Inky Mark

[Points of Order, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind members opposite that Bill C-331 has already had one hour of debate and the Chair has ruled that the restitution component does not require royal consent. It just does not make any sense that we start debating a bill and all of a sudden the government objects. I do not believe we should be dealing with Bill C-333 when we are talking about intervention with Bill C-331.

The member opposite stated that all these clauses start with “shall”. Could he show me a government bill that does not have the word “shall” in it? If we were to withdraw all the shalls from the short bill, we would not have a bill.

This is to continue negotiations. The crux of the bill is to ask the government to sit down with the Ukrainian Canadian community and negotiate. No dollars are noted in the bill.

On the issue of the museum, I have stated, and this is actually from the past history of the last government, how close it came to resolving this issue.

If the bill is successful on the vote at the end of the second reading, the committee can deal with it. The committee can eliminate, delete, amend or do whatever it wants. The government will have plenty of say. After 20 years surely the House would allow the one million Ukrainians in communities in Canada to have their say. I think that would be justice for that ethnic community. This is a long time to rule this bill out of order. Let the committee decide.

[Points of Order, February 22nd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the Chair for a ruling that the restitution provision of Bill C-331 does not require a royal recommendation. The Chair has questioned the clause that proposes the establishment of a museum at the site of one of the World War I internment camps. The concern is that the establishment would require public funds.

After lengthy consultation with the Ukrainian community in Canada, both the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, let me assure the Chair that no new museum is being requested in Bill C-331. No extraordinary financial commitments are being requested. Therefore, I believe Bill C-331 is not a money bill and does not require a royal recommendation.

Allow me to explain how the idea of the museum came about in the bill. During the last session of Parliament the former heritage minister, the hon. Sheila Copps, instructed her department to meet and discuss ways to deal with the Ukrainian redress issue. A number of meetings took place and progress was made. This process was terminated with the call of the general election.

The museum idea was a proposal discussed at these meetings. As you know, Mr. Speaker, Ukrainian internee labour was used to build much of the Banff infrastructure. The proposed museum would be housed in an existing facility that is currently maintained by Parks Canada as an office complex storage area at Cave and Basin in Banff National Park, formerly known as the Old Tea Shoppe building.

This structure's first floor would be cleared out and Parks Canada would continue to have access and use the lower basement level. The first level would be reconstituted as a meeting place, for education, commemoration and reflection for the exclusive use of the Ukrainian Canadian community in perpetuity. This facility would include a small meeting area, a permanent exhibit about the internment operations, the current washroom facilities and some office space, as well as a small chapel and place of reflection. As well, the existing exhibit information about the internment operations in the Cave and Basin centre would be expanded.

Parks Canada would maintain the existing facilities as part of its annual budget for the Cave and Basin Banff National Park, as it does now, ensuring proper security, heating, maintenance and the like. As this function is already performed by Parks Canada and is included in its annual operating budget, no additional funds would be required. As the proposed place of reflection and commemoration would only be used on a irregular basis by the community and not normally open to the public, its maintenance would not require any extraordinary expenditures.

Design, development and reconfiguration of the first floor area to meet the requirements of the Ukrainian Canadian community would be undertaken in consultation with Parks Canada and any other relevant government ministries to ensure the heritage integrity of the building.

The costs of any restructuring of the internal space of this building to meet the needs of the community would be paid for from funds coming to the community as a result of a calculation of the contemporary value of that portion of the wealth confiscated from the internees that was not returned, a figure to be arrived at by government forensic accountants and economists in consultation with the designated representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian community. The community expects to be involved in negotiations with the appropriate federal government authorities as anticipated in Bill C-331 to determine the appropriate level of symbolic restitution.

These details have previously been discussed in meetings initiated by the former minister of Canadian heritage, the hon. Sheila Copps, and communicated to the senior members of that government department and others.

In closing, no new museum is being requested. No extraordinary financial commitments are being requested. In the view of the Ukrainian community, Bill C-331, the Ukrainian Canadian restitution act, is not, therefore, a money bill and should be voted and discussed in the House of Commons.

If Bill C-331 is successful and is sent to committee for further study, the committee may amend or delete this clause if it is the will of the committee. At this time, Bill C-331 has already received one hour of debate. It would be a great disappointment to the one million Ukrainian Canadians if Bill C-331 was ruled out of order.

[Chinese Canadian Recognition and Redress Act, February 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a great honour to rise today to debate Bill C-333.

I am a proud Canadian of Chinese descent. I am a third generation immigrant to Canada. First I want to thank the member for Durham for introducing Bill C-333. The bill has been tabled in the House at least three times. I also thank all the members of the House for their support of this bill.

For over 20 years, that is, over two decades, the Chinese community has been seeking redress. Bill C-333 has been in the works for seven years. It reflects the will of the National Congress of Chinese Canadians and other national organizations. I want to acknowledge the executive members who have led the charge over the last two decades: the president of NCCC, Ping Tan from Toronto; the chairman of the GTA Chinese Community Association, Hugh Eng; secretary David Lim; Jack Lee from Montreal; Dr. Joseph Du from Winnipeg; Gordon Joe from Toronto; Frank Chui from Toronto; Fred Mah of Vancouver; Dr. David Lai from Victoria; and Albert Tang of Ottawa. I also want to thank Hansen Lau for all his work in Vancouver over the head tax issue.

The purpose of Bill C-333 is to acknowledge the past history which includes the head tax and the exclusion act. No apology is being asked for. We do not believe that an apology is necessary, but we certainly need to recognize the past. Also we need to establish an educational foundation for the purpose of telling the history of the Chinese immigrants to this country.

The Chinese landed on Vancouver Island long before Captain Cook did. In fact, as the member for Durham indicated in her speech, in 1788 British explorer John Meares landed at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island with 70 Chinese carpenters he had brought from the Portuguese colony of Macau. They built him a boat and then it is thought that those 70 Chinese married into native communities on the island and their cultural traces were soon lost. They were the first Chinese to set foot in Canada and the last for the 70 years following.

Much has been said this morning about the head tax. Both my grandfather and my father paid the head tax. In fact, I still have my father's head tax certificate at home. It is time for me to tell my story.

My grandfather came to this country to work on the CP Rail in the late 1800s. Members may know that 17,000 Chinese were imported to build the railway which, as Canadians agree, united this country. Over 700 lost their lives principally around the Fraser Canyon area. They were paid half the wages the white workers received. This was the norm until well into the 1930s. The Chinese were tolerated in Canada only because they were a cheap source of labour.

After 1885 the head tax was imposed for the purpose of discouraging immigration. That was the very purpose. They were finished using them to build the railroad and did not need them any more so they found a way to keep them out.

About three years ago I went to Europe with the hon. Sheila Copps, the then minister of heritage. We visited a number of Canadian cemeteries. Sheila was looking for her lost uncle who had fought in World War I. Lo and behold we did find her uncle's headstone, but Sheila also noticed that not far from her uncle's headstone was a headstone with Chinese characters written on it. We both wondered how that Chinese person had ended up in Europe in the battlefields of World War I.

Canadians do not know that Chinese labourers were at the centre of a little known chapter during the first world war. For a year beginning in April 1917, close to 80,000 men were shipped from China to British Columbia, transported across the country by rail, and dispatched from east coast ports to the trenches in France. One of the governments ruling China at the time had joined the war on the side of the western allies and offered some of the labourers it had in spades to the war effort.

After the armistice the Chinese labour battalions were repatriated along the same route in both directions. They were transported in sealed railway cars lest they try to jump the train and avoid the $500 head tax levied at the time against Chinese immigrants. Very few Canadians know that part of Canadian history.

This country was very discriminatory against the Chinese after 1885. Discriminatory laws were passed in many of the provinces, particularly British Columbia. This demonstrates that at that time Canada had an apartheid system, one for regular Canadians and one for Canadians of Asian descent, whom Canada was trying to get rid of.

It is hard to believe that as recently as 1950 the Chinese were prohibited from shopping in the Eaton store in Winnipeg. That is an astounding piece of Canadian history.

The Chinese had been disenfranchised. They had no vote. They basically had no status in this country, even though 500 Chinese had enlisted in the second world war and fought for this country. Upon returning to Canada they had no vote and no jobs. They were discriminated against. I am sure they wondered which country they had really fought for.

My father was 12 years old when he arrived in Canada in 1922. He arrived here by luck because in 1923 the exclusion act was put in place. He came to join his father in a place called Russell, Manitoba, where my grandfather had started a laundry, and ended up working in a restaurant.

The exclusion act created great hardships for Chinese families in this country. There were virtually no female Chinese in Canada at the time. The only way Chinese men could get married, raise a family and have kids was to go back to China. That is what they did. Every few years they would make a long journey by ship back to China. In essence, that is what happened to my family. I could say I have two families, one pre-World War II and the other post-World War II. I am a post-World War II baby.

My mother, my younger sister and I did not join my father until after the repeal of the exclusion act in 1947. In 1955 the immigration doors opened up. I was six at the time. I have been very fortunate ever since. My sister and I grew up in a little village called Gilbert Plains, where the whole community was concerned and involved in raising us two little Chinese kids. That is how I ended up in this place.

I want to thank the member for Durham and all members of the House for their support in this matter. We need to deal with this Chinese redress. It is long overdue. Bill C-333 simply asks for an acknowledgement of the past. Surely Canada is not afraid of its past history. We as a country must learn from our past.

There are possibly one million Chinese Canadians in Canada today. As we have read and heard, Chinese is the third language spoken here. There can be absolutely no excuse to delay the resolution of the Chinese redress. The government has to sit down with the Chinese community and work things out. We are not asking for a huge amount of money, just enough to set up a foundation to tell the story about the Chinese immigrants who came to this country. It is time for the government to sit down with the community and work this out.

A year ago the Government of New Zealand recognized this injustice and formed a charitable trust and took other initiatives. That country apologized to the Chinese community. That country knew it was long overdue and that it had to deal with the redress issue.

I thank all members for their support. I am sure that the Liberal government will act on this bill.

[Supply, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I applaud the member for Durham for painting a very accurate picture.

On behalf of my farmers from Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette I want to echo the same message. The irony is that I have been here since 1997 and not a year has gone by when we have not talked about the farm crisis.

One would think that a government that has been here since 1993 would have learned something. Still today the government is getting the two basics mixed up, disaster relief and income stabilization. It should sort that out.

We know that farmers applaud the NISA program. Did the government not learn anything from AIDA 1 or AIDA 2? We used to hear the government say that $1.5 billion will look after the farmers. However, after a year and a half there are still $800 million not allocated. Obviously the government is not fit to look after the farmers.

[Petitions, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the last petition calls upon the government to freeze further spending on the implementation or privatization of the national firearms registry and to repeal Bill C-68 in its entirety.

[Petitions, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls upon the government to take immediate action to develop internationally recognized protocol designed to restore confidence in Canadian beef products and to open international beef markets to Canadian producers.

[Petitions, February 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present three petitions this morning on behalf of the good people of Dauphin—Swan River.

The first petition calls upon Parliament to immediately hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to affirm, as it did in 1999, its commitment to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as a union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, December 7th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely correct in what he said and hopefully the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will protect us down the road.

However, the fact is that we must accept our past history for what it is. The point the bill tries to make, with all redress issues, is that until the country accepts this, it is like alcoholics, until they accept that they are alcoholics they cannot see the future. I think Canadians expect greater things from their government.

[Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, December 7th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vegreville--Wainwright for seconding the motion.

It is a great honour today to rise to debate Bill C-331, an act to recognize the injustice of the Ukrainian internment. Bill C-331 has been tabled in the House three times but never debated.

Madam Speaker, I welcome the information on the bill that you have presented this evening.

The first time the whole issue of Ukrainian redress was debated was through a motion in September 1991 that was put forward by the member for Kingston and the Islands. This motion received support from all parties but had no effect on the government.

How did Bill C-331 come about? Bill C-331 was put together through collaboration with the Ukrainian community in Canada, which today numbers close to one million. It is supported by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

At this time I want to thank the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Paul Grod, for his support. I want to thank the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association chairman, John Gregorovich, and Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk and Borys Sydoruk. I also want to thank the president of the Taras Shevchenko Foundation, Andrew Hladyshevsky. There are also thousands of other Canadians of Ukrainian descent who have worked very hard over the last two decades.

Bill C-331 is in essence a bill that belongs to the Ukrainian community of Canada. The Ukrainian community in Canada has been calling for redress for internment for over 20 years. That is a long time. Most of that time, this call has fallen on deaf ears. There have been numerous broken promises throughout the last two decades, promises made by politicians, the people who sit in this House.

The most famous promise was made by our former prime minister, Jean Chrétien. In fact, tonight I want to read for the House a letter that he wrote to Mr. Thor Bardyn, the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in June 1993, when Mr. Chrétien was leader of the official opposition. He stated:

Dear Mr. Bardyn:

Thank you for your letter and the copies of the “Economic Losses of Ukrainian Canadians Resulting from Internment During World War I” and “Submissions on Behalf of the Ukrainian Canadian Community on the Matter of Redress for Non-Pecuniary Losses Occasioned by Internment and Other State-Inflicted Injuries.”

The Liberal Party understands your concern. As you know, we support your efforts to secure the redress of Ukrainian-Canadians' claims arising from their internment and loss of freedom during the First World War and Inter-war period. You can be assured that we will continue to monitor the situation closely and seek to ensure that the government honours its promise.

As Leader of the Opposition, I appreciate the time you have taken to write and bring your concerns to my attention.

Sincerely,

Jean Chrétien.

Jean Chrétien as prime minister had many opportunities to deal with Ukrainian redress over his three terms as prime minister.

Obviously he learned nothing from the settlement of the Japanese redress settled by the Mulroney government previous to that. The Mulroney government did the right and responsible thing and brought resolution to the Japanese redress. In fact, I was told that during that time period there were no private members' bills or motions debated in the House on Japanese redress. Yet the government of the day knew what the right thing was and did the right thing.

Let me take some time to talk about the internment, because many of us in this country, and I include myself, did not learn about the internment of the Ukrainians. I did not learn of it until I became a member of Parliament back in 1997. This is not recorded in our history books. It is an event that no one knows about. Obviously the government of the day wanted it to be wiped out. As Canadians, we want to know our history. We need to learn from history. That is why it is important to acknowledge and recognize that the history actually took place.

Bill C-331 calls for that recognition. I must emphasize again that it is a recognition of and not an apology for “the injustice that was done to persons of Ukrainian descent and other Europeans who were interned at the time of the First World War and to provide for public commemoration and for restitution”, which really means the return of properties confiscated by the government of the day. In other words, at that time the private property of the internees was confiscated by the Government of Canada. To this very day it has not been returned. That is what restitution means.

That restitution amount, whatever may be negotiated, is to be devoted to public education and the promotion of tolerance and the role of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That sounds Canadian. It sounds rational and it makes sense.

In other words, Bill C-331 calls for two things to be done.

One is acknowledgement that this internment took place and is part of Canadian history. We in this country cannot run away from our history. We must accept our history. We must accept the past. We have to accept the past; we cannot change it.

Another point, too, is that the government of the day must sit down with the Ukrainian community and work out the establishment of an education foundation for the purpose of telling the internment story to all Canadians so that hopefully this story and this history, this negative event, will not be repeated in the future. That is the main purpose, the main drive behind this redress issue.

It is time for the government to bring resolution to all redress issues. Is it not ironic that the government of the day will be sending up to 500 observers to Ukraine and is willing to pay the bill to ensure that democracy will be protected in Ukraine?

I support the government's decision. There is nothing wrong with it. Yet at the same time the government continues to deny that democratic rights were taken from the Ukraine community in Canada between 1914 and 1920, when over 88,000 Ukrainians were made to register like common criminals. They had to report monthly to the police and have their registration card stamped. Over 9,000 were interned. They were put in prison camps; internment is just a nice word for prison camps. In fact, they had it worse than prisoners of war because under the Geneva convention a country cannot force prisoners of war to work, to do domestic labour, which is actually slave labour, at no cost to the country.

Over 9,000 people were interned, of which over 5,000 were Ukrainian Canadians. The government has run out of excuses after two decades of denial. The internment of Ukrainians in Canada is a historic fact. I asked the question of the government, “Is acknowledging this too much to ask?”

It is time for the government to do the responsible thing and to acknowledge this historic wrong. I am sure that most Canadians would agree with me. It is time to deal with this issue and other redress issues.

The responsible thing is the acknowledgement, as well as working out a resolution with the Ukraine community. This is a matter of justice. After all, we Canadians like to see ourselves as a just society. In fact, we brag all over the world that we are a country based on rules, justice, tolerance and acceptance. Maybe it is time that we accept our own history for what it is and learn from it.

Justice is long overdue for the Ukraine community in Canada, which is one million strong. I know I am starting to run out of time so I will read for the House a poem written by Kari Moore of Victoria, B.C. A couple of summers ago, this poem was put on a plaque dedicated to the internees at a memorial park on the site of Canada's national Ukrainian festival. The name of the poem is Internment . It really tells the story:

With this commemorative plaque

We confer upon you the honour

Of paying the ultimate price.

The price of losing your freedom

In a country that invited you

And promised you work and freedom.

You laboured with a pickaxe and shovel

In the neighbouring mines and forests

Laying the rails for transport

Of your days' work to help the economy.

Then history changed your world,

Overnight you became an enemy alien

To be feared and unjustly interned.

If history could repeat itself

You could tell us your shame

And your unimagined confusion.

You still worked with an axe and shovel

But from behind a barbwire fence.

And for years you carried the stigma

Of becoming an unwanted citizen.

This plaque shall stand in your memory

And serve as an educational tool

To remember this part of our dark history,

And assure us that future Canadian governments

With the stroke of a pen shall not

Again put any citizen behind a barbwire fence.

I close by thanking all members who are taking part in this first hour of debate on Bill C-331 for their support.

[Ukrainian Canadian Restitution Act, December 7th, 2004]

moved that Bill C-331, an act to recognize the injustice that was done to persons of Ukrainian descent and other Europeans who were interned at the time of the First World War and to provide for public commemoration and for restitution which is to be devoted to public education and the promotion of tolerance, be read the second time and referred to a committee.