Jim Karygiannis

[Divorce Act, February 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, finally my words are starting to make sense to members on that side of the House.

Should they? This is a matter of consultation. It is a process on which we must start speaking and one on which we must consult with our community partners. It is a great idea and food for thought.

[Divorce Act, February 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will go back to my comments again. The front end versus the tail end. I do not think my comments were heard by that side of the House.

[Divorce Act, February 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am the father of five daughters. If I accumulate the ages of my daughters together they come close to 100. I can speak with some experience on raising children, on being at home and on being a responsible parent. The comments across the way reflect what the Alliance thinks.

I said very clearly that it was incumbent upon us to support families. Sometimes, because parents cannot afford it, they need to go out to work. I am not saying that the Government of Canada should go to every household and say “Here is the money for your mortgage”, but why not have universal daycare? Why not discuss the issue? Why not provide support for the parents who choose to go out and work?

The thoughts of the gentleman across the way are that the father goes out to work and the mother stays at home, or the mother goes out to work and the father stays home. The idea of both parents working is not something that appears on his radar screen.

I am quite the opposite. I certainly think that my daughters can be good mothers as well as work. Therefore, when they are out in the workplace why should they not have the support they need in order to raise their children?

If the gentleman across the way ever wants to tell me how to raise children, I have news for him. I raised five of them and I am very proud of the way in which I have raised them.

[Divorce Act, February 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague across the way for his question but he did not dare travel the path that I went down, which was, how do we avoid divorces. My colleague across the way just let my thoughts, my feelings and my words sort of fly over his head.

I am more concerned about the front end, which is how to keep families together, versus the tail end. Once people get to the tail end, there are bitter divorces, bitter fights, and two parents going at each other. It is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians to make sure that we support our families at the front end so they do not end up at the tail end, in the controversy as well as the feuding.

[Divorce Act, February 4th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are discussing a very important piece of legislation, family law amendments and how they relate to the Divorce Act.

I will not endeavour to bring in more facts and figures on the present bill, the proposed amendments and how they will work. I am sure all of us in the House are quite informed of how the present as well as the proposed amendments will work in the future.

I want to travel down a path that very few of us have dared to explore. That path is why parents arrive at the conclusion that a divorce is required. What drives a couple to divorce? What can we as parliamentarians do in order to avoid family breakups?

Many years ago married couples stayed together until, as the preacher said, death did they part. This has changed with the evolution of knowledge and higher education. People have become more self-assured and confident and decide which way they want to go in their own future. Women are achieving higher education, so men cannot overpower them any longer. The female partner cannot be threatened and told, “You stay at home or I will not look after the children”.

Higher education as well as the ability of women to achieve higher mobility in the workforce are things that we should support, welcome and enhance. They make the female partner more self-reliant, more self-supportive and able to make decisions that are a positive contribution to family growth and enhancement.

Gone are the days that the man of the house came home and ordered his wife around. Gone are the days when a wife would have to put up with all the whims of her husband and shut up and take the abuse and stay in an abusive relationship.

There are a few concerns and we as politicians, community leaders and community partners must work to ensure that families do not separate.

Economics is a major factor in separation. A lack of monetary support to keep the family together drives people to divorce. Husbands and wives both work to pay the bills, the mortgages and to survive day to day. A couple's desire to provide a better standard of living drives both spouses to work. Sometimes a person has two jobs in order to keep the family afloat and make ends meet.

The government has steadily done much needed work in the family field through successive budgets and initiatives to provide more support to fight poverty and provide support for families. We have successfully tackled some of the important issues.

One example is the length of time that a spouse can stay at home after giving birth. Maternity leave has been extended to one year. A spouse can now stay at home with the little ones and collect EI. The government has increased maternity leave, making it possible to watch the little one grow, take his or her first steps and say his or her first words.

From time to time there has been talk about increasing the period from a year to a year and one-half or even two years. If we endeavour to go down this path, we must make sure, perhaps through community consultations, that it is something Canadians want.

Next comes the issue of daycare. Often we hear of universal daycare and our support for families that need daycare spots. Many of us receive calls from constituents who ask us to assist them with this dilemma of placing their child in a healthy daycare.

Why not have universal daycare? We should look at the cost of such an endeavour and the return it would have on our overall quality of life, the better growth and higher education of our children, as well as the end result of better citizens.

What is the trade-off on such a suggestion to our everyday way of life? Better citizens, higher educated citizens, children seeking a better and more fulfilled life. Would this result in citizens being more law abiding, citizens being focused on the quality of family life? Some people say yes.

How would this translate into the cost and the way we do our budgets now, police budgets, education budgets as well as the overall quality of life? We will be faced with budget deliberations at the end of the month. Maybe we could start a discussion along these lines and develop it over the years.

Another very important issue that we must look at is the length of time it takes to reunite families. Canada is a country of immigrants, people who have come from all walks of life from all corners of the world. It can take up to two or three years to reunite families.

For example, if a mother and her child were to come to this country, fleeing their situation at home, they could be stranded here for three or four years until the husband, spouse or partner were to join them. In the first steps of life a young adolescent of 14, 15 or 16 needs the mother and the father but we are not assisting to bring these families together. We are hindering them by keeping them apart for three or four years. That translates into dollars and cents. Do we need more resources at the tail end or at the front end in order to reunite those families? Yes, we do.

The new immigrants who come to this country want to make a better way of life for themselves. Mothers and fathers work double shifts and sometimes even work on the weekends in order to survive, make some money, make a down payment and carry a mortgage. Sometimes the families are very limited in their knowledge of the Canadian way of life. They are very limited in speaking the language. We must provide new Canadians with more money for settlement arrangements.

As an aside, not long ago we saw the statistics on new immigrants who come to Canada. The majority of the people who come to my riding are from mainland China. When we look at the way the funding for settlement arrangements is being done, the people who want to speak and have services in their own native language, the Mandarin language, we hear that there is not much support for it. We hear that there is no group that wants to speak it, but it is quite the opposite.

We have to look at how we keep families together, especially new families that come to Canada and want to make it their home. They are new families with children who will be the taxpayers of tomorrow supporting our Canada pension plan.

It all comes down to dollars and cents. We are waiting to see how the budget will address keeping families together. More support means better families, a better standard of living as well as healthier children.

I chose to travel down this path in order to bring an alternative to the discussion in the House on how we keep families together versus discussions on how we deal with the issues after the family separates. A healthy family is positive for our community and the country and costs us less than the cost of having to deal with all the things that come from broken families. More support, more dollars at the front end keep families together and costs us less than the issues at the tail end.

I want to touch on one other item that a constituent has raised with me. What happens to access for grandparents once the parents decide they want to separate? There was a discussion in the House previously that grandparents should be given access to their grandchildren. This is something we have to look at. We must ask grandparents, whether they are on the mother's side or the father's side, on their access needs to their grandchildren.

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, January 28th, 2003]

Madam Speaker, we are here to discuss a very important issue, the pros and cons of human reproduction. There are those of us who are blessed with families. Some of us have larger families than others.

There is nothing more enjoyable than growing kids. There is nothing more enjoyable than having little ones running around the house, turning it upside down and making it a mess. There is nothing more enjoyable than hearing little feet pitter-patter around the house and seeing them grow up to be young boys and girls. There is nothing more enjoyable than attending parent-teacher interviews and learning how the children are progressing in school. There is nothing more enjoyable than attending a school play and watching children belt out in tune or out of tune their poem or their song.

I am sure that there is no more pride than watching one's children graduate from high school and/or university. Growing children are the most enjoyable pleasures of life. There are those who say “Let me see my children grow and then God you can take me away”. Therefore, there is nothing more sacred than the protection of life in all stages of development.

When does life begin? Does it begin at birth? Does it begin a few minutes before birth? Does it begin a few months before birth? Does it begin at the first trimester? I am of the view that life begins at conception. It should be nurtured and protected right from the first second that life is formed.

There are however couples who are not blessed with the pleasure of watching their children grow. There are couples who are not blessed with having a child. Yet the medical field has made strides to assist those individuals in enjoying the pleasures of parenthood. Just today in the news there was an item where a daughter gave her mother, a 55-year old lady, her ovum. She had a child with her second husband. To that family, that was an enjoyable event. There was nothing more enjoyable than the pleasure of seeing the father and the mother hold their young one.

We have surrogate mothers and male sperm donors. We have come a long way in accepting most of this new technology. However, we have entered in recent years a new phase called cloning. We have animal cloning and most recently perhaps even human cloning.

I for one say that we must proceed with caution. At this particular time I personally have concerns about that avenue that we are talking about. Technology is indeed a wonderful thing. If we did not have technology we would not have cars, we would not be able to go to space, and we would probably be stuck in the middles ages. However, when we talk about cloning there is the ethical matter. There is the matter of where do we start cloning. When we start talking about the pros and the cons of human reproduction we must proceed with caution.

I would like to add my voice that we proceed with caution. We must be careful of what we are doing in order not to hurt either a mother or a father. At this point I cannot bring myself to support human cloning or any other kind of cloning.

[Kyoto Protocol, November 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have been listening to the member and I am a little confused. I know he has been going on for a couple of days. For me to understand, is this somebody who picked him up at the airport a minister?

I know that the Alliance has complained that we have nothing to do, but it is about time the hon. member start making some sense. A minister does not pick him up at the airport. It must have been a taxi driver. Therefore, I am confused as to who picked him up at the airport.

[Supply, October 29th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way talked about cheap political tactics. I am just wondering whatever happened to the Reform/Alliance, when every member was going to be free to vote. They came here and we have seen what happened: the whip stood up and asked that anyone who wanted to vote otherwise. They even got rid of that. I am just wondering who is here and how dare they talk about cheap political process when they actually practise it.

[Supply, October 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I think we should rise above partisan politics and look at this issue in a very good light. Some of the opinions expressed by my colleagues across the way have merit.

The one difficulty I have is that the motion would require that before any appointments were finalized they would have to be tabled in the House of Commons and be scrutinized by us.I have absolutely no difficulty with more scrutiny by the House on many of the appointments. It does not matter if the appointments are made by this party, the previous party or if they are made in Quebec or made in Alberta, sometimes they are slipped through in covert operations.

As a humble suggestion, would my colleagues across the way want to change their motion to read that when the House does not sit that appointments made will be looked upon when the House comes back? We would like to give the power to the government to function. Not only do we want the government to function but we also as parliamentarians must scrutinize what happens.

Would the Bloc members alter the motion so that appointments would be allowed to go through when the House is not in session but that they would be dealt with when the House returns?

[International Cooperation, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to welcome women delegates from Afghanistan and to speak on Canada's commitment to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

Although the war in Afghanistan is long over, the battle to rebuild the nation has only just begun. In particular, the needs and rights of Afghan women, who under the Taliban faced many hardships and deprivations, is an area in which Canada has taken a lead role. Canadian organizations such as SUCO, or Solidarité Union Coopération, Development and Peace, and other Canadian-Afghan associations have been working together with groups in Afghanistan to ensure such things as women's participation in the reconstruction process and commissioning the building of orphanages.

In the last year through CIDA, Canada has distributed over $58 million to support emergency relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan and to improve the lives of Afghan women and provide quality basic education to Afghani children. In September of this year, the minister announced that CIDA had fully allocated the $100 million for Afghanistan pledged by the Government of Canada at the Tokyo donors conference in January. The--