Keith Martin

[Canada Pension Plan, October 23rd, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this bill. One of the greatest policy challenges for the 21st century will be the impact of our aging population on our social programs, be they health, pharmacare, housing or seniors' housing. All of these programs will be torn asunder by a massive population bubble that will move into that retired age group and put an unsustainable demand upon the social programs. We will simply not have the people working and the tax base to pay for all that we ask.

Indeed not only is it the biggest challenge in the 21st century in terms of domestic policy, but it also is perhaps the most neglected issue because in the House the intergenerational transfer of wealth and the impact of our aging population on our social programs is virtually neglected. That is what I will talk about today specifically with reference to our pension plans, and the CPP in particular.

If one looks at our aging population, the population over the age of 65 will double over the next 20 years. That is combined with a reproduction rate that is below replacement levels. The replacement level is 2.1 children per woman and now we are down to 1.4. We can see that not only is our population declining in the workforce, but we also have a massive increase in population over the age of 65.

This will put that unsustainable demand on our pension system. What choices do we have? Option one is to increase the amount of payments people make through their payroll taxes into a fund to pay for retirees, but there is a finite limit to that. Right now workers pay 10% of their income into that fund. The estimation is that we must pay about 20% into that fund to sustain our retirees in the future. Whereas today we have one person out of every four over the age of 65, in the year 2030 one out of every two will be over the age of 65. That is a massive number of people.

That is combined with the fact that we are living longer. What is interesting is that the age of retirement was actually put together in the 1880s by Otto von Bismarck in Germany. At that time he deemed that 65 would be the age of retirement. Yet at that time the age of a person's life expectancy was 55. Therefore, he did not expect many people to retire to be able to access the German pension fund. In 1966 we blindly took it upon ourselves to determine that age 65 would be the age of retirement when people could receive their CPP pension plans.

The other fact is that we are living longer. In the year 2030 it is estimated that our longevity will be expected to be 90. One can imagine that not only will there be a larger pool of people in their retirement years extracting money from our pension plan, but we will also be extracting money for a longer period of time, on average at least 25 years after the age of 65. That is truly a massive and unsustainable amount of impact upon these pension plans.

The Association of Canadian Pension Management said in January 2000:

The combined forces of the retirement of the Boomer Generation, rising life expectancies, and falling birth rates will seriously strain, and could possibly rupture our retirement and healthcare systems in the next 30 years.

It also said in January 2000, and this is prophetic:

If we do not change the rules of the game, the OECD estimates Canada’s public spending on pensions and healthcare would rise from 13% of GDP in 1995 to 23% in 2030.

How will we pay for education, highways, welfare, this House and the myriad of other social programs and issues that government is asked to pay for? We tend to forget that there is only one payer in the system, and that is the beleaguered taxpayer out there who is already overtaxed. For those who would say that we must raise taxes to meet these increased social demands, I would suggest this is what happens.

It has been proven in Canada that when we raise taxes, it puts a constricting effect upon our economy, the very economy that we rely upon for jobs and to produce the tax base to pay for health care, pensions and other programs. Raising taxes will put a damper on our economy and have the deleterious effect of a negative impact to our tax base by shrinking it. Therefore this is not an option.

What can we do? First, the government needs to do is rationalize our CPP. It should lower the rates right now so we can get our economy moving. Payroll taxes right now are running a significant surplus, which is a removal of wealth from the existing workers of today. Let them have that money, let the private sector have the money and let the companies have the money so they can reinvest in our economy which will make our economy competitive with other around the world.

Second, the government needs to rationalize our pension system. The OAS, which is the old age security, and the guaranteed income supplement are two other issues that need to be rationalized.

We pay a very large sum of money, or roughly $18.7 billion a year, the for old age security. I would submit to the House that we need to do the following. People who are making over $60,000 should not receive OAS. The OAS needs to be targeted toward those who are making less than $60,000 a year. The savings from that can be plowed into the guaranteed income supplement so that those seniors who are significantly impoverished, and there are a lot of them, will have more money on which to live.

I draw the attention of the House to this. What does an impoverished, poverty line senior make today under the GIS? A senior living below the poverty will receive the monthly maximum of $436.65 for old age security. That combined with the GIS, the guaranteed income supplement, brings that to a maximum of $774 a month. How can somebody who has aged, who is retired, who has put their back into this country, some of whom have fought in wars, survive on $774 a month?

We need to do is this. Somebody who is making a rather large sum of money, over $100,000 a year, should not receive OAS. Why not use the OAS savings then to supplement the guaranteed income supplement for those seniors living below the poverty line? That way those seniors will have the money on which to survive. In effect, what we are doing is targeting our pension programs, our social programs, to those who need them, which then make them truly a safety net for those who cannot make it.

If we do not do that, we will have a legion of seniors in the future who live below the poverty line and who cannot afford the medications they require because medications are being delisted and not covered by pharmacare due to the cash crunch in which the governments find themselves. They will not have the money to pay for adequate housing. As a result, they will fall through the cracks and they will suffer. That is not the objective of a reasonable, rational social program.

The government needs to rationalize the OAS and GIS. It should take the OAS away from those who are making more than $100,000 a year although some of it is indeed clawed back today. There should be a graded scale for individuals making between $60,000 and $100,000 a year. If we claw that back a little more aggressively that money can go to those seniors who live below the poverty line so they will have enough money to put food on their tables, a roof over their heads, clothes on their backs and can afford the basics of life, including medications that they will need to use in their senior years.

Personally, the other thing we need to do is change the retirement age. We should abolish the mandatory retirement age of 65. If we do this, it will serve two functions. If someone wants to retire at 65 and take their CPP, they can. However why not provide a situation where between the ages of 65 and 70 individuals can accept 50% of their CPP and earn an income up to $30,000 a year without any negative effect on their CPP?

This would save and reduce the demand on our CPP, keep youthful, vigorous seniors in the workforce, if they choose to, given them an incentive to stay there and they will still be paying taxes. This would have several benefits. Not only would it benefit our economy by allowing these people to stay in the workforce and use their expertise to support our economy, but there also would be less demand on our CPP. In my view this would be innovative. In fact, in a court case, the Supreme Court said that abolishing the mandatory retirement age of 65 would not be a transgression of our Constitution. I think section 1 actually allows us to do that.

If I can quote again the Canadian Pension Management Group, it said:

We need to move from a system which currently provides incentives for people to retire early, to one which provides incentives for people to stay in the work force as long as they are willing and able to do productive work.

That is something at which the government should look. It should abolish the mandatory age of retirement of 65. If people want to retire at 65 and accept their full CPP, they can. However give people the option of having a partial CPP payment between 65 and 70, while allowing them to work and earn an income. That would go a long way in taking the pressure off our pension plan.

The third issue is the RRSPs. We need to increase the foreign content amount from 30% to 50% and allow people to invest 25% of their gross income up to $20,000. This would go a long way in helping people provide for themselves. If we do that, we can lessen the demands on our pension system. At the same we should allow people over the age of 65 to redeem their RRSPs tax free up to $20,000 a year.

I say that because people making less than $20,000 a year should not be taxed. It is impossible to live on less than $20,000. Why should anybody be taxed for making less than $20,000 a year? That is theft from the poor as far as I am concerned.

If the government truly wants to give people a chance to provide for themselves, if it wants the poor to have more money in their pocket, then do not tax them if they are making less than $20,000 a year. What the government could do, which would be innovative, is increase the basic individual allowance from what I think it is about $12,500 to $20,000. That would remove the poor off the tax rolls, which indeed would be very innovative.

To quote the Canadian Pension Management Group again concerning RRSPs, it said:

Because these global markets offer the best opportunities to diversify longer term risks, the globalization of Canadian retirement savings should be seen as a positive, not a negative, development for the ‘financial wellness’ of Canadians.

In essence, give people the tools and the ability to provide for themselves.

In summary, whether we talk about pensions, health care or any of the social programs that we have and enjoy, the government is simply not dealing with the impact of a massive baby boomer bubble that will put unsustainable demands on our social programs.

Our social programs will rupture in the next 10 to 15 years unless we plan now. This is cannot be dealt with in the year 2015. It is something that has to be dealt with now, so we can institute the plans and measures that will allow us to have a graded series of responses to prepare for this cataclysmic event on our social programs.

Speaking from the point of view of being in the health care system, we see this in the emergency department in hospitals and in offices. Our aging population will have massive demands upon our health care system. Some would suggest that because we are living longer and are healthier that this will have no appreciable effect on our health care system. They are absolutely dead wrong and here is why. Yes, we are living longer and we are healthier, but we also will need more joint replacements, angiograms, angioplasties and a whole host of treatments and medicines.

We are also not taking into consideration the impact of the dementias on our health care system. Dementias, whether Alzheimer's or multi-infarct dementia, and other neurological disorders will have a massive effect on our health care system in terms of housing and medical care, and we are utterly ill-prepared to deal with this situation.

I would only impress upon the health care minister for her to work with her provincial counterparts to plan a national strategy to deal with the neurological disorders of the aged, including the dementias and depression which the World Health Organization said would be the second leading cause of morbidity in the next 10 to 15 years. We again are completely and utterly ill-prepared to deal with the impact of this on our health care system.

This includes our pharmacare system. Because of the impact of increasing demand and a lack of resources, governments are forced to ration. That is a polite way of saying that they are withholding essential treatment from sick individuals in an effort to meet their budgets. Who actually is deprived of health care? It is the poor and the middle class, not the rich because they will either pay for it or go south of the border to buy the care they require.

Our health care system in its current form is depriving the poor and middle class of health care, not the rich. I say this right now in view of the fact that the Kirby commission report is coming out this week and the Romanow commission report will be coming out next month.

Ex-premier Romanow has said very clearly that the issue of private services will not be on the board with respect to his final report. I can only impress upon Mr. Romanow that this is short-sighted and highly destructive to the longevity and sustainability of our public system. Private services performed properly in a parallel fashion will save our public system by removing demand without removing resources. I say that personally, not as a party issue.

I say to Mr. Romanow that we should keep all our options open, remove the dogma from the issue and deal with the facts and solutions that work to save our public health care system so that all Canadians, particularly the poor and middle class, who are having their health care withheld, rationed or deprived today will not have to endure that in the future.

I just hope the government will work with members from all political parties and with its provincial counterparts. It should bring its provincial counterparts to the table and tell them to throw their dogmas out the window, that the challenge is here from the people of our country to have sustainable social programs and that there is a duty and a moral obligation to fix these problems in a sustainable fashion. I hope the Prime Minister takes his leadership role in the few months he has left, makes that final gesture and builds the legacy that he is seeking.

[Petitions, October 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition asks that the Coast Guard be an independent body, whose priority is the saving of lives, separate from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with all the necessary resources for staffing and equipment, including a new hovercraft that will enable it to perform rescues of those in peril.

[Petitions, October 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions from citizens of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

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

[Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act, October 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the bill. I want to bring to the attention of the House a connection to this bill which deals with aboriginal people.

There is an absolute crisis taking place on the Pikangikum reserve north of Kenora, north of the minister's riding. This reserve has the highest suicide rate in the entire world. Alcohol and drug abuse are rampant. Organizations are dysfunctional. Ninety-five per cent of the homes do not have running water. There are no sewers; there are outhouses. The community is bereft of hope. I say that with a single purpose in mind.

To show how acute the crisis is among the Ojibway people, this year alone eight females, five of them just 13 years old, have killed themselves. The Pikangikum reserve, with roughly 2,000 people, has an eight year average of 213 suicides per 100,000 people, which is 36 times our national average. I raise this issue in connection with the bill to plead with the Minister of Indian Affairs to deal with the situation acutely, to implement some suicide prevention programs to help save the children in particular of the Pikangikum reserve north of Kenora.

Turning now to the bill, 32,000 people live in the Yukon, which has 4% of our land mass, of which 77% is wilderness. There are 61 mammal species and 278 bird species. There is an extraordinary array of environmental jewels and cultures that exist in the Yukon. The bill is certainly going in the right direction toward blending sustainable development with preserving that incredible gift we have as a country.

I would suggest to the hon. minister that it is possible to link sustainable development and environmental protection with the enhancement of the lives of the people there. I would suggest a model to the minister. Brazil and certain parts of southern Africa have linked them. They have basically said that wild spaces have to generate funds if they are going to survive. The funds generated are poured back into the wild spaces for their preservation. The opportunities are enormous.

What does the north in general have? There is the Alaska Highway pipeline for one and the Northwest Territories pipeline down to Alberta for gas. The north has diamonds, the new emerald find near the Finlayson Lake district, natural gas, iron ore, lead, zinc and copper. They will provide the basic fuel to generate long term sustainable employment in the Northwest Territories and an enrichment of the people's lives there.

That will only happen if some of those moneys are then poured back into environmental protection and environmental enhancement. If we manage to link up that development and also utilize those moneys not only for the welfare of the people but also pour some of it back into the environment, then the people of the Yukon and the people in the north in general will have sustainable development that is congruent with environmental protection.

Historically, they have done a very good job of preserving their environment by engaging in some innovative cleanups of toxic sites. Indeed, only the wood bison and the peregrine falcon are the two major mammal species that are in danger of extinction. That is not a bad track record. The peregrine falcon has dropped to a threatened species from one on the verge of extinction.

There are some significant challenges in the north. I hope the resources there can be used to drive some environmental protection issues, such as the issue of pollution.

In Siberia the Russians dumped a lot of nuclear materials right on the ground. Those radionuclides, those cancer causing, teratogenic, carcinogenic materials have gone into the food chain. If we look at aboriginal people and some of the large mammal species at the top of the food chain, we see extraordinarily high levels of the cancer causing and teratogenic materials within their body tissue. It is having a devastating effect, particularly on aboriginal communities in the north.

I encourage the government to work with other arctic nations to deal with this acute situation. If we do not deal with it now, those cancer-causing agents, those radioactive materials that are so prevalent in certain parts of the north, will continue to waft into our food chain with devastating effects on the people who live there.

The other issue we are dealing with is climate change. The natural resources of the north can be used to generate the resources needed to combat climate change. Is it Kyoto or bust? No, there is a third way.

Kyoto, as we know, is a shell game, moving emissions trading credits around the world. In fact our country will do absolutely nothing to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. That is the big flaw in Kyoto. How can we do that? One of the things people in the north and indeed all of us can do is use energy more responsibly, conserve energy better and use existing technologies to reduce our emissions quite significantly through cars, trucks and in heat loss through homes. The amount we conserve could go well beyond the 6% target we set for ourselves in Kyoto in relation to 1990 levels. Indeed, we could go beyond that, which would be useful for all of us.

This is important for the north because if we look at the last few years, in 1998 and 1999 Yukon had two of the four warmest temperatures ever recorded in history. The Beaufort Sea ice pack was 40% less than what has ever been seen. Is this proof of global warming? No, it is not. Is it an indication that there is a problem? Yes, it is, and if we want to use a precautionary principle, we must do whatever we can to use our energy resources more responsibly. In doing so we could go beyond the commitments we chose to make, without, incidentally, taking on the oil patch, reducing jobs or affecting our economy.

If we were to adopt the approach of using the technologies we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we could find an actual added benefit to our economy in terms of a net increase to the GDP.

I would ask the minister to please look at the experience in Europe where they are well ahead of the curve on this. If we do not adopt the approach of using existing technologies to reduce pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions, two separate entities but connected by virtue of what produces them, we could be left behind the eight ball in terms of our own economic development. I would encourage the government to look at those issues.

My friend from Yukon brought to our attention a very interesting problem connected to this bill, the issue of medical manpower. Yukon has a problem with medical manpower, particularly the distribution in rural areas. We have had some very good discussions on this and there is a solution. What Yukon can do is connect with existing medical training facilities for doctors, nurses and technicians and have some of that training take place in Yukon. If it does that in conjunction with paying for a certain number of medical school nursing and technical-medical positions in return for an equal number of years of service in rural areas, Yukon will be able to get the medical manpower that it desperately needs. Indeed my friend from Yukon brought to our attention the terrible situation of a lot of people in Yukon being unable to get basic medical care as a result of this acute problem of a lack of manpower.

Bill C-2, through the generation of funds and sustainable development, could generate funds that would enable Yukon to pay for certain spots in medical training facilities and in return the quid pro quo would be that those individuals would have to spend an equal number of years in a rural setting under service settings such as Yukon. It does work. We need to catch people right out of school and get them into those rural centres where they can develop relationships and set down roots. There is a better chance of them staying in those rural areas than if we try to pick people out of urban settings after they have completed their training.

The next issue I would like to address is the issue of aboriginal communities. The question of how to engage aboriginal people in development was asked in Central America and Brazil.

It was found that if the aboriginal people were allowed to use some of the money from the natural resources, be it emeralds, diamonds or natural gas, and were able to pour it into primary health, education and skills training, they would be able to improve their health and welfare. This is very consistent with a document put out by a consortium of aboriginal groups. The document gave some very basic principles of what needed to be engaged in with the Yukon government if sustainable development were to work: the aboriginal peoples would be consulted; they would be participants in development and local governments would have municipal powers, which is what the Canadian Alliance has been fighting for and now the minister of aboriginal affairs has been communicating very well. If aboriginal people could have municipal powers, be engaged in the development process in a constructive way, be participants at the table and share in the resources in a meaningful way, then we would have sustainable development in the Yukon as well as improve the health and welfare of aboriginal communities in Yukon.

I hope the premier of Nunavut and his council will look at this as a model he could adopt for his communities in Nunavut. As members know, the rates of substance abuse, sexual abuse and suicide rates in Nunavut are off the wall. The feds are paying huge amounts of taxpayer money to sustain the situation in Nunavut right now. If Nunavut were to look at some of these models, which I hope will be applied in Yukon, then both Nunavut and Yukon would benefit.

Some people like to look at northern development in isolation but I would encourage them to look at northern development as part of Canadian development. If we were to track where the resources in the north were going, for example the pipelines, we would see that they do flow north to south. It behooves us as a country to have a greater north-south dialogue within our own country. I would suggest that has been lacking for a long time.

The engagement between the populated areas along our borders with the United States and the people in the north would go a long way to removing misconceptions and ensuring greater development and harmonization of economic and social activities between both the north and the south.

I want to emphasize again to the government that within the bill lies a great opportunity to engage in true sustainable economic development. However, in order to do that, the development of natural resources in the north, be it natural gas, diamonds, emeralds, tourism or hydro power, can and must be done in a way that ensures that the people of Yukon benefit economically from the development of those resources and that the development of those resources generates a pool of cash that can be used for environmental protection.

I think the public would be shocked to know about the absolute lack of resources that many of our conservation officers have. They struggle to find $100 to pay for a pair of binoculars when they are doing research in the field. With the lack of resources and the yeoman's job they perform, they deserve a medal. They are unable to do the job they are being asked to do which is to preserve and protect the environment in the north and protect the species that live there.

The bill is an interesting one and we look forward to it coming to committee. My party has put forth some constructive amendments. We certainly hope the government listens to them so that the bill will move forward in a constructive fashion that benefits all the people in Yukon and indeed Canada.

[Criminal Code, October 21st, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-233, an act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of child before birth).

Mr. Speaker, fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects are the leading causes of preventable brain damage among infants and children. On average, people who have FAS or FAE have an IQ of between 68 and 70. They also have physical disabilities. The effects can be devastating. Shunned in school, unable to function, many of them veer off into a life of crime or conduct disorders. In fact it is estimated that half of all people incarcerated today have FAS or FAE.

The bill is controversial. It gives medical practitioners the ability to put a woman who has refused all forms of treatment in a treatment facility against her wishes if no other option is available. Hopefully the bill will enable us to decrease the incidence of FAS or FAE and give children a chance in this world.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Endangered Species Sanctuaries Act, October 21st, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-232, an act respecting the creation of sanctuaries for endangered species of wildlife.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the protection of endangered species, our country does not have workable, effective legislation to protect species at risk which are on the verge of extinction. Encroachment by humans and the destruction of habitat and poaching are all major contributors to the ever increasing numbers of species that are hurtling toward extinction.

This bill will enable us to save species by allowing us to protect critical habitat. The bill obliges the federal government to engage in agreements with the provinces to protect critical habitat.

Individuals will be remunerated at fair market value for loss of land where agreements cannot be made. Also, the species deemed at risk will be deemed at risk by scientists under COSEWIC. In effect, this bill strikes a balance between private interests and public needs and will go a long way to saving species at risk.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Terrorism, October 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on October 12 terrorists murdered nearly 200 people, mostly Australians, in Bali. This event should be a wake-up call for those in our country who think we are safe, yet what is our government's response? Nothing.

Our government still allows terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and others to raise funds in Canada. It has gutted our security and intelligence services. It has grossly underfunded our military to the extent that our minimum military needs for a domestic emergency cannot be met, nor does it fund our international military obligations, preferring to chant that we are the best country in the world while holding on to the coattails of our allies to protect ourselves and others.

The government's vacillating uncoordinated approach to the terrorist threat puts Canadian lives at risk. What is the government's response? Another Bali bombing here in Canada?

[Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, October 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I cannot speak for my colleague. I will be voting for the bill to get it to committee to make those changes. I encourage the hon. member to do a few other things if he would not mind, along the same vein.

First, is to convince his government to put conditionality on the new African agenda that it has, and that the trafficking of blood diamonds be put in as an activity that would prohibit countries from receiving aid from Canada. That would send a strong message.

The other is to put it in line with other processes similar to what Canada did for landmines and say that we should bring the nations of the world together to adopt the Kimberley Process in the same vein so that this actual treaty does not drag on for years on end. We should get the job done as soon as possible.

[Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, October 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Elk Island for his comments. I would like him to support the bill so we can get it to committee and make the changes that he has suggested.

Indeed, he is correct in saying that if innocent companies are subjected to damage in the process of search and seizure they should be compensated for that damage if they are proven, by definition, to be innocent. I encourage him to support the bill in order to get it to committee so we can have those amendments put forward.

I would also suggest to him that the purpose of the bill is to clean up the diamond industry so that it would benefit from this. Indeed, having a clean diamond industry would enable more people to buy diamonds. Otherwise, if the Canadian public and others in the west know that diamonds are attached to the murder and maiming of innocent men, women, and children they may decide to choose not to buy diamonds at all, in which case it would hurt honest diamond sellers.

It is in the interests of the diamond producers in Canada and the international community to clean this up. The Kimberley Process would do that. There is a vested interest not only from a humanitarian perspective in that vein but also from a purely pragmatic, self-centred, and economic interest.

[Export and Import of Rough Diamonds Act, October 21st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-14. I compliment the member for Nepean--Carleton for his extraordinary work and also our ambassador to Italy, Robert Fowler, who did an extraordinary job in Angola in articulating the role of diamonds and the trafficking of illegal arms in a murky world that causes the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people every year.

Let us get to the heart of the matter. This process is important to save the lives of millions of people around the world. Blood diamonds, as we have heard, are diamonds that are mined and sold illegally. They are the fuel of conflicts from west Africa, Guinea and Sierra Leone. They are fuelled by the tyrant Charles Taylor, down through central Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, into Zimbabwe and down into Angola.

These diamonds are mined under conditions of absolute slavery. People get a few dollars for them. The diamonds are taken into a murky world. They flow into the diamond marketing areas of Antwerp and Tel Aviv where they are mixed with legal diamonds and sold in return for weapons and other illicit contraband. In fact, diamonds as well as other resources such as timber, semi-precious stones, and coltan, the material we use in our computers, are used to fuel conflicts in most of Africa.

The irony of the continent of Africa is that while it is the poorest continent in the world, it is also the richest in terms of resources. However these resources have been taken and used by brutal, evil people like Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe and others to fuel their own conflicts, line their own pockets, and murder innocent civilians.

Perhaps the most egregious example is what happened in Sierra Leone involving rebels under the leadership of a man by the name of Foday Sanko, the head of a group called RUF. Rebels is really not the word we should use. We should call them thugs. They would go into an area where there were diamonds, and any people who were there would be lined up and given the choice of right or left, meaning did they want their right or left arm chopped off. With children, they would make arbitrary decisions, chopping off legs or limbs. Why? They would do this to scare those people out of the region or to force them to mine the diamonds, the same diamonds that people wear here at home on their rings. Perhaps half of the diamonds that are worn on people's hands in our country and in the west are blood diamonds that came from these bloody origins, where innocent people had their limbs chopped off so that we could enjoy these diamonds.

The key is to separate the diamonds that are from countries like Botswana and South Africa from illegally mined diamonds, and to enable countries that are in conflict to use the diamonds and the resources they have for the people in their countries as a tool for prosperity, not as a tool for death and destruction. This process would start a way for us to ensure those diamonds would be tracked. We can sell good diamonds that are going to help people in these impoverished countries while not allowing illegal diamonds on the market.

These illegal diamonds, coltan, semi-precious stones, timber and other resources are used to fuel the conflicts we see primarily in Africa. Perhaps conflict is not the right word to use. There is no war going on. It is basic thuggery and banditry by groups that call themselves rebel groups but who secure areas that are rich in resources. That is what the RUF did in Sierra Leone, supported by the evil Charles Taylor who is the head of Liberia and who garners money from this process. He is a thug and a murderer.

It is also happening in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe took his army into the Congo, not for any strategic reasons but so that he could control diamond mines. He extracts these diamonds and pays off his military supporters and cronies. These diamonds then go into Antwerp, Tel Aviv and the Ukraine in exchange for funds to pad his pockets and also to buy weapons that enable his army to secure control and abuse his people. That is what is going on right now in that country. Zimbabwe was in the Congo, not for any strategic purpose other than to secure the resources in the eastern Congo for Mugabe's own benefit.

What happened to the people of the Congo? Two million people have died in the Congo in the last two years. More people die in the Congo every single day than died in the twin towers in New York on September 11 a little over a year ago. They die every day and no one is saying anything about this.

Similarly, in Angola, a country that has oil resources that are equivalent to that in the North Sea, people are dying despite the United Nations feeding program centres. They are starving to death in a land of plenty. That is the irony of the situation. I cannot believe the lack of engagement and the complete lack of congruence in our foreign policy.

The amount of aid we throw at a problem is not equivalent to addressing and dealing with the problem. Most of the countries in Africa under conflict that are the poorest countries in the world, ironically are some of the richest in the world in terms of resources in diamonds, semi-precious stones, timber, hydro power, et cetera.

The reason why these countries are under threat and the people are so poor and dying of starvation in the midst of plenty is that their leaders are corrupt, venal, evil people who use their power to line their pockets and those of their cronies who keep them in power. The people die, are tortured and subjected to slavery, and what do we do? Nothing.

It puts into disrepute the international organizations that we are a member of, be it the Commonwealth or the United Nations. The pillars of the treaties that we use to support those organizations are not worth the paper they are printed on because we do not have the will to live up to those treaties. Treaties are only as good as the will of the international community.

The United Nations and the Commonwealth are paper tigers because they will not act in the face of holocausts. For example, there is a holocaust taking place right now in southern Africa. Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe is using food as a weapon. He is taking food and preventing his people from eating, putting at risk six million lives. Six million people will potentially die in his country over the next six months, and what are we doing about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Every year we commemorate the Holocaust and say never again. We say that if the same situation were taking place as it did in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s we would stand up and intervene and do something about it. The fact of the matter is, we do not. Whether we look at the former Yugoslavia; Zimbabwe right now; Angola, where two million people have died; the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two million have died; Sierra Leone; Guinea; or wherever we choose where millions of people have died, what do we do? We do nothing, which puts into disrepute the instruments and treaties that we worked so hard to put together.

If the government and the Prime Minister want to have an African agenda, not only would they have to actively pursue the Kimberley Process, but they would have to address the three main c's of why Africa is not developing. Africa is not developing because of corruption, conflict and a lack of capacitance.

Corruption, a lack of good governance and a lack of judicial structures prevent the people from investing in their own countries and prevent international investors from enabling development to take place sustainably in these countries. The harbingers of conflict are there for months, if not years in advance, and yet we choose to do nothing about it. Penalties are paid in horrible ways by the innocent civilians who live there, as we have heard today, by the chopping off of limbs and other egregious things.

Millions die and we do nothing about it. Primary health and education is where we should be putting our money on the sharp edge.

HIV-AIDS is tied to capacitance. In many of these countries 25% to 50% of the population is HIV positive. One-quarter to half the people in these countries will die, destroying the economic backbone of these countries. What are we doing about it? Not a lot.

The Kimberley Process is good but it has to take place in conjunction with other issues; the trafficking of weapons and what is going on in the diamond centres in Antwerp and Tel Aviv.

We must make a greater effort to put our own house in order because these countries would not be under conflict if we did not economically support these conflicts by wilfully and knowingly buy these products that are attached to the murder of innocent civilians.

I compliment the member for Nepean--Carleton on what he has done. The House should support the bill, perhaps with a few minor amendments to make it stronger. I look forward to the ratification process that would ensure that more than 50 countries in the world would ratify this treaty so we can bring it into force.