation has been passed.” But in a telephone interview last Thursday, Mr. Copithorne, although admitting that the current practice is “to submit legislation where it's required before ratification”, said the trend doesn't apply when it comes to environmental treaties which are phased in over a number of years, as is the case with Kyoto whose targets won't be met until 2012.

Does he mean to tell me that he has not read this article or that he is simply ignoring the facts that are readily available to him and ignoring the statements of the very authorities that he is quoting in these spurious points of order.

[Questions on the Order Paper, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Government Response to Petitions, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's responses to 18 petitions.

[Saint Mary's Huskies, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to this year's Vanier Cup champions, the Saint Mary's Huskies from Halifax, Nova Scotia. To make the victory even sweeter, this is the Huskies' second Vanier Cup in a row, a feat managed only three times in Canadian history and not once in the past 25 years. The players, the coaches and the Saint Mary's community all deserve our thanks and congratulations.

I do have to confess, however, that the team's road to victory was bittersweet for me. It finished with playoff victories over McMaster in the Churchill Bowl, and I am said to say, my alma mater of Saint FX in the AUFC title.

Once again, on behalf of the people of Nova Scotia, I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating the two time Vanier Cup victors, the Saint Mary's Huskies.

[Points of Order, November 25th, 2002]

He is saying we voted for it. Is he suggesting that the House can change the Constitution by itself? I do not believe for one second that he is suggesting that, on a motion without legislation even, the House can change the Constitution.

Moreover, the examples to which he referred all had legislation attached to them. This does not. It is an advisory motion as I mentioned earlier because it is the executive that ratifies the treaty under our Constitution.

A plan, given to meeting the requirements of Kyoto, has been tabled in the House. The member suggests there is no plan or he is not happy with the plan. How can he know whether he would be happy with the plan or not when he has not heard the debate on the matter. Why is it that these opposition parties refuse to have the debate? Why are they so reluctant to get to the heart of the matter that is of so great concern to Canadians who vastly support this initiative? Why not get on with this and stop the shenanigans?

[Points of Order, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke earlier in relation to the Progressive Conservative Party seeming to have the Kyoto avoidance syndrome. I do not know if it is a virus or a bacteria, but it seems to be spreading.

This is a novel argument because what the leader of the Alliance is arguing is that an error regarding the Constitution, that he has made, should override the Constitution and should bind the House in some way. Clearly it does not change the Constitution. The Constitution provides that the executive, not Parliament, shall ratify international treaties.

[Privilege, November 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the important point here is that the right hon. member and his party are desperate. They are doing whatever they can to in fact avoid debating the question of Kyoto.

Mr. Speaker, let us go back to Mr. Turner's point in 1989, which of course concerned advertising done by the government of which the right hon. member was a minister. That point concerned advertising the claim that something was law that had not yet been passed but was still before Parliament.

The climate change advertising does not claim that the Kyoto protocol has been approved by Parliament. That is a very important distinction. Moreover, considering the outrage expressed by the right hon. member today, I wonder why he did not express the same outrage in 1989 with the same kind of measure if that is what he claims it is. In fact clearly it was a different case entirely, but it is odd that he did not object to it then.

The Prime Minister has said that the decision would be made. The Prime Minister has not suggested that the decision has been taken. He said it would be made. He has said a number of times that the House would make the decision, and it will.

It would seem to me that a member who has been minister of foreign affairs ought to know that ratification of a treaty in fact does not require a resolution of this House to be passed. He ought to know that. How can he not know that?

The motion that is going to be considered by the House, if we ever get to it, and I hope we will, it is in fact an advisory motion. It is not a motion to ratify. It is a motion advising the government on the question of ratifying.

It suggests to me that this series of filibuster issues is not helping us to get to the issue we really want to get to, which is to discuss the question of climate change, of Kyoto. Let us get to it. I hope this apparent malady of Kyoto avoidance syndrome which I see across the way will be overcome and that members will recover from it.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, clearly today we are discussing the modernization of this chamber. That is the topic of our debate and it is reasonable for us to talk about that subject. At the same time I take the member's interest in this question of constitutional change. I am certainly interested in it. I did in fact support the Charlottetown accord which would have provided for an elected Senate. My position on that is quite clear.

We all know the difficulties that arise whenever we talk about constitutional change. I do not hear from my constituents a whole lot of desire for more constitutional wrangling, even if there might be a desire to see an elected Senate.

[Parliamentary Reform, November 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear of the hon. member's interest in and approval of the Westminster parliamentary system.

I was disappointed that he did not respond to the heart of my comments. I was focusing on the question of a parallel chamber. I am disappointed that he did not show any interest in that topic. I hope members will show an interest in that topic because it has many benefits that we should consider.

The member likes the U.K. system but he fails to recognize that in the Westminster Parliament the committee is called the modernization committee. What has happened is we have adopted the same term as used in the mother of our Parliament, the mother of all parliaments as some say.

Clearly we have had a wide-ranging debate today already. The committee itself I am sure will have a wide-ranging debate. I do not think it will be confined by whether it uses the term modernization or reform. It is a question of semantics. I think we should really deal with the issues that can probably improve the way this place works. That really is what this is all about.

The British system is very different in terms of how appointments are made to the House of Lords. It goes back hundreds of years to when appointments were made by the monarchs themselves. It is very different in other ways. For example, the prime minister attends one question period per week. In Britain the prime minister's question time is on Wednesdays if I recall correctly. It is a very different system from what we have here.

In that regard I think many members are interested in seeing reform of our Constitution in due course and in the way both houses in Canada operate. However it is disappointing to note that when there was last a chance to make changes to that with the Charlottetown accord, the member's party voted against a system that would have had an elected Senate.