Jim Abbott

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, October 6th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, following the debate in the House is one thing, but it has also been interesting to follow the debate in the news.

Over the weekend I happened to notice that one of the members, who is not noted for his religious outbursts or anything to do with his faith, was questioned about the fact that because he was opposed to Bill C-13, he must be a member of the so-called God squad. He said that he was not a member of the God squad but that he was opposed and he listed the reasons why.

Where did this almost blasphemous term, the God squad, come from? It comes about as a result of the fact that there are people in the House who have a strong sense of their faith, their identity in terms of their relationship with a Supreme Being. Therefore, I would claim the privilege of being a member of the God squad.

The God squad is a group of people, if indeed it exists, who say there is an absolute standard in this world. There is an absolute standard of how I relate to my family and to people in my community. There is an absolute standard with which I came into politics and I did not check that absolute standard at the door when I walked in here. That, very simply, is a part of the problem, a part of the cynicism that seems to be developing around the bill.

We are concerned about the bill, not just because of what is contained in the bill but because of the way in which the Liberal government has conducted itself and is continuing to conduct itself outside of this chamber, not only in Canada, but outside of our great nation, in the world.

The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine who just spoke made the point that in her vision, although people in the House have said there is not a ban on human cloning, there was a ban on human cloning contained in Bill C-13. Let us leave that for scholars and lawyers to decide. However at the same time, the Liberal government is attempting to ram the bill through the House of Commons, it is taking quite a significantly different position at the United Nations.

An international convention to ban human cloning is being debated at the United Nations. One resolution, backed by the U.S. and several countries, calls for a comprehensive ban on all human cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. That would be consistent with Bill C-13, which would prohibit the creation of a human clone by any technique. However there is another resolution currently before the UN which calls only for a ban on reproductive cloning. Strangely, Canada is supporting this resolution.

I and the Canadian Alliance oppose human cloning as an affront to human dignity, individuality and rights. We have repeatedly spoken out against human cloning, urging the federal government to bring in legislation to stave off the potential threat of cloning research in Canada. Therefore, we find it suspicious that Canada's position at the UN suggests our government may have a hidden agenda in the support of therapeutic cloning. Why the double standard? Why the one standard when the government is attempting to get the bill through the chamber, and the other standard at the United Nations where it is in support of therapeutic cloning? Understandably, we are suspicious.

There is nothing more precious in this world than human life. It is the very breath that we breathe. It is the way that we manage to interact with each other. It is not an overstatement obviously to say that without life there is nothing. When it comes to a bill of this magnitude, to try to enact legislation of this type in a vacuum of ethics, morality and, I suggest, of religious standards is folly of the first order.

It has been interesting that as this bill has been before the House and before us as members of Parliament, it has perhaps made me even more aware of some of the standards that are held within our civilized societies. I notice that on soap operas coming to us from France, Australia and England, or even on our own soap operas, there is always conflict between people. That is what makes a soap opera. There is always back-stabbing between people, but the minute that one person's life is threatened, suddenly the plot thickens and that becomes the key issue.

Indeed, the reality is that without life there is nothing. Therefore, our concern about this bill is in part what is in the bill, the imperfections that are in the bill, but of equal or perhaps even greater importance, our concern, my concern, is what the ultimate objective is of the government and where it is going.

I started by talking about the almost blasphemous term the God squad. When I make these statements, I am thinking not just in terms of the most dominant faith in Canada, which at this point is Christianity, I am also thinking of the Muslims. I am thinking of the Sikhs. I am thinking of the Hindus. I am thinking of people who follow the teachings of Confucius, the Buddhists. I am thinking of all people of faith who have an absolute standard that is a reality in their lives, because for many Canadians, countless millions of Canadians, they have within their lives, at their very soul, at their very core, a belief in human life.

It defies logic to understand why the government would not have split this bill into the two obvious parts.

There are many procedures currently in place in Canada whereby human life is enhanced, that through adult stem cell research. We know of many advancements in being able to do away with or at least slow the spread of Parkinson's. We know of many advancements where there has been the removal of stem cells from an individual and those stem cells have been treated and put back into the same individual, so that there is absolutely no need for all the drugs that are necessary when a foreign body is put into a human being.

One of the most exciting parts of being alive and being a human being is the ability to be able to think, to conceive ideas, to be able to bring science to many of the tragic situations that face human beings in terms of their health. This bill, in terms of adult stem cell research, is going in the correct direction. What I am concerned about, and what many are concerned about, is the absolute lack of sensitivity, the absolute lack of understanding, when it comes to stem cell research other than adult stem cell research.

The distinctive of a civilized society is the respect of human life. That is why we find it so confusing within all of our civilized societies throughout the world when we are confronted with people who will not only take their own lives but in so doing will end up becoming suicide bombers and taking other people's lives. This is a value that is at the core of who we are in a civilized society.

This bill as it presently stands is wrong and we will do everything we can do to see that it is defeated.

[User Fees Act, September 18th, 2003]

Channel 24. Other people are watching it on channel 69 in Vancouver or 71 in Cranbrook or wherever it is. If CPAC was moved on the dial, fine, it is moved on the dial. People find out where it is, reprogram their computers and for all the scintillating television that can be watched on CPAC they can find it all over again. The value of the frequencies has diminished.

The second thing that has happened in radio is that it has become very inexpensive to be able to rebroadcast Calgary stations, for example, into my constituency up and down the Columbia Valley. On the AM spectrum, 830 was the only frequency that had commercial usage and 92.7 or whatever it was on the FM dial was for CBC. Those were the only two that I could get on my frequency, now when I drive around the Invermere area there are up to 15 different stations that I can get.

This is why the value of the frequencies, the value of where one is on the dial, has diminished to the extent that it has. That is real life.

Unfortunately, what has occurred--

[User Fees Act, September 18th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to speak to Bill C-212.

This is a very important bill in spite of the fact that it deals with a tremendous amount of arcane information. It is one of those things where as the country of Canada has become the great nation that it has, over a period of time we have ended up with an awful lot of practices within Parliament. There are parliamentary procedures and practices within the bureaucracy that are responsible for putting together regulations surrounding the laws that are passed in Parliament.

As a consequence, there has been a buildup of detail and a buildup of law that has ended up beyond the control of the people who are elected by Canadians, namely the parliamentarians. We have ended up with a situation where as much as 90% of the law, the rules and regulations, and the procedures that citizens and companies have to go through are actually beyond the control, direction, and oversight of parliamentary procedure. This bill is one of a number of steps that have come from the backbench that would start to correct that situation.

I would like to mention that the member for Surrey Central just recently was successful in having a bill passed that had to do with the disallowance of regulations. As I mentioned, it is a rather arcane topic. It is an arcane description. Let me explain the disallowance of procedures.

Basically, what he managed to do--and it is parallel to what this bill is attempting to do in my judgment--is to put parliamentarians, who are the representatives elected by and accountable to the people of Canada, back into the process. What we will basically be looking at now are a number of fees, regulations, and procedures that have been developed, presumably in good faith by the bureaucracy that have ended up beyond the control of even the ministers of the Crown.

As I understand Bill C-212, it has to do specifically with user fees. According to the documents I have in front of me, it says that this act may be cited as the user fees act. When I go through this bill and I come to clause 5.1, reduction of user fee; clause 6, resolution of the House; and clause 7, adjustments in the applications of user fees; I see very clearly and specifically the intent of the bill, which is basically to allow parliamentarians to review user fees and potentially reduce user fees.

I want to be crystal clear as to where the Canadian Alliance is coming from. We believe in user pay; we believe in user fees. That is not the issue. The issue is how fair they are, and indeed if they are unfair, what the process would be that would be undertaken today prior to the enactment of the provisions in Bill C-212? What would actually take place today?

The fact of the matter is that with the exception of this new bill that my colleague from Surrey Central managed to get through, we have never really had a tool within the parliamentary process to be able to do it. That is why this bill is very complimentary to the bill that my colleague from Surrey Central managed to get through.

Let me give an example. I am the Canadian Heritage critic. I am familiar with what are called part II fees under the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

The CRTC has basically two levels of fees. The first fee is the actual user pay. I must say that as far as many of the broadcasters and people in the industry that are paying the fees, they feel that the user pay portion is very generous toward the CRTC.

What is part II? Part II has to do with the fee that in no capricious way but nonetheless without any real structure has ended up evolving over a period of time. There is a part of the spectrum that the broadcasters use either for audio or visual transmission or digital transmissions and have access to, have rights to. Therefore, because those frequencies in the spectrum are assigned specifically to them for their use, they bring radio and television, and other broadcasts into that spectrum at that frequency. The thought has been that that is worth x number of dollars.

Again, we are very sensitive in the Canadian Alliance to the fact that there are public commodities like spectrum, like frequencies that indeed do have some commercial value. Unfortunately, for the broadcast industry, what has occurred particularly over the last 10 years--and in an accelerated way over the last 10 years--is that the value of those frequencies within the spectrum has plummeted. It has basically gone through the floor. Why? Simply because of the new technology that permits broadcasters and people wanting to broadcast information to be able to get onto the air.

We speak frequently of the so-called 500 channel universe. It used to be that there was an area, a green tier it was called. A green tier for broadcasters simply meant that one wanted to be on channel 2 through 13 because those were the ones that were on the UHF, the ultra-high frequency dial. Past that, we were getting into a different television frequency and the broadcasters were going to be lost. There has been an historic clamouring on the part of broadcasters to get into the green tier, to the 2 through 13, because they want to be found and easily seen.

As a consequence of digital transmissions, we can now go to channel 163 or channel 359. It does not make any difference. We can program our VCR and television receiver to wherever we want to be on the dial. I was speaking to a colleague about this bill earlier today. He was saying how it used to be that when a familiar channel was bumped for whatever reason and moved to another portion of the dial or frequency, that all of a sudden he would end up with all sorts of calls to his office from people complaining about it being moved. Why are they not complaining now? Well, because there are so many channels being added that it is a simple matter of re-computing one's television set so that for people who are watching CPAC right now on channel 69 in Ottawa, and I am making that up as I do not know what the channel is--

[Criminal Code, September 15th, 2003]

Yes. I mean a $9 million bankroll from corporate Canada. Actually, that is really an interesting perspective. It is a concern to me. I thank the member for drawing it to my attention.

[Criminal Code, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that is very interesting. I had not really thought about that prior to the member's question.

When I returned from the meetings with the people around Antigonish I returned with a deep sense that something had to happen on this.

The member may recall that my constituency produces 25% of the entire capacity of the world's metallurgical coal. Although it is an open pit operation, nonetheless I am very familiar with the unionized workforces and the kinds of conditions they are up against.

What was interesting was that I was approached by some people in businesses identical to Westray who were expressing a deep concern about this. In fact, I am very much aware of the pressure that there is from corporate Canada.

The fact that the member for LaSalle—Émard, a board member of many corporations, a millionaire tycoon in his own right and with many connections--

[Criminal Code, September 15th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to Bill C-45, but I am sad that we have to have this kind of legislation under consideration by the House. I take a great deal of comfort for the Canadian Alliance and for that matter for the bill and for the House as a whole from the fact that our justice critic, the member for Provencher, as a former attorney general of Manitoba, will be able to bring a lot of light to the process.

The process is a complex one simply because one cannot hold a corporation accountable at the end of the day. The people who have to be held accountable are people as opposed to just a numbered corporation. Getting the balance between those two things and ensuring that the bill is operative and is workable is going to be exceptionally important.

One of the things that I have been particularly encouraged by has been the tone of the debate in the House on this issue. There has been a very low level of partisanship and there has been a strong desire expressed on the part of everyone that the bill be a proper working document, an agreement on the part of parliamentarians here that we bring forward legislation that can be useful.

We have to remember that the most probable cause, the foundation of Bill C-45 is the Westray disaster. There was tremendous political interference in the process around Westray, both at the federal and provincial levels. In the spirit of non-partisanship I will not offer party designations to that political interference. The reality was that there were very high levels of interference in both the Nova Scotia government and in the federal government of the day. The interference was such that I believe that some of the very irresponsible people who were involved at the corporate level and who were responsible for many of the decisions, or lack of decisions, and many of the people who were involved in the process of looking at the regulations surrounding the conditions within the mine, the bureaucrats of the day, had the assumption that there was a free track. There had been so much political interference, whether it was from people involved at the corporate level or people involved at the bureaucratic level who felt they had all sorts of latitude and elbow room, that many corners were cut.

The workplace practices that were in effect at that time were the most dangerous that could ever possibly be imagined. Unfortunately, following the disaster the hearings themselves bordered on being a farce simply because there were witnesses who should have testified but were not available because they were concerned about possible criminal sanctions being brought against them. As a result, those witnesses who were absolutely key and germane to the Westray inquiry, who should have been at the hearings and who should have been able to speak up under oath were not there.

After the inquiry closed, the decision was made that there would be no criminal charges. Of course by then, because the inquiry was concluded and we had the report, there was no way in realistic terms that those people could then testify. The decisions had already been made.

There also was a situation regarding the destruction of evidence in the mine itself. Decisions were made by people, and to this point I am really not clear, to flood the particular portions of the mine thereby removing the actual evidence of what had contributed directly to this disaster.

I had the opportunity, on behalf of my political party, to travel to Nova Scotia to take a look at this when I was formerly the solicitor general critic. I met with some very wonderful people, members of the families who were bereaved by these terrible events and by this avoidable accident.

I am sure the frustration of these families to this day is larger than we could ever possibly imagine, their frustration at the process they have been through and the very obvious fact that, most charitably, mismanagement cost the lives of their loved ones and, less charitably, to say that there was actual criminal negligence on the part of corporate officers that led to that.

Their frustration boiled over into bitterness and cynicism. I can recall one meeting in particular with the families. It was a quiet meeting. I think about 15 people were at the meeting. It was not a big town hall meeting. I was not there for any grandiose political reason. These people just wanted someone in Ottawa to listen, so I went and listened. The bitterness and the cynicism on the part of these families against the whole process was absolutely immense.

Having tried to stay non-partisan, I want to offer a criticism in the most non-partisan way that I can of the Liberal government that has been in Ottawa for 10 years. The families deserve better. This accident, as was noted by my friend from Halifax, took place 11 years ago. The events that followed were very transparent to anybody who turned on the nightly news.

We all know there was a deficiency and yet in the 10 year period that has transpired for the Liberals to be on the governing side of the House this is the very first time that we have been able to debate any action proposed by the government to overcome this problem.

That is grossly inadequate. It leads to the bitterness and the cynicism that is so easily understood on the part of these families. It leads to a cynicism of Canadians toward the entire political process.

How many times have we seen bills come before the House, be presented to the House and then die on the Order Paper when the Prime Minister calls an election and then be re-introduced and re-introduced. People want action. They do not just want words.

I give my friends in Nova Scotia this caution. What I suspect could very well happen as a result of the political opportunism that will be exhibited by the next Prime Minister of Canada, there will undoubtedly be an election called by April 4. If an election is called Parliament will be dissolved which is, by the way, totally unnecessary since there is another year and a half more that the House could be sitting without the political gyrations of the other side. As a result of the calling of that election, which I predict will be April 4, there is a high possibility that this legislation will die. I just want to give the people who are bitter and cynical about the political process a little forewarning that the legislation could very well die.

This is not good enough. Having given that criticism, and it is a very direct criticism, let me reiterate what my colleague, our justice critic, has said. We are prepared to work with the committee, to help the committee and to be part of the process so that at the end of the day we have good, logical, concise, practical, workable legislation so that the workers in the workforce of Canada will have the protection that they deserve.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the final petition is signed by 30 petitioners. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect the right of Canadians to be free to share their religious beliefs without fear of prosecution. This has to do specifically with Bill C-250.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition, and I know my constituent, Mr. Peter Wood, worked very hard on this, contains 244 signatures and deals with the Iraq war.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation to ensure that Canada and its armed forces take no part in the proposed war against Iraq.

[Petitions, June 11th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present.

The first petition contains 230 signatures. The petitioners call upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Committees of the House, June 11th, 2003]

On this matter, Mr. Speaker, I was co-chair of that committee. I was very pleased with the input that we received from many Canadians. I pay particular attention to two from my constituency, Mr. Ken Collins and Mr. Roger Davies, who appeared before the committee in March 2002.

I am presenting a dissenting report and will be discussing this in full at the National Press Club theatre in a very short period of time, but I want to make particular note of the input of Canadians.

I mentioned Mr. Roger Davies, who was a tireless volunteer. He presented to the committee in March 2002. Unfortunately he passed away last summer and so he will never see this report. I would say that I would like to dedicate it to him, except that he and I had some pretty significant differences of opinion on this kind of issue, but I do want to acknowledge that Mr. Davies, along with all of the other people who came before committee, gave us so much to chew on and so much good information. I wish to thank all Canadians for their participation in this report.