Joe Volpe

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, May 28th, 2009]

And the federal government.

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, this is a very serious topic and when I spoke on it I never made one reference to a partisan affiliation. It is important to keep in mind that the legislation calls on the government to honour what a previous government signed in a contractual arrangement. It is important to keep that in mind even though people get emotional.

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke in French and I may have made some mistakes, but I said nothing that was seriously wrong. I spoke of the wrongs done by the Canadian government to its citizens, not citizens of another country, but its own citizens.

They are citizens. One becomes a Canadian to become a Canadian. One is either born here, like many of my cousins and aunts and uncles, or they acquire citizenship by virtue of their residence, their responsibility and their civic duty toward this country. That is how one becomes a Canadian. One does not then become a subject of an enemy nation.

When my colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel proposes this legislation, my compliments go to him. My compliments also go to my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway who also stood on behalf of the NDP and said that he and his party supported the legislation because they understood the basic concept behind it and that they applaud the initiative of the member from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel”.

I had the privilege of being around the cabinet table when this proposal, enunciated in Bill C-302, was put on the table. What the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel says is that the Government of Canada should honour the commitment that it made to the four representative institutions of the Italian Canadian community in the country. There was the Canadian Italian Business and Professional Association and the Congress of Italian Canadians.

There was also the Italian-Canadian Community Foundation in Quebec.

Finally, there was the Order Sons of Italy. All four organizations negotiated for the better part of 10 months in order to come up with what is called the ACE program.

The Government of Canada fell in 2006 and the current government took up this and said that it would not give them what they signed on to. It was not going to respect the contract the Government of Canada signed with the representatives of the community, the contract that called for a sum that was considerably higher than what has been proposed by the government, and, by the way, it would flow through this organization in order to establish a foundation to achieve the educational objectives, to achieve the commemorative programs and to gauge awareness for all of the country.

However, it did not close the door to individual considerations by the estates of the 632 individuals who were unjustly interned. They were never charged and no laws were broken. They were never given any indication as to why they were there except that they were citizens of an enemy nation. They were Canadian citizens.

I ask to be forgiven if I get excited about this but it is because we are talking about the human rights and the citizenship rights of everyone.

[Member spoke in Italian]

[English]

The Government of Canada has made excuses to others and has apologized. It is not a novel thing. We are not leaving ourselves open to any kind of legal liabilities by making an apology.

[Member spoke in Italian]

If a person is a Canadian citizen, it is of little importance where one came from or what political party one belongs to. One is a citizen, and that is all. So if apologies have already been given to other citizens, there is a need to apologize to the Italians as well. Why?

We should think about this for a moment. Six hundred and thirty-two families were disrupted during the war because the political situation in the world at the time dictated a circumstance that nobody here wanted, and yet the people of Italian origin who were here were automatically put on guard as subjects of an enemy nation.

A cousin of mine was in the Royal Navy and yet the entire family was under police surveillance for the duration of the war.

A former member of this House, whom we know well, had a brother enlisted in the RCAF and a family under police surveillance.

Nobody said, “Sorry, we made an error”. Nobody said that we were enemies of Canada. Nobody ever said that the Italian community committed an injustice toward the people, the country and the Government of Canada but they were interned and jobs were lost.

[Member spoke in Italian]

[English]

It is right that this legislation calls, at the very least, on the Government of Canada to respect the agreement signed by the Government of Canada in 2005 with the four institutions that represent the Italian community in Canada. That is the starting point. It is not the closing point.

I compliment the member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel for having brought this legislation to this point in the House. He deserves compliments and he deserves support, not negative criticism.

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will forgive me in anticipation of some errors that I might make in the course of my presentation. I feel so passionate about this that I know I will lapse into my mother tongue. I do not mean any disrespect to parliamentarians who may be listening or, indeed, the translators, but I hope everyone will forgive me in anticipation thereof.

I would like to begin in French, because I wish to thank some of the members who spoke before me, particularly, the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, a Bloc member. He talked about this bill a few weeks ago. He said it was the fair thing to do and that this bill needed the support of all members of this House. How incredible that a member of the Bloc, a self-described sovereignist party, and some might say one that is less Canadian—although I would disagree—but someone who defines his Canadian identity by the fact that he lives in Quebec. He defines himself as a Quebecker, and he believes that this bill should be supported by all Quebeckers and all Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Why? Because Canada wronged its citizens, not others, but its own citizens. One needs to read the bill in French in order to grasp what the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie was trying to get across. My colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel deserves congratulations from all hon. members for introducing this bill. In English, we talk about Italian Canadians having been victims of the War Measures Act, while references to this in French make it clear that the Canadian government of the day felt that Italian Canadians should be treated as enemy aliens. They were Canadians. What does it mean to be Canadian? To be considered as subjects of another country, an enemy country? They had been here for over a hundred years, they were here as Canadians, as subjects of Canada.

My colleague from Oak Ridges—Markham spoke of wrongs that need to be forgotten. I know all about forgetting and putting things aside, but we need to keep in mind the rights that individuals acquired by birth or residence, their identity as Canadians. They were British subjects, they were Canadians.

[Points of Order, May 28th, 2009]

Yes.

[Points of Order, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, when there is a reference to a particular document it is customary in this place that the document be tabled. During question period I noted that both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance referred to some articles in a daily publication in Toronto.

I scoured through that same publication to find the items to which they made reference, and here is what I found. That is, with the Minister of Finance, it is difficult to find a worse record than his.

Those who bother to pan through the long, uneven list of federal finance ministers will find that even the perception of such incompetence in that hypersensitive portfolio provides a compelling reason for a cabinet shuffle.

I am prepared to table the document.

[Customs Act, May 28th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague from Mississauga South a question. He has become a renowned expert on parliamentary procedure in this place and has picked up on a very important issue in this particular bill, and that is the protection of the rights of individuals as per some of the language that is being used, at least in my experience, and I agree with him, for the very first time in many a year.

I note that in his presentation he talked about protection of the rights of individuals as we try to build in greater efficiencies in the way that we handle our border crossings and the movement of people and goods back and forth. I am wondering if he could take a moment to comment on just what it means, at least from the perspective of parliamentarians, when the government says that there will effectively be no restrictions on the kinds of things that a border official can demand of someone crossing the border.

[Customs Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say something to the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel in response to his last comment on the governing party's natural tendency to lean towards the right, that is, the government is so concerned with the evil it sees everywhere that its bills no longer reflect a basic ideology. I think—and I do not know whether the member will agree—that we should apply the following ideology: bills such as this one should benefit the public, businesses and individual rights. So we could judge the entire bill using those three categories.

Does the member think that this bill, which originated in the other chamber, not this one, respects these three categories? Or does the member think that the bill is simply an attempt to correct existing problems, or problems that simply do not exist because the other jurisdiction, that is, the U.S., requested it?

[Customs Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague opposite tries to give us a good impression about what this legislation attempts to do and I applaud him for that, but it is tinkering. We will support that tinkering because there is always an opportunity to improve things, and as long as we are improving things, that is fine.

However, the parliamentary secretary knows quite well that the Department of Homeland Security in the United States had an initial budget in excess of $70 billion. It is now closer to $100 billion. Its tactics can be interpreted as being designed in part to stem the flow of trade in order to meet the needs of protectionist elements in the 30 states that the minister opposite also indicated are dependent upon the two-way trade.

Perhaps he could tell us whether his minister or his government has made determined efforts to get across to the authorities, such as Ms. Napolitano who was here just a few days ago, the firm impression that we need to have bilateral observance and adherence to the NAFTA that was signed by our two countries, and that the articles under that agreement, if they are worth signing onto, are worth obeying.

I am wondering whether he thinks that legislation such as this will reverse some of the negative impacts of a $100 billion budget to stem the tide of north-south free trade.

[Customs Act, May 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I did not attend the prayer breakfast, so my views are not laced with any religious forbearance but with specific interest.

I can appreciate that my two colleagues are trying to be collegial, and it is important for this place, but I am going to ask my colleague, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, to address the following. When the minister opposite asks what he would you do, that is an unfair question. He is not in government. He does not have to address that. The government has an obligation itself to address that question.

Keeping this in mind, the Department of Defense in the United States has an annual budget that exceeds the total Canadian government's budget by more than 100%. In other words, every year they spend more than twice as much as the entire Canadian government does. Its procurement policies are shutting out Canadian industries.

I would like to ask the member for Scarborough—Guildwood to raise that issue with the minister and the government opposite about what they are doing to ensure that Canadian providers are not shut out of that kind of market.