James Rajotte

[Points of Order, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, you indicated to me during question period that some words I used were unparliamentary and therefore using your counsel I would like to withdraw those words.

[Canada Steamship Lines, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we look forward to that decision because not only did the Prime Minister benefit from millions of taxpayer dollars being sent to his shipping company but he in fact altered the rules to benefit himself.

While closing tax havens in most other countries, the Prime Minister kept open a tax loophole that allowed his companies to avoid paying Canadian taxes. Then he amended private pension legislation to allow him to gain access to over $80 million of the surplus in the CSL pension fund, all of which went right back into his companies.

How can the Prime Minister possibly expect Canadian taxpayers, when he is not honest with them about the benefits that he and his--

[Canada Steamship Lines, May 5th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians know that the Prime Minister is not believable when it comes to being transparent about his own business dealings.

The fact is that the Prime Minister failed to come clean about the 33 meetings he had with executives from his own shipping company while he was the Minister of Finance. The fact is that he also failed to come clean about the over $161 million in taxpayers' money that was funnelled into his own shipping company.

How can Canadian taxpayers trust the Prime Minister when he himself has not told the truth about the benefits he and his company have received?

[Patent Act, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, in fairness, I should say that my colleague in the NDP worked very hard at committee. He is correct in the sense that often the Conservatives and the NDP do not agree, probably 90% of the time. However, on this issue he listened to what I said and I listened to what he said. A lot of the amendments he brought forward, I supported. Members from the Bloc brought forward amendments.

It is interesting, and the member will recall, that at committee the Bloc members had their amendments ready. The NDP members had their amendments ready. We had our amendments ready. Even some Liberal members had their amendments ready, but the government did not. We were told that the Prime Minister had taken an interest in the file and he was changing some of the amendments, so we had to put off committee meetings. We had to agree unanimously that we would not meet on a given day but that we would meet the following week. We had to cancel the meeting again because we had to wait for the amendments from the government to its own legislation. It was astounding.

We should compliment the staff of the committee and all members, who really worked hard. We worked day and night to get our amendments ready. Then we waited for two weeks for the government to prepare its amendments.

It shows how ironic the charge is that somehow Parliament does not work because of the opposition when the work on this bill shows the exact opposite.

The hon. member talked about Canada's lead role on this issue. The point of the bill was to take the lead on the issue. It is embarrassing that it has taken so long to get this piece of legislation through the House.

When the two ministers presented the bill at committee for the first time, I asked the simple question of how much the outlay of money was through CIDA and other organizations to shepherd the movement of medicines to these nations. The answer we got was that they did not know, that they were not dealing with that now. That should have been part and parcel of it from the very beginning.

I have very dear friends who have moved to Canada from that area of the world. They have said to me that the tsunami was tragic. It was the worst and the best: the worst in terms of how nature dealt a devastating blow to millions of people, but it showed the best of the human spirit in terms of the response.

That is what this should be about. This tragedy is 10 times the size of the tsunami and we should have 10 times the human response to the tragedy. The government should have taken the lead on this issue and shown the rest of the world how generous Canadians are in that endeavour. Unfortunately, it has not done so, but we certainly hope it will in the future.

[Patent Act, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my friend in the Bloc Québécois is absolutely correct. This legislation was introduced in the final period of Jean Chrétien's administration. He professed a great deal of interest in trying to help nations in Africa and other least developed nations.

When this legislation was introduced our House leader, the current member for West Vancouver--Sunshine Coast--Sea to Sky Country, approached the Bloc Québécois and the NDP and there was agreement among all opposition parties to pass it in one day. Interestingly, the government said no. This was government legislation and the opposition was willing to pass it in one day, yet the government would not agree. It said there were problems with the legislation.

The member asked me if it was an administrative problem or a question of other issues or just normal delay in the House. I am trying to be fair and diplomatic, but it was a question of government incompetence. The government could not put together a piece of legislation right from the beginning. I believe other parties would agree that it was a question of government incompetence. It is ironic because the government is fond of saying the opposition does not want to make Parliament work. Bill C-29 has shown the exact opposite. Members of the opposition were willing to work with the government to make this work.

My colleague from Windsor and the Bloc member who asked the question worked hard at committee to get Bill C-29 through committee as soon as possible. It came back to the House with amendments. The government forgot to include a schedule so it has to be amended again.

I have spoken to this legislation about five times in the House and have said essentially the same thing. We support it and we want it to go through as quickly as possible.

The government should be ashamed at how long it has taken to get this legislation through. It should do its job henceforward. However, there may be a new government sooner rather than later that would ensure that people in the least developed nations would get the medicine they need. There would be no incompetence that would hold up a good piece of legislation such as this bill.

[Patent Act, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to again discuss this bill. As members of the House know, we have seen this bill many times and in many forms. It is a bill which members of all parties can take some pride. We worked together on an issue as serious as this in terms of trying to get cheaper medicines into least developed nations by amending the Patent Act.

For the parliamentary secretary's information, I was asking more about the infrastructure that is helping to ensure that these medicines get to the people who need them and that they do the most good when they get there.

A lot of the people from the non-governmental organizations, like Médecins Sans Frontières, the global AIDS fund, Oxfam and others, came before us and said it is one thing to allow for cheaper medicines, but it is another thing to ensure that the system is in place. We have the physicians and nurses, but we should also ensure that people are taking these medicines with an adequate diet, a clean water supply, and know how to take the medicines properly. If they do not take them properly, it can act in the exact opposite way and make them immune to treatment. I encourage the government to ensure that through CIDA and other departments, agencies and organizations it continues to work with the NGOs to ensure that the medicines actually arrive and do some good.

When this bill was introduced in the past Parliament, every opposition party was willing to pass this legislation in one day. Unfortunately, it has taken the government four times to get this legislation right. That reveals a lot about this Parliament and the last Parliament. In fact, there were people in all parties who through goodwill have tried to move forward on this issue. It says something about the government. It brought the bill forward and reintroduced amendments in committee. Now it has reintroduced amendments again to its own piece of legislation which had unanimous opposition support from the first day it was introduced.

It should be pointed out to the Canadian people that there are parties like the Conservative Party that are very willing to work with all other parties on issues of concern to Canadians. I certainly commend my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the NDP who worked on this issue. I know they put a lot of effort into this as well. To be fair, the current Minister of Labour and Housing was quite instrumental in committee in trying to shepherd some of these amendments.

I want to give a brief overview of this issue. It is about trying to enable generic manufacturers to manufacture medicines, which are still under the 20 year patent protection, at lower cost, so a lot of the individuals in the least developed nations will be able to reduce the cost in terms of what they actually pay for these medicines. It is important because it allows generic manufacturers to step in not only from Canada but from other nations.

We should also recognize the efforts that a lot of the brand name manufacturers have made. I had the opportunity to visit the headquarters of GSK, GlaxoSmithKline, in the United Kingdom. One of the things it talked about was river disease in Africa. I believe it has dealt with about 20 million people and has been able to combat that disease. Its goal is to eradicate it within about 20 years. We should recognize its efforts, as well as Merck Frosst's efforts in Botswana. This is an issue which people and companies of goodwill can certainly have an impact on.

We supported Bill C-29 and the Jean Chrétien pledge to Africa act in the last Parliament and we support these amendments. We hope that this bill will finally be passed and become law. The Conservative Party is showing an awful lot of goodwill by putting up one speaker and ensuring the bill goes through in an hour to an hour and a half of debate.

I encourage the government to work with the NGOs to ensure that the infrastructure is in place. I encourage it to keep an accounting and then report to Canadians on what progress has been made.

I was trying to make another point to the parliamentary secretary. The government should keep track of how much medicine actually goes to these nations under this legislation so that we can be accountable to Canadians. We should be able to tell them in 2006, 2007, and in subsequent years that under legislation which was enacted in 2005, how many people were helped, how much medicine was produced, and how much money went globally to fight the horrific challenging diseases of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV-AIDS.

We in the Conservative Party support these amendments. We support the goal of this legislation. We would like to see it succeed.

[Patent Act, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the parliamentary secretary how the progress is going in terms of actually preparing and how many medicines we can expect perhaps in the years ahead to be used for least developed nations for HIV-AIDS, TB and malaria? What is the government's plan with respect to helping with the medical infrastructure and everything else that is needed in order to ensure that these medicines are used effectively? I would appreciate if he could bring the House up to date on that.

[Property Rights, April 21st, 2005]

My colleague says it is beautiful. It is a very beautiful statement about what the meaning of property is. It is men and women mixing their labour with nature, thereby having a sense of ownership over it.

As has been said many times, the omission of property rights from the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a worrisome oversight and we would certainly like to see that document amended to include property rights. The rights that Canadians enjoy with respect to property are only done through some provincial and federal statutes, but there should be, as my colleague suggested, an overriding principle so all laws can abide by this principle.

In Quebec, of course, property rights are found within the civil code of that province.

Since property rights are not entrenched in the legal system, Parliament can easily overturn property rights under virtually any piece of legislation. There are examples of that in this Parliament and the last.

The proposed endangered species legislation in the last Parliament by the Liberal government could mean vast tracts of land are taken away from landowners of the smallest size at the discretion of political figures and governments without giving due compensation. That is a key thing to remember. This is not saying that the government never has a reason to take property away but if it does so, it has to give fair market compensation. That was an important principle that we fought for in the last Parliament.

The recent anti-terrorism legislation authorizes police to seize certain property without normal judicial review. The mapping of the genome and advancements in health sciences have brought about new debates in intellectual property. There is the issue of firearms seizure under Bill C-68 with respect to the firearms registry.

There is also the issue of patents, copyright and intellectual property rights, which are an important area of the work I do as the industry critic for the official opposition. In this digital day and age, we see repeated violations of property rights. Music is downloaded and shared without paying anything to the creator. Major motion pictures are also copied and shared through the Internet. This is an important point. Locke made the whole innovation in terms of mixing our labour. However, it is also mixing our intellectual labour with something and being a creator and, thus, being rewarded for the efforts and the intellect that one pours into something.

The University Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 considered intellectual property a fundamental right of all peoples. However, Canada has been less aggressive than most of its international competitors in linking innovation to intellectual property or in protecting or promoting intellectual property rights.

On the other hand, the Conservative Party at its policy convention in March of this year passed several motions that will improve property rights for Canadians. I am proud to say that it was my riding association that was one of the sponsors of these, the good members of Edmonton—Leduc.

The policy reads:

i) A Conservative Government will seek the agreement of the provinces to amend the Constitution to include this right, as well as guarantee that no person shall be deprived of their just right without the due process of law and full, just and timely compensation.

ii) A Conservative Government will enact legislation to ensure that full, just and timely compensation will be paid to all persons who are deprived of personal or private property as a result of any federal government initiative, policy, process, regulation or legislation.

In addition to this, the Conservative Party passed two more resolutions that would improve the protection of intellectual property. We would create a process to allow the patent holder to restore time lost on 20 year patent protection due to delays in government approving certain things, like pharmaceutical medicines. If the government takes two or four years to approve a product, we believe there should be some restoration in the patent period to that company and to the company that holds the patent.

We also believe we must continuously examine and update our copyright legislation. To that end, we have passed a comprehensive set of objectives to guide the party in future amendments to copyright law.

Music file sharing is a massive problem in Canada. There is a proliferation of websites providing resources and copies of music used by most to avoid paying for a copy of a CD or cassette tape.

I was struck by the comments by the member for Scarborough—Rouge River, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He engaged in an act of sophistry which I have not seen him do in this Parliament.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage will soon be introducing copyright amendment legislation that actually tries to protect the works of creators, people like Tom Cochrane, Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo, who are famous Canadians musicians. It is based on a perception that if they pour their intellectual, moral and labour into something, then they have a right to derive a benefit from it. That is property rights. That forms the basis of that legislation

We cannot have copyright legislation unless we have an abstract understanding of what property right legislation should be.

Canadian musicians have been waiting for more than a decade for amendments to the Copyright Act. As it currently stands, Canadian composers, song writers, lyricists and music publishers are not being fairly compensated and in some cases their rights are being violated because we have no workable enforcement mechanisms in Canadian law.

I am calling on all members to seriously think about this motion and examine it. It is a very thoughtful motion and it is put forward in the most gracious spirit that one can ask for from the member for Yorkton--Melville in terms of protecting property rights of all types, property rights and intellectual property rights.

However, I want to address in my conclusion one of the big issues. Members have said that it is a right wing or centre right issue. That is absolute nonsense. They say it is for big corporations. That is absolute nonsense.

The whole history of the development of property rights theory is linked frankly to small landowners, small creators trying to protect what they put in, whether it is against a bigger landowner or against a government that comes in and arbitrarily takes away what they have.

There is the example of legislation in the past Parliament. A small landowner whose land is simply expropriated under the endangered species act needs to have fair market compensation so he or she can keep going on the farm and can have his or her livelihood kept intact.

That protects the smallest landowner as much as it does the largest landowner. It is a protection for the small creators, for the small farmers against the actions of an excessive government or the actions of another excessive corporation or individual. Therefore, property rights are there to protect the small creators, the businesses, the people who really do need our protection.

I support the motion. I hope all members will do the same. I was going to conclude with a comment from Frederick Bastiat, who I think was called one of the greatest economic journalists of all times. He said that the whole notion of law, and the copyright law is one example, is if the law does not recognize property rights, it is so mistaken. The law itself, he would argue, especially common law, was derived so much from the whole development and notion of property rights itself. It is an inverse relationship.

Therefore, I encourage members of the House to fully recognize that relationship and to amend our laws and Constitution to fully recognize property rights here in Canada.

[Property Rights, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to stand today to address a motion put forward by my colleague, the Conservative member for Yorkton—Melville. I would like to read the motion into the record:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should ensure that full, just and timely compensation be paid to all persons who are deprived of personal or private property or suffer a loss in value of that property as a result of any government initiative, policy, process, regulation or legislation.

At this point I want to congratulate my colleague, who is undoubtedly one of the hardest working members of any party in the House. He has acted so well on behalf of taxpayers with regard to the firearms registry, but also in advancing very important issues like property rights. He has been a consistent advocate of those principles. I had the opportunity in the last Parliament to address this issue and I am pleased to do so again. I fully support this motion.

We have to recall the abstract and history of property rights and the fact that it is intertwined completely with western civilization, going back to great thinkers like Aristotle, the Greco-Roman, the Roman civilization, working its way up to philosophers like John Locke. I would like to quote from Locke's work at this point. I think he gives one of the best definitions.

He locates the right of property and labour. He individualizes the right of property, which is certainly an important development in western thought. This is from his Two Treatises of Government , “Chapter V Of Property”:

The “labour” of his body and the “work” of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his own property.

[Petitions, April 21st, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I as well would like to present a petition to call upon Parliament to invest more federal funding for juvenile diabetes type 1 of of $25 million a year.

I thank the member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar for her leadership on this issue. I also want to compliment many of the researchers we have across the country, namely the Edmonton Protocol near my riding, which has contributed a lot toward diabetes research. Therefore, I present this with pride today.