James Bezan

[Criminal Code, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing that the member for Etobicoke North was able to stand through that entire spin. He must have been dizzy from spinning his message the way he did. It is unbelievable that he could stand in this House and make some of the accusations that he made.

There is no question that we are all concerned about the security of our citizens and that we want to have safe and wholesome communities, but the long gun registry has unfairly penalized rural Canadians. People from urban centres do not understand rural lifestyle. They do not understand that farmers and hunters use their firearms as tools. The Métis community in my riding is seriously disadvantaged in hunting for food because of the long gun registry.

I am a farmer and I can tell the House that it is important to have a firearm handy, properly stored of course and kept safely away from children. A firearm is needed in case of predators and in case an animal needs to be disposed of humanely. It is really unfortunate that people in urban centres do not understand that issue.

The member was throwing all sorts of numbers and figures around, but can he actually show me one incident where the firearms registry has actually prevented a crime? He talked about the gun registry. Handguns are a problem in Toronto. We understand that. We have had mandatory registration of handguns going back over 70 years. Why are handgun crimes still being committed in our urban centres?

[Privilege, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege based on a press release issued by the member for Etobicoke Centre in which he makes false statements, and accuses me of plagiarism and voting against a motion I did not vote against.

I believe this allegation by the member for Etobicoke Centre is an action taken with the intended affect of having me withdraw my private member's bill, Bill C-459, which directly affects the representation of my constituents and performance of my privileged parliamentary duties.

In order to begin to correct the public record on this issue, I want to outline the factual course of events culminating in the presentation of my private member's bill, Bill C-459, An Act to establish a Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day and to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as an act of genocide. All of these events can be backed up by emails sent and received by my office and those of my colleagues and legislative services.

First, as someone of Ukrainian heritage, I was in communication with other members of this House as early as last year on my interest in working on issues related to the Canadian Ukrainian community and my interest in Ukrainian issues.

In the spring of this year it was suggested to me that recognizing the Ukrainian famine as genocide with a memorial day in November would be an important issue to address this year, as it is the 75th anniversary of the famine of 1932.

I discussed this with Lisa Shymko of the Canadian Friends of Ukraine and my colleague Senator Andreychuk. I was also part of a meeting with the executive director of the Shevchenko Foundation on various issues related to the Ukrainian Canadian community in Canada and holodomor was discussed. I recently received an appreciative letter from this organization for my work on presenting this bill.

I want to give full credit to Senator Andreychuk who moved a similar motion a few years ago in the other place which was adopted unanimously. The senator shared her expertise and encouraged me to proceed with a similar motion or bill in the House, and provided assistance to me with the wording and communications strategy for my bill.

I consulted with two of my colleagues over the wording and whether it should be done as a motion or bill. I decided it should be a bill and I submitted my wording and requested legislative services on May 3, 2007 to have the bill drafted. My office received a rough draft of the bill on May 8 and it was approved on May 16. The request for final formatting and translation was made May 16, 2007. I gave notice of my bill on May 31, 2007, before the member for Etobicoke Centre gave notice of his bill, and I introduced the bill for first reading on June 13, 2007.

The member for Etobicoke Centre did not give notice of his bill until the day after I gave notice of my bill and he did not introduce it until much later. The notice paper, legislative services and my office emails can confirm all of these dates.

As is clear from this record of dates, I could not have possibly known of the content of his bill and therefore his accusations of plagiarism are truly false. I was only informed that there was a bill related to mine, but that the two bills were substantially different from each other and that there was no problem in proceeding with my bill.

I want to make it very clear that the wording of my bill was established in consultation with my colleagues in April and submitted for drafting on May 3, over a month before I heard about the member for Etobicoke Centre's bill and more than a month before his introduction of Bill C-450 only after which I would have first had the opportunity to see the text of his bill. Clearly, I could not have possibly plagiarized his bill.

On the evening of June 13, 2007 in the House, I sought further confirmation from the table officer on duty on the determination of any substantive difference between my bill and the bill of the member for Etobicoke Centre, who I was now aware had given notice of and introduced a similar bill.

I received confirmation on Monday, June 18 that the decision on whether a bill is substantively different is made by you, Mr. Speaker, after an initial assessment by the journals branch.

I am therefore raising this point of privilege because I believe, based on the events as outlined above, that it is clear that the member for Etobicoke Centre, who knows full well that I could not have seen the text of his bill when I gave notice of my bill, Bill C-459, and yet proceeded to issue the press release in question.

Further, when I submitted my wording and asked for it to be drafted in April of this year as a private member's bill, I had no knowledge of the member for Etobicoke Centre's intention to submit a similar bill.

Further to my question of privilege, he states in his press release that I voted against his motion to adopt his bill at all stages when he knows that I did not vote against his motion. That is the normal procedure for both Conservative and past Liberal governments not to fast track private member's bills, whether it be my own bill or an opposition member's bill.

The order paper is full of worthy bills and they all follow a uniform process of debate and vote in a fair system of precedence. The member for Etobicoke Centre is trying to queue jump in front of others in the order of precedence.

I would like to point to a statement made by a previous Speaker that I think applies to this situation. Speaker Fraser said:

The unjust damaging of a Member’s good name might also be seen as constituting an obstruction. The privileges of a Member are violated by any action which might impede him or her in the fulfilment of his or her duties and functions. It is obvious that the unjust damaging of a reputation could constitute such an impediment.

I think the statement makes it clear that my privilege has been violated by the member for Etobicoke Centre's slanderous and intimidating acts.

There are further examples where items published in newspapers and actions taken outside the House have been found by Speakers to establish a prima facie question of privilege due to their intimidating and chilling effect upon a member's ability to perform parliamentary duties. I point to Speaker Bosley's ruling of May 6, 1985, where a newspaper advertisement was deemed to impact a member's privilege. He said:

Any action which impedes or tends to impede a Member in the discharge of his duties is a breach of privilege. There are ample citations and precedents to bear this out.

Further examples include Speaker Jerome's ruling of December 6, 1978, as well as a ruling on a March 9, 1998 question of privilege where a newspaper article was argued to constitute an attempt to intimidate the Speaker and collectively the House. Speaker Parent ruled that there was a prima facie case of privilege.

On March 16, 1983 Mr. Mackasey raised a question of privilege in order to denounce accusations made in a series of articles appearing in the Montreal Gazette, to the effect that he was a paid lobbyist. On March 22, 1983 on page 24027 of Hansard the Speaker ruled that he had a prima facie question of privilege. The reasons given by the Speaker from page 29 of Selected Decisions of Speaker Jeanne Sauvé state:

Not only do defamatory allegations about Members place the entire institution of Parliament under a cloud, they also prevent Members from performing their duties as long as the matter remains unresolved, since, as one authority states, such allegations bring Members into “hatred, contempt or ridicule”. Moreover, authorities and precedents agree that even though a Member can “seek a remedy in the courts, he cannot function effectively as a Member while this slur upon his reputation remains”. Since there is no way of knowing how long litigation would take, the Member must be allowed to re-establish his reputation as speedily as possible by referring the matter to the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections.

On page 251 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, 3rd ed. there is a reference to members. It says:

The House of Commons is prepared to find contempt in respect of utterances within the category of libel and slander and also in respect of utterances which do not meet that standard. As put by Bourinot, “any scandalous and libellous reflection on the proceedings of the House--” and “libels upon members individually--”.

I would also refer to a Speaker's ruling from October 29, 1980 at page 4213 of Hansard. The Speaker said:

--in the context of contempt, it seems to me that to amount to contempt, representations or statements about our proceedings or of the participation of members should not only be erroneous or incorrect, but, rather, should be purposely untrue and improper and import a ring of deceit.

I also want to object to another factual error in his press release which is damaging to my reputation in the community. The member for Etobicoke Centre stated that I and the government House leader voted against his motion to pass his bill at all stages. Neither of us voted against his motion.

I therefore insist that the member for Etobicoke Centre immediately issue an apology and a retraction request to the Canadian and Ukrainian press for libellous claims and false statements. Further, I ask that he apologizes in the House for making a statement so damaging to my reputation.

Finally, I am very disappointed in the member for Etobicoke Centre for not even approaching me to discuss this issue and to get his facts straight before launching his offensive and slanderous press release.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, June 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian interparliamentary delegation of the Canadian section of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas, FIPA, respecting its participation in the 16th meeting of the executive committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas held in Brasilia, Brazil, from May 31 to June 1, 2007, and to the mission to the 37th regular session of the general assembly of the Organization of American States held in Panama City, Panama, from June 3 to June 5, 2007.

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Kildonan—St. Paul has been very passionate about this issue for a long time. Since she was elected, one of her top priorities has been the health of Lake Winnipeg. Her concern over Devils Lake is something that she has been expressing in caucus. She has been there helping me out in my crusade to improve the health of Lake Winnipeg and find government dollars to get the job done to actually address all the concerns facing Lake Winnipeg.

How should we deal with the current situation we have with North Dakota? We have had great cooperation from the U.S. government. The U.S. State Department has worked very well with us. How does the member think we need to continue on with our diplomacy with the United States government and with Governor Hoeven in North Dakota?

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Winnipeg South Centre, for her comments. I know she cares passionately about the lake. She has a cottage in my riding and. As she mentioned, her kids have grown up there, she grew up on the beaches and it is very important to her.

The one thing that all of us is concerned about is the way North Dakota has approached this whole topic. As she mentioned, if it runs the pump at full tilt for 22 weeks, it will only drop the lake a half an inch.

I understand that North Dakota and the northern great plains have seen a great deal of precipitation this spring. For that reason the pumps have been turned on to try to control some of the flooding. There is no question, though, that part of the issue they are facing is the intensive drainage projects that they have undertaken over the last 50 years in North Dakota, especially in western North Dakota, in draining a lot of their wetlands and cleaning up a lot of their agricultural lands. That has created the problem that we face today.

If we look at the larger picture, as was mentioned earlier by the member for Saint Boniface, it has been a thousand years since the last time Devils Lake overflowed. In the dirty thirties the lake was dry. There is something that has changed and it has to do with the overall management of the drainage system within the state of North Dakota.

I know we all feel compassionate for the people of North Dakota, especially those people who live along Devils Lake and the flooding problem that they have faced for decades. What does the member see as the reasonable way for them to address the issues they have facing them?

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr.Speaker, I am glad the hon. member for Saint Boniface mentioned that he has been down to North Dakota and has seen the devastation. It is overwhelming. So much flooding has happened there, so many people have been displaced, and so many farmyards are lying at the bottom of the lake, which has been rising exponentially over the last 25 years. Could the hon. member tell us why that lake has been rising so fast?

Second, for the benefit of the rest of our colleagues in the House tonight who may think this is a very local issue and only affects Manitoba and North Dakota, would the hon. member comment on the violation of the boundary waters treaty, what that will do and how it will affect the overall work of the IJC?

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, we have been very fortunate because the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium has done some excellent work. A number of scientists from across Canada and from the freshwater fishery research out of Winnipeg along with a number of universities have participated in the study of Lake Winnipeg.

Lake Winnipeg is actually understudied though as compared to a lot of other lakes. If we look at the Great Lakes, such as Lake Ontario, or Lake Victoria in Kenya, which is a lake of an equivalent size, we are talking about hundreds of studies that have been done. Only about 60 studies have been done on Lake Winnipeg. Last summer I know the number was 57. I am hoping that the number has increased slightly since then.

One of the scientists at the University of Alberta actually compared Lake Winnipeg today to what Lake Erie was 20 years ago when the Mulroney government buckled down and got the job done in cleaning up Lake Erie. It is time to do the same with Lake Winnipeg to ensure that it is there for the long term and is there for the enjoyment of my kids and the next generation, as well as to ensure there is a viable commercial fishing industry and tourism industry for many years to come.

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question that the overall long term health of Lake Winnipeg is utmost not just to me and people in my riding, but to all the people in Manitoba. We all care about it. All parties in this House are very concerned about this situation.

There are definitely some challenges ahead for Lake Winnipeg. It has been having ongoing nutrient loading problems that have led to algae blooms and some of those algae blooms are actually toxic. They are polluting our beaches. When algae washes up on the shore it covers up the sand and this makes it tough to enjoy our white beaches. It is rather disgusting for kids out there. There is a great concern that these algae blooms are creating dead zones in the lake. Oxygen is being deprived and fish are dying in those areas. It is amazing that we still have such a healthy, vibrant fishing industry. The fish that are coming out of the lake, the pickerel, are all testing clean, toxic free.

The problem is not necessarily pollution. It is nutrients. More nutrients do not need to be added and that is essentially what has been coming from south of the border. We are getting a nutrient load of nitrogen and phosphates and that is making it incredibly difficult to clean up our lake.

We try to do what we can within Manitoba, but we have to work with our international partners. We are talking about four provinces and three states in the U.S. that contribute to the nutrients that are going into Lake Winnipeg. We have to find a way to work cooperatively with our American friends. Minnesota is on side with Manitoba on this issue in making sure that the Devils Lake diversion is properly monitored and controlled so that no unnecessary pollutants or invasive species are dumped into the system and that we maintain the overall integrity of the Red River basin and the Lake Winnipeg basin.

[Devils Lake Diversion Project, June 14th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great concern that I participate in the debate knowing that the situation is still going on with the Devils Lake outlet.

I represent the riding of Selkirk—Interlake, home to Lake Winnipeg, the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world and the ultimate home of where all this water from Devils Lake is going to end up. We talk about the larger Hudson Bay basin, but my greatest concern is right in my backyard and that is Lake Winnipeg and all the people and communities who depend on the lake.

My constituents have fought long and hard on these water diversion issues. This goes right back to when North Dakota first started talking about the Garrison diversion. That goes back 20 or 30 years. This is something we have been concerned about, because our lake is near and dear to our hearts and is important to us in so many fashions.

Not only is there a threat that the diversion is going to create more flooding along the Red River when it is in operation, especially if it is happening during high water times, but it is going to devastate Lake Winnipeg. When we talk about the water quality or the biota and the parasites and how they might affect the fish stocks, Lake Winnipeg is a green lake and it hosts a huge pickerel fishery and whitefish fishery. Over 1,300 commercial fishermen make their living off that lake and we have to protect it.

I have the great joy of representing this lake. It is important to tourism. It is important to our film industry now. It has some beautiful beaches. Of course it is very important to the overall freshwater fishing industry across western Canada.

The commercial fishermen are really concerned about this because biota can come in and create real havoc to our fish species. It could have an impact on our beaches, and the water sports industries and tourism which make such a great living off our lake. All the communities along Lake Winnipeg are going to be negatively impacted. My family enjoys fishing on that lake. I go there with my daughters. We spend a lot of time on the beach. We do not want to see the quality of the lake compromised any further.

As members of the House are aware, the government of North Dakota decided to resume operations of the diversion earlier this week. Since the full nature and extent of downstream risks to Canada are still unknown, we find North Dakota's decision to be irresponsible as well as deeply disappointing. Our government's position is clear and anchored in the nearly century old boundary waters treaty. Under the treaty, both countries, Canada and the United States, have agreed to protect water resources on both sides of the border. To quote article IV of the treaty, it states:

--waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.

It is a pretty clear statement that we are going to work mutually together to protect our water basins. We remain concerned by the threat of transboundary harm and look to the Americans to uphold their obligations under the treaty by seeing to it that the outlet is closed until it can be safely operated, as we have already agreed to.

We have reason to be concerned by discharge from the outlet without any effective treatment measures installed to date. Our government's concern centres on the possible threat of the biota transfer that I was talking about in Devils Lake. There have been some profiles done and we know there are parasites in Devils Lake that are not common in the Hudson Bay basin, especially in Lake Winnipeg. That is, we are concerned about the microbial, plant or animal life that might reside in Devils Lake, but which might not exist outside of the basin.

This goes back to the situation that Devils Lake has been and continues to be naturally a closed basin. It has not been connected to the broader basin of the Lake Winnipeg basin, or the Hudson Bay basin, and it has not flooded out of its own boundaries for over 1,000 years. It is only logical to assume that much of the larger aquatic life in Devils Lake was likely introduced by humans after the lake was dry after the dirty thirties and the 1940s. It went completely dry, so everything that is in there has been introduced.

These conditions suggest to us in Canada that biota in Devils Lake may well have developed somewhat differently from plant and animal life downstream in the greater Red River Valley and Lake Winnipeg basin, but this matter remains unclear and the degree of this risk is still unknown.

However, we do know all too well that introducing non-native species presents serious environmental consequences and potentially significant economic costs.

Aquatic invasive species can take over and degrade their new environments by displacing or harming native biota.

As well in the nearby Great Lakes, invasive species such as zebra mussels have caused millions of dollars in damage. The invasion of the sea lamprey into the Great Lakes was particularly devastating to the commercial fisheries.

In Manitoba we have multi-million dollar commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries on Lake Winnipeg. I do not want to see them threatened by the same invasive alien species that might be lurking in Devils Lake.

In the absence of any solid final scientific assessment of Devils Lake, the Red River and Lake Winnipeg, the full extent of the risk of transfer of invasive species is still uncertain.

Under these circumstances, our government believes that the outlet should be closed until effective treatment measures can be put in place. Simply not enough is understood about the full range of threats from Devils Lake, both in terms of invasive alien species and its water chemistry.

However, while the full risks may not be fully understood, there still is sufficient cause to be concerned. In such circumstances where there is that cause, precaution is the appropriate measure.

The precautionary principle endorsed by countries around the world, including the United States, is the Rio declaration. It was intended for application in precisely the type of circumstances we are encountering today with Devils Lake in North Dakota.

At its most basic, the precautionary principle calls for prudence in the face of uncertainty. In the matter of the Devils Lake outlet, prudence requires that the outlet be closed while important binational scientific and engineering work currently in progress be allowed to continue unhampered. These efforts will provide a fuller understanding of the biological profile of Devils Lake, the Sheyenne and Red rivers and my Lake Winnipeg.

As well, a more complete understanding of fish parasites and pathogens in the system will help inform efforts under way to design and construct an effective treatment for the outlet.

A surprising amount of the international boundary that we share with the U.S. is made up of water. In fact, over 3,500 kilometres of the border is made up of boundary waters. For nearly a century, framed by the boundary waters treaty, Canada and the U.S. have enjoyed a successful relationship regarding our shared waters. The Devils Lake outlet represents a relatively rare irritant in this long-running and enviable relationship.

In light of the risks to Canada, and drawing on a long tradition of transboundary cooperation, I believe it is imperative that the two countries agree on a solution that protects our environment.

However, once North Dakota turned the outlet on this week, this jeopardized the important work toward finding such a solution, one that would see the implementation of a permanent treatment system at the outlet, an issue that we have been pressing with the United States government for some time.

Our government will continue to urge the U.S. government to continue preparation toward the installation of a permanent treatment system. Up until now, the pace of that work has been far too slow. We have been clear with the U.S. government that we expect the permanent treatment system to be installed prior to operating the outlet and to work with us to help resolve the Devils Lake outlet dispute.

I hope that the State of North Dakota and Governor Hoeven will stop the outlet. When we really look at it, that outlet is having a negligible impact on the water level in Devils Lake. He needs to allow our important bilateral work toward the installation of a permanent treatment system to continue.

I want to talk about a few other things that our government has done to protect Lake Winnipeg.

In the budget, which it is hoped the Liberal dominated Senate will pass, there are research dollars for the Lake Winnipeg Research Consortium and the research vessel Namao. There are ongoing commitments to the watershed in Lake Winnipeg. There is over $7 million in budget 2007 that will help protect Lake Winnipeg and the whole basin.

We are taking a strong stand on Lake Winnipeg. I want to make sure that continues. I have been talking with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of the Environment, as well as on a couple of occasions with Governor Hoeven, about working cooperatively so we can find the solution and protect Manitobans.

[Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day Act, June 13th, 2007]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-459, An Act to establish a Ukrainian Famine and Genocide Memorial Day and to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as an act of genocide.

Mr. Speaker, this year Ukrainian Canadians mark the 75th anniversary of one of the most heinous crimes in modern history, the state sponsored famine of 1932-33 perpetrated by the Soviet regime of Stalin against the Ukrainian people.

Called Holodomor, which in Ukrainian means murder by hunger, millions of Ukrainians were stripped of their produce in a forced farm collectivization campaign that killed close to 10 million Ukrainians and was devised to destroy aspirations for a free and independent Ukraine.

For decades, the truth about this horrific crime was suppressed by Soviet authorities. The omission of this forced famine and genocide from our history books is very troubling to me, which is why today, as a Ukrainian Canadian myself, I am introducing an act to establish Ukrainian Genocide and Famine Memorial Day.

This bill would not only designate the fourth Saturday of November as a memorial day for the Ukrainian famine, but it also acknowledges the famine as an act of genocide.

I would like to thank the continued efforts of the Ukrainian Canadian community that has worked tirelessly to bring public awareness to the Ukrainian famine and genocide.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)