Gerald Keddy

[Canada Elections Act, June 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Niagara Centre and the fact that he actually did some research and came back with some answers.

I am going to use my minute to wrap up my remarks. I want to say one more time that I appreciate the fact that funding has increased. It needed to be increased. The roles of the Auditor General and the Privacy Commissioner are much busier than they were a decade ago or even half a decade ago. There are more and more scandals about which Parliament has a right to know.

Again, I want to go back to the closing comments by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre. What he stated in Hansard on April 30, 2001 sums it up very succinctly:

There are several ways to muzzle the watchdogs of Parliament. One way is to deny information to the Information Commissioner. The other is to deny adequate funding to the Auditor General and to other agencies. The Auditor General's office needs at least $8 million more to provide its in-depth audits of government departments. The government says no. Why is the Prime Minister trying to starve the Auditor General and keep her from doing the work that Parliament explicitly charged her and her office to do?

[Canada Elections Act, June 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am standing on debate tonight on what we call, in the vernacular here in Parliament, the late show. For anyone who happens to be watching this and does not understand what the late show is, the late show is about asking a question in the House but not getting an answer.

On April 8, 2003, this being June 9, I asked the Prime Minister the following question:

Mr. Speaker, today, in the Auditor General's 2003 annual report, she indicated that her office was facing a $1 million shortfall.

Two years ago the member for Calgary Centre mentioned in the House: “There are several ways to muzzle the watchdogs of parliament. One way is to deny...adequate funding to the auditor general....”

Will the Prime Minister indicate to the House whether the Auditor General will be receiving additional resources in order to keep up with the audits on programs such as the failed long gun registry?

The answer I received was that if I thought the Auditor General needed more money she should just simply apply for it. I certainly thought that answer was a glib statement.

The issue here is critical to the ongoing ability of Parliament to function, and especially for the officers of Parliament to function. The most important issue for me in the debate tonight is the issue that in order to do their jobs, the officers of Parliament, the Auditor General being one of those officers, need to be independent. In order to be independent they need adequate budgets, which means they cannot go on bended knee to the Prime Minister, who has the final say, every time they need extra funding to continue their work as watchdogs for the Parliament of Canada. Part of that independence is providing them with the funding they need to do their jobs, plain and simple.

The issue goes further than that. The government has consistently displayed a culture of secrecy and a continued determination to bypass Parliament. It is part of a pattern of the government as it attempts to shut down normal scrutiny. When the information commissioner seeks records, the Prime Minister takes him to court. Excuse me. It seems to me there is something wrong there.

When the Liberals promise an independent ethics commissioner, they break their word and turn the councillor into a clerk for the Prime Minister. The privacy commissioner is regularly ignored and the Auditor General's recommendations are habitually set aside.

Even the Auditor General's office, which is supposed to be independent of Parliament, has been attacked by Liberal members of Parliament because she has caught them breaking just about every rule in the book, and plans and intends to, as is her responsibility, to investigate these breaches of the law.

As far as I am concerned and my party is concerned, the only way to secure the dignity and responsibility of Parliament is to make sure the officers of Parliament are properly funded. That is absolutely what we need to do with the Auditor General.

[Canada Elections Act, June 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I think the final debate on and analysis of the election financing bill, Bill C-24, will prove to be an interesting one. Certainly I do not think there is a lot of disagreement among the political parties in the House of Commons on the fact that the election financing system needs to be revised and reformed, but I do think there is a lot of disagreement on exactly how that should occur.

I would like to thank my colleague, the member for Brandon—Souris, for all the work he has done on the bill. He, rather than I, has really had carriage of Bill C-24 so really I stand today to speak on behalf of the member for Brandon—Souris.

As we know, Bill C-24 was introduced at the beginning of the year as part of the Prime Minister's eight point action plan on ethics. Supposedly the bill was introduced to help address the lack of trust in which Canadians hold not necessarily only this institution but the political system itself. It was supposed to do something to combat the low voter turnout we are seeing in elections and hopefully improve the fairness and transparency of the electoral system.

The Progressive Conservative Party believes that the bill does not address the issue of low voter turnout and does the opposite of creating fairness and addressing transparency. However, I think there will be further and more in-depth debate on this issue.

Let us look at the whole point of having an election financing bill and the Prime Minister's seeming insistence on ramming it through the House at late sitting in June. I think Canadians need to ask themselves a few questions. The first question would be this one: Why would a government that has been in power for 10 years bring in an election financing bill now? Also, what advantage does it give to the government that it maybe does not give to other political parties?

Having come to the bill only recently and really just having had the opportunity to look at it in depth, the first question I ask is not the question of whether perhaps there is room in the system for public financing of elections, because I think possibly with the right type of system, with the correct system and a proper analysis of the situation as it exists now, we could have public financing of elections and actually do a pretty good job of it.

However, if we really want to do something to react to low voter turnout and if we want the electorate to have faith and trust in the system, then here is what I would suggest to the government. I made the amendment at committee, which was not accepted. I tried to make it again at this reading of the bill and again it was not accepted. Rather than change the system as the Liberals and the majority on committee did, the bill should come into effect on January 1, 2006, not even January 1, 2005. As the bill exists now, it will come into effect on January 1, 2004.

I do not think there is a breathing and thinking Canadian who does not believe that we will have another election after that date, so really what the Liberal government has done here is get rid of its debt, and it has done that by just putting it over onto the backs of the taxpayers. The taxpayers of Canada will collect the tab for the next election. We have a big majority government. If we do it on the results of the last campaign, it only benefits the parties as they are established in the House of Commons now.

The reason I suggested that the bill should come into effect after January 1, 2006 is that we would be guaranteed that it would be after the next election.

I understand the need to base the election financing on some statistics, on some group of numbers. I would say that from my knowledge the committee worked very hard to be as fair as possible. However, by moving the date forward instead of backward, it showed a serious bias toward the establishment, the government and the numbers as they existed in 2000, not as they may exist after another election.

The bill is all about incumbency. It is all about supporting the government that is there now, supporting the parties that have the majority of the numbers. It is not about fairness. There is very little fairness in the bill.

Supposedly, we are taking away the ability of corporations to donate to political parties. However we have not taken away the ability of wealthy individuals to donate to political parties. In particular, and I think even more galling for me, is the fact members of Parliament would be able to donate to their own campaigns to the tune of $5,000 per year. What a slap in the face to ordinary Canadians who do not have that kind of money to put into a political campaign. However what a big assistance to the incumbent, especially the wealthy incumbent who may not have the public support to run an election campaign but who has the personal and private support to finance his or her own election campaign.

I think it is time Canadians took a look at the bill for exactly what it is. Again, it is all about incumbency. It is all about assisting the wealthy who may happen to be in politics already. It is a long way from transparency and fairness. I think the government has it wrong.

If we examine the fairness issue and look at the public funding of parties based on the number of votes received in the previous election, how can this possibly be viewed as fair? The governing party gets to start an election at least five paces ahead of every other party based on the platform it ran on three, four or five years earlier. The public financing does not address the changing views of Canadians during the term of this government or of any other government.

The government needs to look at a method of core funding for political parties and reasonable and equal limits for corporate and individual donations.

There is no balance to the legislation as it exists. The reporting requirements of the legislation should be a burden carried by cabinet, the Prime Minister's Office and members of Parliament. Instead, it is placed on our volunteer organizations that are already stretched to the max. It will discourage rather than encourage participation in the political process.

The government is beginning a process of micromanaging political parties, including the very structure of political parties, and the management of disclosed funds that are transferred within the party structure.

Due to the Prime Minister's supposed legacy agenda, we have had a very short time to examine the bill. It seems that very little thought and substance has gone into the bill. I will say again that I think the committee has tried to do what it could with the bill. A lot of discussions have taken place and a lot of hard work has gone into the bill but it has not been enough.

When there is a Liberal majority on the committee, at the end of the day the Prime Minister gets exactly what he wants. If what he wants is to put this in place now to pay off the $8 million debt of the Liberals, then that is exactly what Canadians will get.

I think there are some real issues with this particular legislation that have not yet been addressed, and certainly the issue of fairness is one of them.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I hear one of my colleagues say that elected people would have done it. That is fine but that is not what I am saying. We need a two system government. The second House corrects the mistakes of the majority governments in the first House which ram legislation through without careful and thorough analysis and without looking at the implications of what might happen to the ordinary men and women who have to use that in their daily lives, and how it affects them. That is my difficulty here.

Again, listening to the debate about the Senate, I would hope that my colleague from Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough and the rest of my colleagues in this place have learned something here, that we do have reason, need and a strict requirement to have a second chamber.

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I just listened to the closing comments of the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. I thought his analysis of the bill was right on.

However there is one part of this, and he related to it briefly in his closing remarks, that stands out above the rest. There is a lot of discussion, and I have engaged in it myself, about the Senate and the role of the Senate in this bicameral Parliament that we use in Canada. A lot of our colleagues are saying that perhaps we should just throw the Senate out and get rid of it altogether. I say this to the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. What would have happened to this legislation had that been the case, had there been no body of sober second thought?

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to finish my time in debate on Bill C-10B, the cruelty to animals legislation.

As hon. members know, the cruelty to animal legislation was sent from this House to the Senate. The Senate, in its wisdom, amended, improved and changed the legislation and sent it back to the House of Commons in a better and more correct form in my opinion.

In my previous comments on Bill C-10B, I explained a number of points to which the Progressive Conservative Party took great exception in the legislation and therefore found many reasons to put in amendments to try to improve the bill.

There is a need to improve the legislation. As I said earlier in debate, the legislation is over 100 years old. It is obviously time for the bill to be modernized to reflect the current views and opinions of people, and to reflect the current public attitude about animals.

Without question, we agree with parts of the bill. I do not have any difficulty outlining those parts.

For instance, we have absolutely no problem with that part of the bill that states that no one should wilfully poison an animal or leave bait out where an animal can get hold of it. It is against the law to in any manner encourage, promote, arrange, assist or receive money for the fighting or baiting of animals, including training an animal to fight another animal. That is the bear pits and the bull pits of medieval society, and we have come a long way since those days. It needs to be an illegal activity to build, maintain, keep or allow to be built, made, maintained or kept, a cock pit or any other arena for the fighting of animals on premises. We can see in the language that there is very clear legislation that prevents cock fighting, dog fighting, baiting of animals or the type of activity with which most members of society would not want to be associated in any way shape or form .

The other thing of course is that anyone who raises animals to be released and immediately shot is also doing so against the law. I think that has been changed slightly to allow people who raise pheasants on pheasant ranges to release the birds in the wild and then they can be hunted. I do not think the legislation is trying to persecute those individuals.

Proposed section 182.6 defines law enforcement animal, meaning a dog, a horse or any other animal used by a police officer or public officer in the execution of duty. Everyone commits an offence who wilfully or recklessly poisons, injures or kills a law enforcement animal while it is aiding or assisting a police officer or public officer engaged in the execution of their duties or a person acting in aid of such an officer.

That type of legislation and that type of amendment to the old act is important, and they are amendments that we would support in the Progressive Conservative Party. The basis of clause 2 to amend section 182.3 states:

(1) Every one commits an offence who

(a) negligently causes unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal;

(b) being the owner, or the person having the custody or control of an animal, wilfully or recklessly...

This is the key sentence “wilfully or recklessly”. It goes on to state:

--abandons it or negligently fails to provide suitable and adequate, food, water, air, shelter and care for it; or

(c) negligently injures an animal while it is being conveyed.

It goes on to define negligent as meaning departing markedly from the standard care that a person would use. I have absolutely no difficulty with that part of the legislation and I and the PC Party support it 100%.

Again I do take exception to clause 2 of Bill C-10B that amends subsections 182.2 (a) and (b) where it states, “causes or, being the owner, permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal”.

The difficulty is in the definition. We are not sure what that definition is. I have a great deal of difficulty in allowing people to subjectively decide from their background what that definition is, and in this case that subjective decision would be made by a judge.

When one looks at “kills an animal or, being the owner, permits an animal to be killed, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately” as being a punishable offence, at first glance one would say that it should be an offence. However when one understands there is no real definition to “brutally” or “viciously”, it becomes much more difficult. What is a brutal and vicious act in the mind of one person may not be the same in the mind of another.

I know what it means to me, and I do not think I want to discuss that in public debate, but I do not know what it means to the government. Therefore, people who work in slaughterhouses, people whose livelihoods depend on processing animals, farmers, fishermen and hunters, have yet to see “brutally” and “viciously” described and thoroughly explained. I am concerned and worried about that.

There needs to be a clearer definition in the legislation. We all know what unnecessary pain is and we would agree with that. The rest of it is more subjective and very troublesome to this otherwise good piece of legislation.

[Fisheries, June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is allowing the scallop fleet from his riding to fish in area 29 in my riding and on the best lobster grounds in the world. Meanwhile, area 29 scallopers are not allowed to fish in the minister's riding. As a result, lobster fishermen in area 34 are worried about diminishing stocks that threaten their livelihood.

If the minister's machinations ruin both the scallop and the lobster industries in lobster fishing area 34, will he then allow our fishermen to fish in his riding?

[Act to Amend the Criminal Code (Cruelty to Animals), June 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code concerning cruelty to animals.

As the Speaker is well aware, this is the second or perhaps even the third life of this bill. It was rammed through the House of Commons by the Liberal majority and sent off to the Senate.

I know there a lot of parties that do not approve of the Senate, think it is redundant and have some difficulty with the fact that our senators are not elected persons. However, if it were not for the Senate, this legislation would now be law. It was a flawed bill then, and the Senate improved it. There are still some instances where I certainly believe we could continue to improve upon.

However I would like to say, clearly and categorically, that if it were not for the Senate, we would be prosecuting and arresting people next week or next month for traditional practices that are not in any way, shape or form, cruel to animals. That is how bad the legislation was.

I would like to read part of an article from the May 30 Vancouver Sun . It states that:

The Senate on Thursday made major changes to the government's animal-cruelty legislation, prompted by concerns the legislation might enable unfair prosecutions of ordinary Canadians.

That is exactly why there was opposition to the legislation.

It went further and said:

The Senate will now send the legislation back to the Commons for reconsideration. Government representatives have said the federal government doesn't agree with the Senate's interpretation of the legislation.

We will see exactly what happens here.

I see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans just came into the House. What the senators were most concerned with were the parts and provisions of Bill C-10B, which the minister himself voted for, that certainly may have been found cruel and would therefore be against the law, such as common fishing practices which we take for granted in the east and west coasts and the high arctic. The fact is that under the legislation I am doubtful if Canadians would have been able to boil a lobster. With the proposed changes they can. That is how poor the legislation was. However that did not matter. When the Liberals have it right, they simply line their boys and girls up, crack the whip two or three times and they mouth the words, as they stand and bow to the omnipresent Prime Minister, and push the legislation through.

It is an embarrassment that in the House of Commons a piece of legislation would leave this place in such poor condition that the Senate, with its limited powers, would have to amend it and send it back to us with a little note attached saying, “Try and get it right this time, guys. See if you can do it a little better. We're not against you. We're trying to work with you but see if you can get it right”.

The bill, as it existed in its previous form, would have found as punishable offences the traditional practices in the aboriginal community, the farming community and for people who practise animal husbandry. Traditional slaughtering practices of the Muslim and Jewish faiths would have been outlawed by the government.

It is unbelievable and inconceivable that this piece of legislation was passed by the House of Commons and sent to the Senate and had to be returned.

Although there are still some things which I think are problematic in the new legislation, it at least defines cruelty. There was some nebulous definition before. We could kind of put our finger on the centre of it but it just kept moving away from us. Now there is a clearer definition. There is one part that I am going to emphasize which I will come back to.

I will read the definition so the public understands exactly what it is we are talking about. Under proposed subsection 182.2(1) we have defined what cruelty is, or we are closer to defining what cruelty is. It states:

Every one commits an offence, who wilfully or recklessly--

We are starting to tighten up the language. Hopefully in the future the traditional farming practices will not be penalized. However the wording is that anyone who wilfully and recklessly, and I would add the word deservedly, should be prosecuted under the law.

The debate has never been about the fact that the legislation is 100 years old and it is time to modernize it. It is time to bring it into accordance with the morals, the mindset and the advances in thinking that have been made in the last 100 years.

The Liberals decided to ram this piece of legislation through the House, and ram it through the House they did, in one week in an unamended form.

The bill states:

Every one commits an offence, who wilfully or recklessly,

(a) causes or, being the owner, permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal;

(b) kills an animal or, being the owner, permits an animal to be killed, brutally or viciously, regardless of whether the animal dies immediately--

I still take great umbrage to those two paragraphs. We are leaving the definition of “brutal” and “vicious” in the hands of some judge somewhere. Quite frankly we all may have various definitions for those two terms. I do not know what a judge may decide. I am not willing to second-guess the lives and livelihoods of farmers on this issue.

I was a farmer before my life in politics. I raised sheep. Out of 100 to 150 lambs that would run around the barnyard, it was guaranteed that one of them would find its way into the water tanks and would drown. It was guaranteed that one would get his head stuck in the fence, flip over and choke itself to death.

Does that mean the farmer should be held responsible and receive up to a $10,000 fine and five years in jail because somehow he was not there to prevent that from happening, even though he had put up the very best of fences, even though the animals were kept in the very best of conditions with lots of food and water? An accident can occur that is beyond the control of the individual and some judge may look at this bill and see “causes, or being the owner, permits to be caused unnecessary pain, suffering and injury to an animal”.

Canadians who are watching today should be the judges. Who is guilty of an offence under those circumstances?

The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is in the House. When one sets a gill net for herring or mackerel and catches a fish which is a vertebrae by the gills and it struggles and drowns because it is caught up in the net, that is cruelty under this legislation. With some judge who is not a fisherman, who has never had to make a living by putting on a pair of oil skins and rubber boots and standing on the deck of a tossing boat, who has never had to go out at 4:00 in the morning and come back at 2:00 the next morning, how is he or she going to feel about that? I suspect someday one of them is going to look at it and say “We permitted or caused unnecessary harm or pain to an animal”.

Whether that animal has the capacity to think or feel or make judgments is immaterial because we cannot control what people think. I am not about to state that we should. That is why we need clarity. That is why we need crisp definitions in the bill.

Other parts of the bill we absolutely, totally agree with, such as killing an animal without a lawful cause or reason; “without lawful excuse poisons an animal, places poison in such a position that it may easily be consumed by an animal; administers an injurious drug or substance to an animal; or, being the owner, permits anyone to do those things”. Obviously no clear thinking Canadian wants that type of thing to happen and should be responsible to prevent it.

Do we need new cruelty to animals legislation? Absolutely. Can we do better than we have done already? Yes, we can. Let us get it right this time and send it back to the Senate so it is not returned.

[Bankruptcy Legislation, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to speak to the private member's motion put forth by the member for Churchill. This is another example of this member's considerate and compassionate attitude toward her fellow workers and fellow Canadians. It is a good way to bring this particular issue before the House.

I am not expecting that we will be very successful in getting it passed. It raises the issue, highlights it, and enables all Canadians to look at it perhaps in a different way and make up their own minds as to whether they would like to see this type of legislation in place or not.

The Progressive Conservative Party certainly agrees with the main thrust of the motion. We understand that thrust to be mainly looking after and paying certain unsecured creditors. The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should amend bankruptcy legislation to ensure that wages and pensions owed to employees are the first debts repaid when a bankruptcy occurs.

I do not think that we should look at workers and the moneys owed to workers by their employers and the moneys owed to their pension funds which most of the time are the workers' own money any differently than we would look at unsecured creditors. That is the basis of this motion.

As bankruptcy legislation works now, we look to pay the unsecured creditors first. I see no reason why we should not look to pay the back wages owing and the moneys sitting in pension plans to the employees who rightfully deserve to be paid. That is not saying that we should pay the unsecured creditors as well.

Quite often these employees find themselves holding out their hand in the direction of their bankrupt employer and yet they go away empty handed, not unlike Dickens' Oliver who also held out his hand and said, “Please, sir, more gruel”. In this case there is no more gruel to come.

Sometimes employees and other unsecured creditors in Canada do not even get anything to begin with. Therefore they certainly could not go to the table and ask for more. It is a difficult and dismal situation. Sometimes they do not get compensation or payment for wages and hours worked. Often they end up with nothing in the face of a bankrupt employer, while at the same time unsecured creditors, sometimes suppliers or distributors, will be entitled per legislation to recover at least some of the money owed to them. This leaves the employees with no legal or legislative avenue open to them that might enable them to recover some of their money for wages that are rightfully theirs.

However admirable the motion might be I am not suggesting that the motion is perfect. It may deserve some slight tinkering to make it correspond even more closely to the hon. member's implicit objective.

Members must not forget why bankruptcy legislation exists and how it came about. I recently made a brief reference to Charles Dickens, the great 19th century author who died in 1870. I did so because of his famous character Oliver Twist who asked for more but was denied. Some reading members in the House of Commons might know who Oliver Twist was. Just after Dickens' death, the Canadian government started to deal legislatively with bankruptcy and insolvency matters. That is why most of the reading members of the House enjoy history and biographies, and understand a bit about who we are because we know where we came from. This is an issue that has been around for quite some time.

In the 19th century Canadian bankruptcy legislation was never widely accepted as a means to distribute assets to creditors or as a way to provide a debtor with a fresh start. In 1880 Parliament repealed the Insolvent Act of 1875 and abandoned its constitutional jurisdiction over bankruptcy and insolvency until 1919.

The absence of a national market in the 1870s made a federal bankruptcy law premature. The bankruptcy discharge challenged the very nature of local credit relationships that depended upon trust and emphasized the moral obligation to repay debts. Looking at that statement alone, there is a moral obligation in a bankruptcy case to repay a debt, and part of those debts are employees' wages and certainly pension plans.

Arguments in favour of a national law focused on the advantage to creditors trading over distances. However, uniform legislation was not a widely accepted goal. A repeal in 1880 was emblematic of the weakness of the national economy. The passage of the Bankruptcy Act of 1919 can be linked to major changes to the Canadian economy.

By 1919 uniform bankruptcy legislation could no longer be delayed in an expanding national market. A new national interest group, the Canadian Credit Men's Trust Association, emerged just prior to the war and played a significant role in leading the call for reform. Credit relationships became less dependent upon matters of character and the bankruptcy discharge became more acceptable as a central feature of the legislation.

In the 1870s, the absence of a strong government department and bureaucracy inhibited the implementation of stable and lasting legislation. In 1919 bankruptcy reform coincided with an unprecedented growth of federal regulations during the war. Federalism also affected the timing of the legislation.

It has taken nearly 130 years to get to the point we are at today which is having some type of bankruptcy legislation in place that recognizes changes. We have changed the Bankruptcy Act and the bankruptcy law several times. It has evolved with the history of the country as it naturally should. It is time that we looked at it again.

Canadians would tell us that when a company goes bankrupt not only should the unsecured creditors be paid, but also its employees. Not only should they be paid their back wages, but they should also be paid any moneys they put into their pension plans.

Perhaps it is time to take a look at the same relationship with some of the unsecured creditors. Many of these are small unsecured businessmen who owe a lot of debt to a major corporation that has gone bankrupt. These businessmen find themselves in a similar situation to employees. I would not want to ignore the unsecured creditors.

Is it time to take another look at this and open it up to the employees to protect their pensions and the moneys that they have put into the company? Absolutely. Should they be paid for the hours worked? Sure they should.

[Softwood Lumber, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, once again, my question is for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Trade.

From coast to coast, can the parliamentary secretary name one province that agrees with the minister's ill-conceived softwood lumber sellout?