Harold Albrecht

[Aboriginal Affairs, January 31st, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the failed record of the former Liberal government, as it relates to aboriginal affairs and northern development, is well-known to all Canadians. That fact has been made clear over and over again.

We are now one month into 2007. Could the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development inform the House what has been done to increase employment and economic development for first nations and for Canadians in the north?

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to return for just a moment to a point that was made earlier in terms of the 152 people to whom we would like to open our borders. Certainly my heart says yes, we should open our border, but considering that the member was sort of denigrating the officials in the department for having a stand on some of these issues, someone needs to make an evaluation as to whether or not these people are refugees. The UN High Commissioner has indicated that these people are not facing persecution or many of the factors that qualify people for refugee status.

Is the hon. member prepared to look into the eyes of those people who are not going to be allowed to come in and who are currently experiencing persecution? We know there is a large waiting list, and we are not even able to meet that at this point. Could the member respond to that?

[Committees of the House, December 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the member opposite and his plea on behalf of refugees. From personal experience from the seventies, we worked personally with dozens of refugees who came to Canada at that time. Many church groups sponsored these refugees and cared for their needs. I had the privilege of caring for many of the dental needs that presented themselves at that time. Canada is a generous country and Canadians are generous people. I think we all want to see refugees looked after.

A couple of questions were raised as the member spoke, and I wonder if he could address them.

First, he says there are 152 people. That seems like a small enough number that we could easily absorb. During the time the member's government was in office, why did the minister not finish the job and get it done, as he said?

Second, how many applications have been received for private sponsorships of these people, those who we are discussing today?

[Marriage, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the comments of my colleague across the way. I certainly hope he is more discriminating than to think that everything he sees on every website is totally believable.

How can the member be so sure that the majority of Canadians have decided on this issue when his party would not even allow the justice committee, which had travelled all across Canada hearing 465 witnesses and receiving 265 briefs, to present its report?

A member earlier tonight said that we did not really need that input because we should just go with what we have. Why do we even have committees? Could the hon. member address that, please?

[Marriage, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech and I was wondering if he could comment on whether it would be wise for us to at least have the input of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights which spent many weeks and months travelling across Canada hearing from Canadians from coast to coast. It is my understanding that the report has never been tabled and it would seem to me that it would be in the interest of democracy to allow that report to be tabled so that members of the House would be more fully informed.

[Marriage, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly defer to the elder statesmen among us. Together they probably have more years of experience in the House than I have on this earth. I value that wisdom very much. I have been so richly blessed to be a new member of the House and to have many members from all parties afford me their wisdom and advice.

I cannot answer the member's question on that issue. I will simply respond that the Prime Minister during the last campaign made a very clear commitment to Canadians that if this party formed government, it was committed to allowing its members to have a free and open debate and vote on this issue. This is simply an effort to follow through on the party's campaign promise, something we do in many other areas as well.

[Marriage, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am so thankful the hon. member finally got to the question. I was worried for a while that I might not get a chance to respond.

I simply want to ask the member this. If we had a full, open and honest debate, why did Parliament not allow the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights to table its report before it rushed into the debate? Why did it not take time to at least have the report compiled and tabled in Parliament so it could make an open decision?

In addition to that, if we want an open and honest debate and a free vote, why did the member opposite not pressure his leader to allow all government members to vote openly and freely on the debate last time?

[Marriage, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to address this motion. I believe the issue of traditional marriage is of crucial importance to all Canadians.

Since my election to office in January, there has been no other topic that has generated such a constant flow of mail, email, telephone calls and face to face dialogue as the issue of marriage.

I am relieved to say that finally the voices of Kitchener—Conestoga will be heard. The people in my riding have spoken clearly. I am proud to finally be the voice of Kitchener—Conestoga. In the spirit of being that voice, let me take some time to speak from my heart. Let me share some of my deeply personal beliefs and convictions about the merits of reopening the debate on traditional marriage.

Some people would want us to believe that traditional marriage is something about which Canadians have forgotten. That is simply not true. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Canadians care deeply about this issue. It may be an issue that members of Parliament would like to put behind them. It may be an issue about which special lobby groups would like to see us forget. However, let me clear, it is an issue Canadians are not going to abandon.

I have been serving as an MP for less than a year. In that time over 1,000 constituents have taken the time to write me a letter, or pick up the phone, or stop me on the street, and they say quite clearly, “I care about traditional marriage”.

I have been asked about this issue by young married couples who are raising children. These families are deeply concerned about their children and future grandchildren if the traditional family is abandoned.

I have personally met with young people. These are teenagers and young adults. They are contemplating marriage and have taken the time to come to me and tell me that they are concerned about the future of our country. They come to my office and thank me for not turning my back on them. They thank me for giving them a voice. These young people want to see the definition of marriage protected as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Young people of Canada know this: strong communities are built on strong families and a strong Canada is built on strong families.

It was not very long ago that a resolution came to the House on the issue of marriage. And it was in this very House less than eight years ago in June of 1999 that we agreed that marriage would be defined as “one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”. The vast majority of members in this House voted in favour of that resolution. In fact, I can look across the floor into the eyes of my colleagues who stood up and said that marriage should be defined as one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

However, as members will know, in June 2005 there was a hasty adoption of Bill C-38. It is my deeply held personal belief that many members decided to turn their back on that previous commitment. They turned their back on their constituents and they turned their back on the Canadian people. Bill C-38 was rushed into law, but the bill did not have the benefit of complete debate.

The Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights had conducted hearings across Canada, meeting with hundreds of Canadians from coast to coast. The committee spent untold hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, 465 witnesses appeared, 250 briefs were presented and thousands of letters were received.

Unfortunately, all that work and effort was ignored. All that input was never compiled into a report and presented to Parliament. In other words, the committee hearings were nothing more than a sham and they deceived Canadians by allowing them to think that they were part of an important national debate. If democracy is to be well served on a matter of such fundamental importance as marriage, then we need to know the views of Canadian citizens.

The issue before us today and the vote tomorrow is not a vote on traditional marriage, but it is a vote to allow debate on traditional marriage. While I personally continue to favour a traditional definition of marriage, I think it is a travesty that we could turn our back on having an open debate on this subject. Democracy deserves no less.

My request, and the request of millions of Canadians, is for Parliament to reopen this debate so the report can be tabled and Canadians can all have real input on this important matter. Thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent conducting these hearings. Therefore, in the interest of wise stewardship alone, we owe it to all Canadians to have this work completed. However, there is much more at stake than simply getting good value for money in having this report tabled.

Another key factor to consider is the fact that many members were not given their free vote on this important issue. If my current information is accurate, it appears that the so-called New Democratic Party will not allow democracy within their own ranks.

Over and over, Canadians have been given a hollow promise that their individual rights will not be trampled and that no one will be forced to act against their own conscience or religious beliefs.

Does it not seem ironic that in the very place where those hollow assurances originate, in the House of Commons of Canada, that this core individual right is denied to individual members of Parliament? How can we reassure Canadians that their values, their individual rights and their religious convictions will not similarly be trampled?

It is true that Bill C-38 was enacted into law, but does it follow that this law is never open to further scrutiny? I know every member of the House understands that the practice of periodic review of legislation is simply good government practice. I believe any governing body has an obligation to review and revise its policies from time to time. Do we not owe it to our constituents to ensure that the law of the land is achieving its intended goal? Do we not have an obligation to allow parliamentarians to vote in a way that truly reflects the spirit of leadership we bring to this position? If Bill C-38 introduced worthy legislation, why would we not allow a full and open debate? Let the law be examined on its merits, good or bad.

There are simply too many factors that were overlooked and ignored in the previous government's haste to rush this legislation. There are too many questions that still face the House. Yes, we can choose to ignore those questions again, but just because we choose to turn our back on them does not make them go away.

There are questions that remain unanswered. Have other jurisdictions experienced any negative consequences from implementing similar legislation? If we turn our back on this debate, we will never know. Did we consider the potential consequences for all segments of society in our haste to change thousands of years of traditional marriage? Did we overlook the needs of the most vulnerable among us, young children? Unless we have a full debate, we will never know. We have an obligation to examine the facts before we make decisions.

The issue of human rights has been raised as the reason that we cannot deny same sex couples the right to marry. If we are to speak of rights in the House, we need to include the rights of children.

The UN Declaration on Human Rights specifically states that the rights of children must take priority over the rights of adults because they are more vulnerable and require the support of the state.

Multiple studies have taken a good hard look at the impact of traditional marriage on childhood development. Yet, unless we vote to reopen debate on this issue, the House will never have an opportunity to consider what those studies say.

The debate over traditional marriage should be a debate about rights, I agree. However, in the blind dash to put a patchwork of rights together, have we ignored the rights of children? Again, let me make a direct appeal to my fellow parliamentarians. For the sake of future generations, for the sake of our country, let us remember the children.

I do not want to stand in the House and have young people come to me in 10 or 15 years and say, “You turned your back on us”. I cannot allow that to happen.

The responsibility of any elected official is to represent the views of their constituents. The people of Kitchener—Conestoga have spoken very clearly. They have spoken repeatedly. They want to open the debate on traditional marriage.

As I walk through the streets of Breslau, New Hamburg, Wellesley or St. Jacobs, constituents come to me and thank me for finally giving them a voice. As I sit in my constituency office in Kitchener, people will call me or drop in just to express their support of traditional marriage. As their elected representative I am asking: let us have an open and honest debate.

Canadians expect an open and honest debate, followed by a truly democratic vote, not a whipped vote by an autocratic party leader determined to satisfy special interests. The House of Commons, the highest pinnacle of democracy, deserves nothing less.

We need a debate to review the impact, not just on people who wish to marry but one that also reviews the impact of that decision on the most vulnerable among us, our children.

Again, my request is simple and clear. For the sake of democracy, for the sake of our children, for the sake of future generations and for the sake of the future of our country, let us have a full, open and honest debate.

[Petitions, December 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Kitchener—Conestoga and surrounding area. The petition is signed by over 400 people.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to use all possible legislative and administrative measures to preserve and protect the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I too listened with great interest to the member opposite, who identified some of the shortcomings as we deal with our first nations people.

I have served on the aboriginal affairs committee for the last number of months and we have used the term “first nations” exclusively as we talk about our first nations people. I do not think that is a major issue.

My major concern with her comments was she pointed out the major shortfalls among our aboriginal communities. Recently the 10 year report on the RCAP commission certainly gave us a failing grade. That is after 13 years of continuing work that the Liberal government could have been working on.

Our government has moved ahead on many of the fronts addressing issues of structural change that are needed as we deal with our aboriginal people. Recently at the aboriginal affairs committee one of the aboriginal leaders said that if we were to have implemented the Kelowna accord, it would have taken the issues of the aboriginal people back many years. It would not have improved things.

The member pointed out that we are at the tip of a bayonet and we are being forced to make a decision. Would she rather have us vote on the Bloc motion at this point which does not call for the Québécois within a united Canada?