Jim Karygiannis

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, would the hon. member clarify for me how he sees the function of the United Nations? The United Nations has passed thousands of resolutions against this regime or that regime, yet they are not being enforced or even acted upon.

I want to make clear in my mind. Which regimes do we move against? Which regimes do we not move against? How do we pick or choose and if we cannot pick or choose, do we go with another coalition as we did in Kosovo?

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, my question for my colleague on this side of the House is this: Could he compare what happened to Kosovo with the NATO-led coalition to what happened in Afghanistan under the United Nations umbrella? Could he, in his own words, shed some light on how one was right and the other was wrong or on how both were right? If he could share those views I would greatly appreciate it.

[Iraq, October 1st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I was beginning to wonder if you forgot me being down this side.

I recall the debate that took place back in 1988. I was just elected. We had come to the House and the government of the day took us into war with Iraq. At that time there was clear evidence that Iraq had invaded Kuwait. Iraq was acting in a manner which required a drastic response by the nations of the world. However, there is a difference at this time.

Indications from a wide variety of sources have stated that Iraq's military infrastructure has not recovered from the devastating punishment it suffered during the Gulf War. The allegations by the American government that Iraq has been developing nuclear and biological weapons capable of mass destruction has not been substantiated by any valid sources. The latest allegation that somehow Iraq was behind--

[Supply, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my hon. colleague for being promoted from the first row to the third row.

My difficulty with this motion is that we see the group across the way saying that we should lower the legal age for people who are charged with violent crimes from 18 to 14 to 10. That is fine because youth, when they are 12 and 14, especially 14, and when the crime is so violent, they know what they are doing. I am wondering, though, if the youth know what they are doing, do they not also know if they are going to jump into bed with somebody?

My question is very simple. Where do we draw the line as to the youth knowing exactly what they are doing and where they are going? Is it 10, 12 or 14 and are we going to apply it equally to everything that they do?

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we are here to discuss a very important issue, the security of our country Canada.

We as a country have been involved in every global conflict which has transpired since we became a country, for example, the Boer war, World War I, World War II, Korea, the gulf war, Kosovo and today the conflict in Afghanistan.

There has not been a conflict on our shores in North America since the day we became a nation. We have the longest undefended border in the world and we get along with our neighbours to the south. Unfortunately however, our friends in the United States had a knee-jerk reaction and automatically responded by wanting to have more security at our borders. Some of them even said to close the border after what happened on September 11.

Many politicians in the United States automatically blamed Canada for what happened in their country. To date, no terrorists who contributed to the events in the United States on September 11 have been linked to Canada. It was not our immigration system, our national security system nor our airline system which was to blame for what happened in New York on September 11, 2001. That is not to say we could not also be victims of such an event.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

My colleague from Mississauga said that they work for dinosaurs. This is exactly what my colleague across the way wants us to do in the year 2010 or 2020. He wants us to use dinosaurs. He wants us to have equipment at our airports that will be 20 years old.

He himself said today that the Americans are behind us. He went on to say that we are here, the Americans are there and now they want to catch up to us. Because we are here and the Americans are there, we have seen fairly well what happened on September 11. What happened on September 11 was not some terrorists coming from overseas that hit the twin towers. It was not planes coming from Canada that hit the twin towers. That happened internally. That country is supposed to have the most up to date security in the world. It happened internally.

Does my hon. colleague want to be up to date or does he want to use a donkey to come to work? What he is alluding to is certainly not simply the use of a donkey, the wheel has not even been invented yet according to my hon. colleague.

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way started by speaking about some comments I made previously. I wonder whether he really lives in the 21st century or whether he still uses a donkey to come to work. He wants to have security at the airports in 2010 the way business was done in the 1900s, which is like having a donkey to come to work.

He said that when a dentist buys new equipment it is amortized over the five or ten year period that the dentist's chairs might hold up. I go to a dentist and his chairs are probably about 15 years old. If he paid $1,000 about 15 years ago, over the last 15 years, that would be about $50 or $60 a year. The hon. member says that the equipment we will use at the airport will be good for the next 20 years so we should amortize it over 20 years. In the year 2020 my colleague across the way wants to have the equipment we have today. That is like telling me that I have to use the 286 computer in my office that I had when I was first elected to the House and not a Pentium 2. I was wondering how his staff would feel if they were still in the stone ages of computer programming and had to use a 286 computer. When we are talking about equipment--

[Point of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague with great interest. He brought forth a bunker mentality which says that we need ballistic missiles. I am not sure where he was going, but I remember the Normandy invasion in the 1940s and the bunker mentality of the Germans. It was like everybody is coming to get us.

Does my colleague have a vision that Canada is a country which is at the brink of being invaded and that the folks across the way are pointing thousands of missiles at us?

It is one way of saying we want the protection of the Americans. We have to co-operate with the Americans but in Canada we have an autonomy. We have something that is uniquely Canadian: our great country has not been at war for the last 200 years.

Is my colleague proposing that the great plains of midwest Canada have the mentality of silos and minutemen ready to go up?

[Supply, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, like my colleague from Mississauga, I just want to express my views on this subject. I had the opportunity not too long ago to go on a street patrol at night to deliver food and medicine, as well as cigarettes, to people who were homeless. How ever we talk about poverty in Canada, it is not until we travel to other parts of the world that we realize what poverty is.

Less than 48 hours ago I came back from the border of Afghanistan at the Khyber Pass. This is what real poverty is all about. This global village that we know, this Earth of ours, is certainly failing. Only 25 trucks daily go through the Khyber Pass to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan in the southeast corner.

Poverty in Canada is indeed something that we should have in mind, but we should also look at where we, the humanitarians of this world, are failing our brethren in other parts of the world. I brought this to the attention of the ministers for CIDA and external affairs, and I hope that we will start eradicating poverty in Toronto in the immediate future and hopefully in other parts of the world.

[Questions in the House of Commons, February 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on this motion which calls for the release of letters from the government House leader and the Clerk of the Privy Council to ministers and deputy ministers dealing with questions in the House of Commons.

This is particularly gratifying since it allows me to speak on an issue very much in the public eye these days in Canada and other democratic countries around the world. It addresses how we get a proper balance between the rights of citizens and their elected officials to be informed about the activities of government and the need for cabinet confidentiality to foster the smooth functioning of the machinery of government.

As members are aware, getting just the right balance between these important principles can be very difficult at the best of times. All of us in the House, whether we are on the government or opposition benches, agree that parliamentarians have a right to expect that the government would treat their requests for information seriously and respond to them as quickly and fully as possible.

I am sure all of us agree that Canadians, no matter where they live and what their circumstances, have a right to know what the government is doing and proposing to do on their behalf. However this right to know does not automatically trump all others.

Parliament has agreed that there are a number of other factors that must be taken into account, such as, protecting the privacy of individuals, respecting the solicitor-client privilege, and ensuring cabinet confidentiality. Indeed, cabinet confidentiality is so widely recognized as being important to the public good that virtually every democratic system in the world has some form of it in their parliamentary procedures and, in many instances, statutes. For this reason and others it is not so hard to understand.

It is clear that cabinet confidentiality improves the quality of policy formation and decision making by creating an environment where ministers can be frank in their discussions with cabinet colleagues and other senior government officials about important issues and initiatives. It is important that senior officials feel free to consider all possible options and alternatives without having to worry that their words might appear as the lead story in the next day's national newscast because these discussions often take place during the early stages of the policy process when the government may not as yet have decided on the course it will follow.

Recognizing the importance of encouraging frank and thorough policy discussion, parliamentarians from all parties have, over the years, wisely decided that some matters, such as the deliberations of cabinet ministers, should be protected and considered confidential for the good of the nation and our democratic system of government.

It is clear that the letters being requested fall into the category of privileged information and thus should not be released. The government House leader has informed the Speaker that the letters being requested represent a cabinet confidence and for this reason has asked that the member withdraw his motion.

While the government is opposed to the release of these particular letters, it nevertheless recognizes the importance of written questions to the work of the House. They promote transparency of government and help to ensure that ministers are accountable to the House. They enable ministers to become more knowledgeable about those matters for which their departments and agencies are responsible. Recognizing this, the government has taken steps to ensure that the practices in place designed to deal with such questions work as well as possible.

I had an opportunity to travel with a colleague from Britain. This colleague told me if opposition members or members of the government of the British parliament wanted to ask a question of the prime minister or any other ministers, they had to put it in writing at least six months in advance. Members put their questions after six months by which time the whole issue may be blown over.

We in the House have given the opposition, as well as the government backbenches, the right to ask questions the same day. We have given members the opportunity to grill ministers and to ask the Prime Minister to stand up and give answers.

While I cannot vote for the motion, since releasing this would not be in the interest of the House or the smooth functioning of the machinery of the government, I do share my colleague's desire to improve parliamentary procedure in this area. For all of us, democratic government is a work in progress.

I thank the hon. member for his commitment to ensuring the transparency of government. I urge him to work with the government in finding new and better ways of balancing the right to know with principles parliament has long accepted, such as cabinet confidentiality.

Only by working together can we, in this area of parliamentary procedure, do it right.