Jim Abbott

[Radio Canada International, December 9th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the House knows that the heritage minister is highly creative in funding her pet projects, such as flying flags or her special information office. However, she seems to be incapable of finding funding for Radio Canada International.

Does she think it is more important to have a highly respected international radio voice whose job it is to promote Canada to the world at a cost of $16 million or a highly politicized secret Canada information office whose job it is to promote Liberal pre-election propaganda to Canadian voters at a cost of $20 million?

[Copyright Legislation, December 6th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, here we have it. The Liberal government is bringing in copyright amendments under Bill C-32. It is going to be putting on a tape levy so that everybody who purchases a tape will be considered guilty before they can prove themselves innocent. Churches are concerned about this. Authors and composers who use tapes in their work are concerned about this.

Under neighbouring rights we are going to be seeing a levy placed on radio stations. They will no longer be competitive with the U.S. stations across the border. By the way, on both the tape levy and on neighbouring rights we can guarantee that there will be a U.S. attack.

Historians and genealogists are not having their balance concerning being able to go after documents in libraries as compared to the rights of authors and composers.

In addition to that, we now have rumours of committee by exhaustion.

The heritage minister is out of control. The Bill C-32 process is out of control. Why does the government not just take it back to the drafting board and make things right?

[Copyright, December 2nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that the heritage minister did not stand, even though Bill C-32 was brought to this House under the heritage minister.

I ask again. Considering that the legislation which is presently before committee was brought forward by the heritage minister and that Canadian officials are presently in Geneva negotiating on copyright legislation that very well may end up making Bill C-32 redundant, can she possibly explain to the House what is going on and who is in charge?

[Copyright, December 2nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the heritage minister and her department are ramming Bill C-32 which amends Canadian copyright law through committee. However today in Geneva, Canadian government officials are participating in discussions on intellectual property rights, copyright. These international treaties will render Bill C-32 obsolete before they are even debated in this Chamber.

Does the heritage minister have any idea about what is going on? Why are we wasting our time in committee?

[Criminal Code, November 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, sometimes in this House a very special thing happens and that is a feeling of unanimity about a particular issue. This is certainly one of them.

I would like to commend my colleague, the member for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. Within all of our lives there are defining events. Clearly this has happened in the life of my colleague where he has been involved in this issue at a very personal level.

With your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a column he had written that appeared in the Financial Post on Tuesday, May 21, 1996. He writes:

For those who survive, the horror often begins with an ominous click as the detonator is triggered. It is followed by a deafening roar and having your body catapulted through the air. The result is either death, or a life of destitution in a developing country where people who are disabled occupy the lowest social rung in a land of poverty and despair.

In January 1992, Tomas Chiluba was a strong and fit 18-year-old Mozambican fleeing his country, a land wracked by 15 years of civil war. Just before arriving at the South African border and the hope of a new and better life, Tomas heard that fateful click. He was dragged into the hospital 18 hours later. The explosion had torn into his legs, ripping the flesh off his left leg, while shattering the bones and sending mine fragments and bone shards into his right leg. For the next three hours we amputated his left leg above the knee and tried, as best we could, to remove dead tissue, dirt and mine fragments from the good leg in the hope of salvaging it. Thousands of times each year, far from the prying eyes of the world community, this tragic scenario is played out.

The international community convened in Geneva earlier this month-

-that was in May of this year-

-to deal with this silent menace. Sadly, only marginal progress was made with calls for the use of "smart" mines (a real oxymoron) that self-destruct only 90% of the time, and the prohibition of plastic anti-personnel mines. Canada called for an international ban but refused to do the same domestically citing that land mines are essential to our troops in the field. However, this argument has been effectively dispelled by a number of studies, the latest by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The time has now come for our country to take a stand. We have significant moral suasion in the international community and it is time we took a leadership role by banning their production and use in Canada. This will send a clear message for other countries to follow suit.

Land mines have been with us for decades and have become a long lasting and lethal by-product of war. Sixty-nine countries harbour over 100 million of them in their soil, their precise location unknown. Indiscriminately seeded over large areas, they can be active for over 50 years.

Many of the anti-personnel devices are made of plastic and are usually targeted against innocent civilians. Some are even designed to look like toys so children will pick them up, play with them, and have their arms blown off. They are not meant to kill, but to maim, the perverted logic being that a disabled person will be a continuous drain on society and therefore more costly than someone who is dead. The toll in human suffering they have exacted around the world is enormous. In Cambodia, one out of every 260 people are amputees and in Angola it is one in every 470 people.

Over 40 countries manufacture over 300 different types of mines at a cost ranging from $3 to $70. They include such nations as Italy, Sweden, Canada and paradoxically every permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The company names run like a who's who on the Fortune 500 and includes such notables as Daimler-Benz and Motorola. Even in Canada, SNC Industrial Technologies in Quebec makes the C3A2 land mine, dubbed, "little Elsie".

Although mines are cheap to produce, their removal is extremely costly and dangerous. The worldwide bill for demining is a staggering $85 billion. Who will pay for this? Last year, 85,000 mines were removed worldwide at a cost of $70 million. However, at the same time two million mines were widely and indiscriminately seeded. Thus, despite our efforts, we are losing the battle.

Above and beyond the ruined lives and huge demining costs that mines cause is their devastating effect on an economy as they render huge tracts of land unusable for decades. This is particularly sad since those countries that are mined tend to be the poorest, and have been decimated by years of civil conflict. Their starving populations, desperately in need of the land to feed themselves, cannot because of the risk of stepping on a mine. The world community recognizes this silent menace but must now organize itself to do something about it.

For the sake of Thomas Chiluba and thousands of others like him, it is imperative that we eliminate the use of land mines and anti-personnel devices worldwide. To not do so will commit thousands of young people to a life of disability, leaving a lethal legacy in impoverished countries already devastated by war. Banning them is our only option.

Those are the words of my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca. He has proposed in Bill C-232 a very small step toward the objective of reducing and finally banning land mines. I think that his bill makes a lot of sense from the perspective that it is not grandiose. It does not say anything about our country as a country. It does not say anything about armed personnel. It does not say anything about armament in bases around the world. But what it does say is that:

Every person commits an offence who sells, offers for sale, gives, barters or exports

(a) a mine; or

(b) an object or device that the person, on reasonable grounds, believes

(i) is designed exclusively for use in the manufacture of or assembly into a mine, or

(ii) will be used in the manufacture of or assembly into a mine.

(2) subject to subsection (3), every person commits an offence who purchases, possesses, manufactures, assembles or imports a mine or an object or device referred to in paragraph 1(b) above.

The bill makes sense in that it talks about putting this into the Criminal Code so that we at least take one small baby step, on whole legs, toward the objectives that we have of seeing land mines banned.

Once again I would ask for unanimous consent of the House that Bill C-252 be sent to committee at this time.

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it was interesting that while my colleague was speaking I heard from the other side of the House that a person can be a player and a referee if it is a different game.

I would suggest that if the chief referee of the NHL were to suit up for the Montreal Canadiens there probably would be something of incredibility on the part of people in the stands. They would simply not accept that. In fact, even in that, which is at a totally different level to what we are talking about when we are talking

about the supreme court of Ontario, there is just no way that we could end up having it fit.

There is more to it than that.

The reality is that within our system we are at the mercy of the judicial system as to how it in turn interprets the law. There was a very interesting exchange earlier with the member for Winnipeg and my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca about the whole issue of whether the supreme court actually ends up making law on the basis of the charter of rights and freedoms. As a result of Pierre Trudeau and the whole thought process of the Liberals where we now have a charter industry populated by very high priced lawyers, we now have an even more of a requirement for there to be an absolute, positive, total, utter chasm between prosecution and the defence and the judiciary.

To my colleague, I would say that the ends do not justify the means. Louise Arbour will be a prosecutor in The Hague while still a member of the impartial bench of Canada. The justice minister is on record as saying in a Senate standing committee that there are no provisions in the judges act allowing her to accept this appointment. That is an important issue. There are no provisions in the judges act allowing her to accept this appointment. He said that. Yes, I agree with my colleague, one cannot play the game and be a referee at the same time no matter what the circumstances are.

An exemption for a particular person from public policy such as Madam Justice Arbour is called a private bill. Again, this did not come to the House as a private bill. Public policy goes through the House as a public bill. There is no provision in the rules for a hybrid, public-private bill.

Again we are referring to the justice minister of Canada, the chief lawyer of Canada, who is saying do not sweat the small stuff, do not worry about the niggling details. This is not good enough, not nearly good enough. I would think that any lawyer in Canada would realize that for the justice minister to say do not sweat the small stuff, do not worry about the details, would have to question the total confidence of a person in as high a position as the justice minister of Canada.

The justice minister is contravening the rules of this House by forcing this amendment through in a public bill. What has made it even worse is that he and the government are in a process of not only forcing it through the House but forcing it through the House by closure. We know there has been closure on some bills in the House which has been rather interesting. We have even seen closure and situations of people taking different positions in the House. It seems as though there is a question in the mind of this government as to whether it can actually get down to governing in a proper way. It has simply gone power hungry, power crazy on closure rather than taking the time through a process of negotiation with the Reform and with the Bloc, the official opposition, to get bills through the House in an orderly manner. But it is not doing that.

We have tabled a multi-point amendment. It makes the condition of Madam Justice Arbour's leave of absence more stringent. We insist that in this process details must be adhered to. And not withstanding the laissez faire, do not worry about the detail attitude of our justice minister, we are going to continue to act as the guardians of the Canadian justice system, notwithstanding the fact that the justice minister says do not worry about the details.

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I understand what you are saying. With the greatest respect, I would suggest, however, that we have within the justice department and with the justice minister a pattern relating to Bill C-42 that I would like to explore.

For example, section 745. We have today the clear, irrefutable evidence that what the justice minister should have done was completely abolish section 745 as the people of Canada asked for. This justice minister simply does not listen.

I draw to the Speaker's attention the fact that when the justice minister would turn around and in an answer to a specific question directed to Bill C-42 and say "don't sweat the small stuff, it is only niggling little detail", I suggest that the niggling detail is exactly the issue that we have to be discussing in relation to Bill C-42.

Again I cite as an example section 745. During the process of section 745 there was an obvious lack of consultation, a lack of taking into account the perspective of the people of this House and indeed the people of Canada. With regard to section 745 and the problem with it, and what they did with Bill C-45, by turning around and going forward with half measures they created a situation where they could attempt to make it appear as though they had actually done something.

Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention a rather interesting article from the Calgary Sun dated September 16. This particular columnist is talking about the Liberal failure to scrap section 745 of the Criminal Code that lets first degree murderers out on parole after 15 years in jail. Because of section 745 butchers like Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olson are entitled to apply for parole.

The Reform Party has been calling for the abolition of this heinous loophole for years but it is still in effect and should be an embarrassment to any Liberal, but not to the Liberal member he is speaking about who comes from Edmonton. Her little newsletter has a headline blaring: "Murderers Denied Parole Rights Under Section 745". But it is simply not true. The only changes that the Liberals have proposed is that murderers will not automatically get reviewed for release and that any new mass murderers are ineligible. Bernardo and Olson are still eligible for parole after 15 years. This columnist suggests in Liberal speak that is probably success.

It is the loopholes, it is the niggling details, it is the fact that this justice minister in coming to this House with Bill C-42 actually came to this House with, as it were, a Trojan horse. It was unclear at the time when he came to this House with the bill that in fact this bill had any real implications. Certainly it was unclear that it related to the issue that the Reform Party has been driving home for the last two days with respect to Bill C-42.

It is not only the process that the justice minister comes to this House with a Trojan horse and gets Bill C-42 through in that way, but then the government has the audacity to go to the other place to make the amendments that it wants to make when it realizes that even this Trojan horse was not put together properly.

There is a fundamental flaw with this House when the government treats this House like a rubber stamp and treats the elected representatives who are elected, after all, by the people of Canada in this way.

Let us take a look at all the bills that have come before this House. I must say that in my own committee, in taking a look at the Copyright Act, what does that have to do with Bill C-42? I will tell this House what it has to do with Bill C-42. Having had this Trojan horse brought in, having had the details not at all clear, having had the Liberals treat this House with the disrespect that they have under Bill C-42, now when Bill C-32, the Copyright Act, is before committee I, as a responsible parliamentarian, must assume that there may be a Trojan horse even in that bill.

Therefore under Bill C-42 we have the difficulty that when we have a government coming forward, treating the House with disrespect, bringing in things in a surreptitious way, we have to take a look at all the details of every bill.

With respect to the amendments that have been brought forward by our party, we have proposed in our section (b) amendment that we:

(b) strike out all the lines in section 56.1(2) and substitute the following:

"If Madam Justice Arbour elects to take leave pursuant to section 56.1(1) she may receive moving or transportation expenses and reasonable travel and other expenses, in connection with her services as Prosecutor, from the United Nations";

(c) add the following words to section 56.1(3):

"notwithstanding any prohibition against accepting any salary fee, remuneration or other emolument described in section 57";

(d) add the following words to section 56.1(5):

"and that benefits payable under these sections will be paid or will commence to be paid at the expiration of the leave of absence without pay".

It is the niggling detail and it is the Reform Party that is drawing to the attention of this House and through this process drawing attention to the people of Canada that currently we have a justice minister, a justice department and the Liberal government that continuously come to this House and rather than looking at the kind of detail that I have just read to this House that the Reform Party has brought, rather than dotting the i s and crossing the t s and doing the job correctly, rather than treating this House with the respect that it and the people in this House deserve, the Liberals continue to come to this House and treat it like a rubber stamp: ``Oh, by the way, if we have a problem we will correct it after the fact''.

There was an example of that even in the passage of Bill C-63 the other day. With Bill C-63 there had been a number of things that had been brought up at the last minute in this House as a result of debate. The government should be commended in a small way for the fact that it did end up taking a look at some of the provisions in the bill that needed some fine tuning. I commend it for that, but I ask why we had to get into that process. Why did we not have an opportunity on Bill C-63 to actually get those issues onto the table? I suggest the reason was that government once again was treating Bill C-63 in the same way as it has Bill C-42 and all these other bills. It has treated this Parliament as a rubber stamp.

The government very simply went through a committee process on probably the cornerstone legislation of our government or the governing of this country, democracy in this country. It simply went ahead and had a situation where it had two weeks of hearings. The interesting thing was that one of those weeks nobody was in Ottawa. We were out in our constituencies working. So it had only one week to actually consider the terms and the details of that bill.

I suggest there is an absolute irrefutable pattern here that the Liberals continuously treat this House as a rubber stamp, treat the members of Parliament with disrespect. I say that they treat us with disrespect in that they expect us to just roll over and do what is asked. They may be good enough for the Liberal backbenchers but it is not good enough for this opposition.

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that this debate is a result of amendments proposed by the Senate, particularly in light of what happened in the Senate yesterday when it turned back term 17 to do with the Newfoundland school system.

This was a process undertaken by the people of Newfoundland in a truly democratic way, probably the most fundamental democratic process that could be arrived at, a referendum. As a person from outside the province of Newfoundland I would not offer any opinion as to the judgment of the people of Newfoundland. The people of Newfoundland in a true, fair, clear democratic process had an opportunity to speak and they did.

The result of the referendum then went to the Newfoundland assembly, those who were elected by the people of Newfoundland in a free, fair, democratic process. My understanding is that that House voted unanimously in favour of the motion. Then it came to this Parliament and this Parliament in a free vote substantiated the results of the referendum.

On Bill C-42, the Senate is now deciding in the same way that it did on term 17, to throw the bill back to this House. I think this indicates that within Canada's parliamentary process we truly must have absolute reform and come to a triple E Senate.

We know that the Senate is effective because it has managed to turn back term 17. We know that the Senate is effective in that it has managed to turn back Bill C-42, which is currently being debated in the House. We know the Senate is effective but the fact that it is not elected, is unaccountable and unrepresentative of

anyone in this country other than the political masters who put the senators there in the first place says reams about the Senate itself.

The Reform Party position always has been and will continue to be that while we require a House of sober second thought such as the Senate, it is absolutely essential that the House of sober second thought gain some credibility by going through a process of being elected and accountable.

Specifically on issue of Bill C-42, the main motion being debated is an amendment to Bill C-42 introduced by the government in the Senate. That is rather interesting in itself. Bill C-42 went from this place to the Senate. Then in the place of supposed sober second thought some flaws in Bill C-42 were discovered. We have reason to believe that the government of the day decided to use this method of making the renovations to Bill C-42, rather than by directly taking them into account in this House.

This House must be the place where legislation is made. It must be the place where legislation is voted on because this is the place where members are elected and are ultimately accountable to the people of Canada.

The current Judges Act does not allow any judge to accept any employment other than from the Government of Canada. The Judges Act at the moment does not allow judges to receive compensation from anyone other than the Government of Canada.

The Minister of Justice has passed orders in council approving Madam Justice Louise Arbour to work in the UN commencing last July 1. This is part of a pattern, and if I may suggest a rather arrogant pattern, that seems to have infested both the Liberals and the Conservatives. Because they have been the governing parties of Canada since Confederation, they go ahead and do these things without reference to this elected Chamber.

There is this order in council which permitted Madam Justice Arbour to work at the UN commencing July 1. The interesting thing, which shows the arrogance of the Liberals and of the justice minister, is that these orders in council are in direct violation of section 55 of the Judges Act. But the government said to itself: "That is no problem. We will use the rubber stamp of the House of Commons and simply get that turned around".

Why closure yet again? Many members during the last Parliament railed against the number of times closure was used by the Conservatives. Members stood in their places and made all sorts of noises about how unjust, unfair and immoral closure was. Now we see how the government has changed. It now brings in closure at will.

Why do we have closure today? Because if this bill is not passed today the justice minister will have to issue a new order in council because the present one will expire on November 30. The justice minister maintains that the order in council is valid because Madam Justice Arbour is still being paid by the Government of Canada. He has ignored the prohibition on accepting other employment which is laid out in the Judges Act.

Many lawyers make their money on fine print. It is a rather interesting part of the whole justice process. Indeed, the niggling details will end up shooting down a plaintiff or a defendant in a civil suit. Lawyers make their money by worrying about the niggling details.

As a matter of fact, I am given to believe that even in a criminal case which is currently before the Supreme Court-the Latimer case-they are talking about the details. There has been a conviction in that case and now Mr. Latimer's lawyer is saying: "But we did not take care of the details. Therefore, we are going to take it to the supreme court".

What did the justice minister say in the House on November 22 in answer to a question from my colleague from St. Albert who raised the issue of Bill C-42? It is almost unbelievable. He said: "I invite the hon. member to rise above the niggling legalisms upon which he now relies for partisan purposes and join with this government to make sure" and so on. What kind of a justice minister does Canada have? He is the supreme lawyer in Canada and he says: "I invite the hon. member to rise above the niggling legalisms". Is that not what the law is all about? It is in the detail that lawyers make their money. Here we have the justice minister turning around and saying not to worry, not to sweat the small stuff.

In this case the small stuff happens to be section 55 of the Judges Act. That section says that Madam Justice Arbour should not be doing what she is doing and that the government should not have put her in a compromised position which has occurred as a direct result of the boldfaced arrogance of the Liberals.

Many Liberal members were very upset in the last Parliament about the numerous times closure was used by the Conservatives. They railed against it. It is really interesting that in rushing bills through the House the Liberals have used closure on Bill C-33, time allocation on third reading and report stage of Bill C-41 and limited committee discussion and time allocation at third reading and report stage of Bill C-68.

And what do we have with Bill C-68? We have a whole bunch of question marks. This same justice minister came forward yesterday with his proposed regulations. What he is not talking about is that again he not only does not consult with this Chamber, he not only does not consult with the members who have been elected by the people of Canada, whether it is on Bills C-33, C-41, C-68 or C-42, he does not consult with anybody. The Liberals are a power unto themselves.

The three provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta have said they will not administer Ottawa's proposed-

[Canada Elections Act, November 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I know that my colleague who just spoke has so many more notes available to him, I wonder if there might be unanimous consent to permit him to carry on with his speech.

[Canada Elections Act, November 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca.

This bill has been very interesting in a number of respects. Yesterday during report stage we discussed the fact that it is probably one the most important bills we could have in the House of Commons in that it specifically and directly affects how we vote. Indeed, voting and democracy are absolutely Siamese twins. The two things go together. Therefore how we structure this bill is exceptionally important.

It has been raised a number of times by my colleagues in this House, the reality that this bill came forward rather quickly, that it was in committee only for two weeks, one of which the House was not sitting, and that the government has seen fit in some respects to treat this Chamber once again as a rubber stamp in making sure we have closure so that it gets out of the House in proper jig time.

While I would definitely like to commend the government for having listened during debate and, as a result of that, bringing forward a few meaningful amendments that were proposed under unanimous consent this morning, it must be pointed out that if the process had been better and had allowed sufficient time for there to be proper input and proper thought put into it, I feel this bill would be far better than it is right now.

So while on one side of the coin I do commend the government for listening and then, even after report stage and by unanimous consent from the House, moving some meaningful amendments to the bill, it must be severely criticized for the fact that it put itself into that position.

I particularly want to recognize that the Liberals have removed sex designation from the list that will circulate annually to political parties. The words "sex" or "gender" would appear only on the deputy returning officer's copies. This would allow for two things to happen. First, at the poll the people who are responsible in determining who is in front of them desiring a ballot to cast a vote that the designation would be easier with the gender designation.

Second, although it is just a small thing it is very significant, those women who wish to maintain the confidentiality of their gender in terms of widely circulated lists, that would be respected.

I would also like to take a look at the annual provision of lists. The government whip has gone out of his way, if I understood his speech, to make the point that this annual provision of lists is for a specific purpose. Unfortunately, throughout the entire day I have yet to have a definition of what that specific purpose might be. If the lists are not against this law, but if the lists against this law are not going to be used for purposes other than that for which they are designed, then what is the purpose of the lists? The government has not made that clear at all.

The major bone of contention that I have with this bill is the issue of the staggered voting hours. The government whip went out of his way to say they wanted to make sure that all votes are equal in Canada. I believe all these votes are equal in Canada, notwithstanding that Prince Edward Island has four seats with an average of about 35,000 voters per seat versus most constituencies with about 100,000. There are aberrations in the system but when people go to the polls in Canada they are casting a vote and hopefully an informed vote.

As I said yesterday, it seems to me that what the government has done in this particular case is to respond to a perception of a problem. There is no problem. It has responded to a perception of a problem.

The perception is that for people like me from British Columbia, when the results come on at eight o'clock at night, with the polls having been closed for three hours in Ontario, four hours in the maritimes and four and a half hours in Newfoundland, many of the results are in and therefore the die has been cast. That is a perception.

As we discussed yesterday, the reality is if a person wants to make use of the Internet or of various satellite services or long distance telephones, they can call to eastern Canada and determine which way the vote is going. However, I know full well that for every person who would say that the Liberals are taking all of the seats and we want to get on to the Liberal gravy train so we had better vote for a Liberal, there would be at least a counter balancing number of people who would say that I did not want those scallywags to have the full sway in Ottawa so I am going to make sure there is a counter balance.

This is a perceived problem. In responding to this perceived problem let us take a look at what it will do. The majority of people who will be watching this on television will probably be political wonks. In other words, some of us just love to be in politics and understand what is going on. Certainly for people who read Hansard that would be true. The reality is that we need to take a look at what this will do, even those of us who are involved in politics and who take a great interest in politics.

Something occurs on voting day which is completely legal and completely above board. During the course of the campaign political parties will have identified the people who are most likely to support them at the polling stations. By a perfectly legal process they become aware of who has and who has not voted. Obviously there is no way-and there never will be a way-to know how they have voted, but they will know who has or who has not voted. Therefore, if my colleague from Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca had not voted and I knew that he was going to be voting Reform, my

supporters would make a point of calling him up and asking him if he needed help to get to the polling station. People are offered rides to get to the polling stations. This type of follow-up occurs.

In Ontario the polls will close at 9:30 p.m. There will be a period of time, from approximately 6:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m., when this kind of activity will take place. For the Liberal Party, the Reform Party and other parties which are well organized in Ontario and have constituency organizations that have identified their voters, this is a bonus. It gives them time to call people, perhaps do some last minute arm twisting and get them out to the polling station. People who cannot be bothered to go out to vote because it is raining or whatever will be contacted and asked if they need a drive or some help to get to the polling station. The parties that are organized in given constituencies will be able to get out the vote.

Contrast the situation in Ontario with that in Vancouver. Vancouver is a very growing, hustling, bustling, congested city. Most people have to commute. Commutes in Vancouver range from an hour to an hour and a half. Even if people get off work at five o'clock in the afternoon, they will probably be coming through their door, looking forward to a cup of coffee and a meal at around 6:30 p.m. Then someone could call them to say: "Rush over to the poll because it is going to close at seven o'clock. You have to get over there to vote". For the person who does not treat their franchise seriously, they will say: "Thank you very much for the call, but I would just as soon sit down and put my feet up".

The difference between the voting patterns in Vancouver and the voting patterns in Toronto, I predict, will be absolutely measurable following the next election. There will not be a disenfranchisement. In other words, the people in Vancouver will still have a 12-hour opportunity. Those who take their voting responsibilities seriously, as all Canadians should, will make sure they get out to vote. However, for those people who require encouragement to vote, that activity will simply not be available in British Columbia which is in the Pacific time zone.

What have we done? We have come up with a perceived problem. We have come up with a chattering kind of a problem. People are saying: "I think this" or "I think that". However, when the average Canadian thinks the entire issue through, the question that they will be able to answer is: Would I actually telephone my brother, my sister, my cousin or my friend in Toronto to see how things went before I cast my vote? The answer dominantly will be no.

Here we have a little wee, tiny, minuscule perceived problem that is now being answered by the government in a very ham-handed way. It is going to change the way in which the political process occurs on the west coast in comparison with central Canada. That is indeed unfortunate.

It is an example of the flaws in the bill. As essential as some parts of the bill are, in actual fact it is going to change voting patterns in ways that we cannot even define at this time and only as a result of trying to respond to a perceived problem. It is unfortunate that the Liberals continue to use the House as a rubber stamp and have shoved this through under closure.