Jim Abbott

[Parthenon Marbles, April 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, on April 1 the House passed a motion to call upon the United Kingdom to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, their country of origin, before the 28th Olympiad in Athens, Greece in 2004. As Canadian Alliance critic for Canadian heritage, I express my support as I share the feelings of compassion, pride and ownership with all Canadians of Greek origin.

It is very unfortunate that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs opposed the motion. I am quite concerned this indicates another fight in the Liberal cabinet between the heritage minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

We have a large Greek community here in Canada, a community that has contributed to the greatness of our country. I extend my friendship to all Canadians of Greek descent from coast to coast. I wish to assure them that I stand by their side in their excellent efforts to repatriate the Parthenon marbles to Greece.

The members of the House have spoken. I urge the Prime Minister to relay the content of the motion as passed in the House and not allow the internal cabinet tug of war to interfere. We can only hope the Prime Minister is listening.

Editorial

[Parthenon Marbles, April 1st, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if you could help me with what just happened here. My understanding is that in order to create a vote you have to stand five. I apologize that I was out of the House at the time, but I am unaware that five stood. Did five stand?

[Parthenon Marbles, April 1st, 2003]

Madam Speaker, this is one of the most fascinating debates in which I have ever had the privilege to take part in the House. In 10 years there have been a number of things I have had to learn very quickly. I have taken the time to try to learn something about this topic.

There is a committee, and I will read from the Supporters in Canada website:

The recently formed Canadian Committee seeks to raise public awareness and provide support to the cause of the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. The Committee was established as a result of the Canadian concern for the protection of world cultural heritage. Our aim is to assist in the return of the Marbles to Athens in time for the 2004 Olympic Games.

I would make one observation, a small criticism of that statement. It says that the committee was established as a result of the Canadian concern for the protection of world cultural heritage. If that is taken within the context of where these artifacts currently are, then perhaps that is a correct statement.

However, when I first read it, it struck me that when it said that the Canadian committee was established as a result of the Canadian concern for the protection of world cultural heritage, as my colleague from the Liberal side, the proposer of the motion has pointed out, the artifacts are at present in excellent condition thanks to the great work of the British. That one thing which I read from the Supporters in Canada website raised a bit of a question in my mind, the fact that the committee is fully aware that the British have handled these artifacts as they should have been handled.

I find this to be a very challenging debate. I can only guess at the feelings of compassion, pride and ownership, and the feeling that would come from within me had I come from Greek heritage. I cannot imagine how our friends in Greece or our friends originally from Greece who are now in our Canadian culture would feel about that.

I question the role the House of Commons in this issue. I could see having a motion. I could see having a petition by members of Parliament because all 301 of us have been uniquely elected by the people. As such there is a certain value to our opinions simply because we represent the people. I could see members individually and collectively going out and working to get the signatures. I could see as many members as possible signing the petition, even signing individual letters, encouraging Britain to do this.

What I am waiting for in terms of this debate, and this truly will be a debate as far as I am concerned, is the reason the House of Commons, and as the minister has suggested, should proceed to the point of making a Canadian law. That law would be some kind of an official statement on behalf of the House of Commons and the Government of Canada to the people of Great Britain telling them what they have to do or must do, whatever the case may be.

I am sincerely trying to understand what place the House of Commons of Canada has in this issue.

Let me be very clear. I commend the committee and the work of the committee. I am very impressed with the number of people of great repute who are on the committee. I commend the members of the committee because of the volunteer work that has gone into this and for the work they have done to create an awareness of this issue and to turn around public opinion. I commend everybody who is involved in this matter, considering the fact that, to quote from the New York Times :

Greece has most modestly asked to borrow the Parthenon marbles for the 2004 Athens Olympics with almost prostrate guarantees of their safe return. Despite strong popular support in England for giving up the marbles, even this loan has been denied.

That is a regrettable decision on the part of our friends in England. I believe they are being a little short-sighted.

Many of the actions that we as a Canadian society have taken in returning artifacts of any type, be they paintings or artifacts of aboriginal cultures, whatever the case may be, that has been the route to go. Again I ask why should the House of Commons be asked to come forward with some kind of formal motion telling our friends in England what they must do?

I find this debate so fascinating. I will read from the website again:

The Greek government has made major concessions in recent years to try and accommodate the concerns of the British Museum and British government. They have made it clear for over two years now that ownership is not the key issue....However, the relocation of the Marbles to Athens is a key issue for the Greek government and this could be achieved without raising the issue of ownership if the Marbles were sent to Athens on a permanent loan from the British Museum. In return, the Greek government has offered to loan the best of Greek antiquity to the British Museum on a rotating loan basis so that the gallery where the Marbles are currently exhibited can still be dedicated to Greek culture. They have also proposed that the British Museum could operate a branch of the museum in Athens, presumably in the new Acropolis Museum...where the Parthenon Marbles would be exhibited once they were returned to Athens.

It is terribly regrettable that the British government and the British museum do not seem prepared to seriously consider this option. I would be far more aggressive than that if I had an opportunity to speak to our friends in Britain, be they in government or members of the British Museum.

In spite of the fact of having done a small amount of research on this issue and having a small understanding of it, and truly wanting to understand where people of Greek heritage are coming from and trying to understand what is inside a person relative to this issue, I still have a question in my mind. I am prepared to be convinced, and I would be happy to be convinced, that I should recommend to my colleagues that we support this motion so this could come from the House of Commons.

This by far has to be one of the most fascinating debates I have ever been involved in. I will admit that due to my lack of knowledge, I assumed we were talking about a small box of marbles that we would play marbles with. However this is the starting point. I am happy to be convinced so I can convince my colleagues.

Canada, being the wonderful nation it is and being who we are, for many of us is where we came from. Some of us have had the opportunity to go back to our heritage, in my instance to Scotland, and perhaps in Madam Speaker's instance to Greece, and to incorporate it into our lives and bring our families and our children and our grandchildren into an understanding of our heritage. We can offer each other more and are stronger as individuals and stronger as a society.

I highly commend the members of the Canadian Greek community for their involvement in this issue. I certainly encourage them to do anything they can in terms of petitions and more public awareness.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, April 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the member's remarks about Parks Canada funding.

I agree with the member that in the budget itself there was an announcement of $74.4 million. This was supposed to be for the establishment of new parks and national marine conservation areas. There was an additional amount of money equalling $15 million for the purpose of returning ecological integrity to the parks for a total of $74.4 million.

I agree with the member that this amount of money is totally inadequate for the purposes the Prime Minister wanted to put it to.

I have done a little research. I received excellent cooperation from the bureaucracy at Parks Canada. It turns out that in 2003, $27.2 million and in 2004, $32.2 million were the amounts announced to go to the new parks. Parks Canada submitted to the finance minister the following figures: 2005, $26.2 million; 2006, $29.2 million; 2007, $29.2 million, for a total of $144 million.

It is generally agreed that for the $144 million it is possible that the 10 parks and five marine conservation areas could actually be established. The mystery is why in the world with those figures having been submitted by the Parks Canada bureaucracy, by the people who knew the numbers, why those numbers were not included in the budget. It was a very baffling budget.

There is another very interesting figure. On ecological integrity the announcement was for 2003, $5 million and for 2004, $10 million. That was in the budget as part of the $74.4 million, but those were not all the figures. The department had set aside in its budget for 2005, $15 million; for 2006, an additional $20 million; for 2007, $25 million, for a total of $75 million.

These figures are reasonable to anyone like my friend and members of my party and I who are fully appreciative of parks understand the importance of what they represent within our society. I am told by people who are more knowledgeable than I that these figures are totally reasonable for Parks Canada to come forward with plans for ecological integrity or for the new national parks.

What I find tremendously baffling is why in the world with these numbers available we ended up with the bowl of porridge we got on the day of the budget. What was the motivation? What was the motivation for the finance minister to announce only $74.4 million when in fact the total was $144 million plus $75 million? I do not really understand. Was he afraid that there would not be proper support for national parks? Is that why he did it?

It was pointed out by one of my colleagues that the minister came forward with a budget that had some one year budgets, some two year budgets, some three year budgets, some five year budgets, one seven year budget, an awful lot of ten year budget figures and indeed one even with a figure for eleven years. It was a very confusing document.

In the case of Parks Canada he actually withheld information from the House that would have made it much clearer to my colleague, myself and others in Canada who are concerned about parks that the government was serious about going forward with the parks. I am not aware that anywhere in the budget there are additional figures for rust out funding and operating reserve that come to Parks Canada courtesy of the President of the Treasury Board.

I will give the House the following figures: 2000-01, $17 million; 2001-02, $58 million; 2002-03, $47 million; 2003-04, $12 million; and 2004-05, an additional $4 million for an additional amount of $138 million. Where do those figures appear in the budget? They do not appear anywhere in the budget. These are numbers that come from either previous budgets with the estimates, or from other supplementary estimates or from new planned supplementary estimates.

What kind of buffoonery is going on with our finances that the government feels compelled to come forward with incomplete and confusing numbers to the point where the Minister of Canadian Heritage stood in the House and said that Parks Canada would be receiving an additional $411 million or $417 million? She had taken all the numbers that appeared on a piece of paper and tallied them up to the best of her ability to come up with what the actual commitment of the government was to Parks Canada. Even the minister herself could not work through the financial maze of the Minister of Finance and President of the Treasury Board.

She also announced, at the second minister's round table on Parks Canada held in Ottawa last March 24, that $220 million over five years had been secured to create 10 new national parks and 5 new national marine conservation areas. She referred to the fact that an additional $54 million had been secured in ongoing funding.

The minister announced, more specifically, that over 5 years, Parks Canada would receive $144 million for the establishment of 10 new national parks and $75 million to improve ecological integrity. The minister confirmed the one time supplementary funding of $138 million between 2001-02 and 2004-05. The figures are a total maze. It is absolutely impossible to figure them out.

Parks Canada falls under the department of heritage. Taking a look at the requirements of Parks Canada and living with four mountain parks in my own constituency, I am aware of not only the rust out, but the fact that due to a starvation of funds from Parks Canada roads are literally falling off mountainsides. Sewage lagoons and sewage situations are completely out of control and damaging the environment.

There is a situation in my constituency in terms of ecological integrity where Parks Canada has undertaken a program of creating more forage and more winter range for the rocky mountain sheep in Kootenay National Park. This is immediately outside of the park and Parks Canada is working in cooperation with local landowners and the province. This is a worthy program.

As a result of the suppression of forest fires in my constituency, which is totally understandable being a built up area and having merchantable commercial timber in the area, we understand why we would have fire suppression. As a result of the fire suppression, the winter range for the rocky mountain sheep is all but grown over. As a consequence, Parks Canada, in a good cooperative program with the province and with local landowners, has entered into this program of clearing smaller growth trees.

It is doing it scientifically so that the trees are properly spaced so the sheep will have the ability to hide from predators or to see predators from a distance. It is all scientifically done. Some prescribed burns will be necessary in that area as well as building up the forage. That is part of the whole ecological integrity that must be done throughout the rocky mountain trench and I would dare say in Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and Labrador or in Riding Mountain Park in Manitoba.

A lot of ecological integrity work must be done. Because of the haphazard, patchwork way that the government goes about doing its financing, without laying all its cards on the table and allowing people who have positions of responsibility to be able to look over its shoulder and hold it accountable, we do not have any idea if this winter forage area will go ahead or not.

There are many programs. As a matter of fact, it is estimated conservatively that at least $450 million would be required just to bring Parks Canada's facilities and ecological integrity back up to snuff. The budgeting system of the government is an unfortunate, sad joke that is being played, not only on humans but also on the animals that reside in our parks.

[Parks Canada, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the government's irrational aversion to guns in the hands of enforcement officers continues to place Canada's park wardens at personal risk. They have been ordered back to campground patrols. Like domestic disputes handled by armed police officers, settlement of campground disputes is the most unpredictable and dangerous of all enforcement in our parks.

Why does the government continue to believe that park wardens and the Canadian public do not deserve protection.

[Springtime, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the signs of spring are everywhere and all hon. members should pause and welcome the season.

For instance, we have heard from friends all over Canada that the great Canadian symbol has returned. The Canada geese are flocking back to their nesting spots. There are no doubt some golfers who will not welcome that news. Here in Ottawa we have heard that a cardinal was spotted yesterday and that warms our hearts as well.

All hon. members should pause and think about something other than politics. We should think about the two ducks spotted yesterday on the front lawn of Parliament Hill.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, two ducks. A mallard and a drake hen were wading in a puddle left by the quickly melting snow. Keen wildlife observers said that it appeared they were testing this location as a possible nesting site.

However we regret that the ducks did not stay long enough for someone to bring their presence to the attention of the Prime Minister.

It is the belief of many political observers that the Prime Minister should have known about them and even strolled out to look at them. It might well have been mood lifting for the Prime Minister to see a duck that was not lame.

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, according to CBC brass, Hockey Night was not the appropriate place for a discussion on the war on Iraq. That is pretty rich coming from a news organization that pre-empted absolutely everything from radio and television. I do not think that there was one single solitary protester that they did not interview between Victoria and St. John's.

What I want to know is this. What is next? Wayne Gretzky has expressed his support for George Bush. Is he next?

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 25th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, first the CBC was pulling stories off the air because of pressure from the former finance minister's leadership team. Now it is launching an investigation into Don Cherry because he dared to express an opinion on the war on Saddam.

What is Canada coming to? Why is Don Cherry being cross-checked for expressing an opinion that millions of Canadians hold, particularly when a certain leadership candidate will not allow the CBC reporters to even express their own opinions?

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member could help me understand something.

When the defence minister said this morning that Canada is remaining true to its multinational relations and the United Nations, which is the excuse that the Prime Minister used for us not going to war, he failed to take into account Kosovo where the United Nations sanction was not sought and yet Canada joined with others and went in. Why this double standard? Can this member help me understand why we bombed Kosovo without the United Nations sanction, and yet, again without the United Nations sanction, the government is using this as an excuse for not going in to Iraq?

[Statutory Instruments Act, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, prior to becoming involved in politics and coming to this Chamber I never in my life thought I would actually be making a speech on an act to amend the Statutory Instruments Act, disallowance procedure for statutory instruments.

It is one of the most arcane subjects and titles that I have ever run into. I commend my colleague for Surrey Central for bringing this to the attention of the House. I think he must stay up awfully late at night pouring over books or doing something because I cannot figure out how in the world anybody would even have discovered this as being a problem, much less being able to come up with a title for it.

As I understand the situation, we in Canada, being a civilized democracy, are in a position of taking rules and regulations from government. We are in a position of responding to those rules and regulations as put forward by government and the government in turn comes to the legislature and speaks to us, the members of Parliament, who in turn, hopefully, are doing an adequate job of representing the people in our constituencies and the people of Canada.

In fact, if we were to take a look at the rules and regulations under which Canada is run, we would realize that approximately 20% of all the rules and regulations that we are asked to adhere to are actually legislation. The other 80% are brought in by regulation and that, indeed, is what this is about.

I make that explanation because I am a novice to this particular topic. I had to have the member for Surrey Central kind of walk me through this so that I could understand how important this actually was to the people who either read Hansard or are watching the debate on CPAC today.

Parliament has the moral responsibility and the responsibility to the Canadian people to make laws. At the same time, we as members of Parliament, as politicians, have a responsibility to react in an appropriate way to the direction that we take from the Canadian people. However, if we are only responsible for 20% of the laws that directly impact on the people of Canada and 80% of the other regulations that impact on the people of Canada, surely this place, where we are responsible to the people of Canada through an election process in our great democracy, should have the ability to oversee and possibly override the regulations of these agencies.

In my critic role as the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, I am aware of a couple of places where the rubber really meets the road, and I use the following as examples.

The CRTC reports to Parliament on an annual basis as is prescribed by law. Therefore our committee and people in the House of Commons who come to the committee have the opportunity, in public, for about a two or three hour period, to grill the people who are at the CRTC. However this is where the rubber meets the road because there are so many people in Canada who have serious concerns about the CRTC, the power and the regulations that it has and what it is bringing forward.

The CRTC designates licences. It designates how broadcasters, for example, will actually come to the marketplace with entertainment, information or with products. It comes forward with rules and regulations about Canadian content.

Interestingly, the direction the CRTC takes about Canadian content does come from the heritage minister and from the government to a very great extent, but the way in which it interprets Canadian content and the level of power that it brings against private broadcasters, and, indeed, even the CBC, is very profound. These are bureaucrats. I will give them full credit and say that they, undoubtedly, are trying to work in the very best interest of Canada and under their mandate by legislation and under the direction of the heritage minister and of the government but, nonetheless, they have the ability to make these regulations without us, without we who are responsible to the Canadian people through the election process, being able to override those regulations.

I can give another example, also in the heritage department. Under Parks Canada, which is an agency of the government, we are going to have the bureaucrats in that department making regulations with respect to marine conservation areas. This is new legislation that has just come through the House. How this legislation will be enacted and what number of people will be impacted as far as their fishing rights and their mineral exploration rights are concerned in the marine area that will be covered by the marine conservation area, how those things will happen, will not come under the direct scrutiny or the ability of this House to overturn the regulations.

So we have an untenable situation wherein we have well-meaning bureaucrats, and I want to again point that out, that these are dedicated civil servants who are really trying to do the best, in their minds, to bring forth the appropriate regulations. But across from those people we have the individuals, the Canadian citizens, who are being impacted by those regulations. Those Canadian citizens do not have the power of this place, the power of the House of Commons, to be able to have a scrutiny of those regulations. Indeed, I see this proposed law, as arcane as the title may be, as a very important element of bringing the democratic process to where it should be, and that is where we, the elected people in our elected, democratic, free society, have the ability to override and to impact the bureaucrats and the decisions they are making.