Keith Martin

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from the NDP for his excellent question. It is not only trade union representatives. I will show what is happening at the municipal level in Colombia. The mayor of El Donacellio was given a note from FARC that said “I hope you enjoy your life. Get out in 24 hours or you're a dead man”.

What is happening is a systematic removal of mayors and municipal leaders in a large segment of Colombia. This is an area that was given over to the FARC in President Pastrana's honest effort to develop a constructive discourse with the FARC. It failed miserably because the FARC was using that as a power base to expand its involvement. President Pastrana wisely ended that process.

What is happening in that area, and indeed in a much larger area, is that the FARC is using the systematic annihilation, destruction, murder, torture and rape of not only union representatives but municipal leaders and mayors. President Uribe has given mayors bulletproof cars and assurances they would be safe, but as we know people's lives are worth more than that and their lives cannot be assured.

There is actually an ethnic cleansing taking place within Colombia. Government structures are being removed by the FARC. It is a lethal problem because if the Colombian government loses control over this territory the FARC would be able to go in and have a free reign in committing human rights abuses and terrorizing the civilian population. The situation is critical right now.

I ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to engage a dialogue with his counterparts, not only in Colombia but also the OAS and particularly the United States, and convince them that drug consumption in North America is what is fueling the conflict of Colombia.

Yes, we must support plan Colombia but we must make a concerted effort to reduce drug consumption in North America, get tough with organized crime and develop a comprehensive North American strategy for doing this. If the minister does that I am sure he would find widespread support in the House in dealing with this problem.

[Committees of the House, June 17th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade presented on Wednesday, May 8, 2002, be concurred in.

In our hemisphere the greatest place of murders, the number one place for human rights abuses, the place that has the greatest displacement of human beings in the entire hemisphere, is Colombia. The committee did a report on this much forgotten place, a place of human rights abuses that has been destroyed by a conflict that we are partially responsible for, and I will get back to this later.

The depth of destruction and the depth of human rights abuses taking place in that country and the ramifications for the surrounding areas are so large as to be quite extraordinary.

I want to thank the committee chairperson for the great work she did and the committee members who have put together an excellent report on this conflict, a conflict that we hope the Government of Canada will take a more active role in trying to diminish.

To give an indication of the depth of the problem, 2 million people have been displaced in a country with a population of 40 million. To put it in some perspective, Colombia is a country that is relatively the same size as ours, but with 7 million to 8 million more people and is smaller in land mass. It is a country where 26,000 were murdered in the year 2000 alone. That is a rate 30 times the level in Canada.

What is fueling this conflict? Is it ideology? Is it a battle between groups trying to fight for power? No. It is a battle over drugs. Drugs fuel the war in Colombia, drugs that are consumed primarily in North American. That is where our responsibility lies and I will get back to that later.

Not only is this is a place where 26,000 people are murdered every single year, where 2 million people have been displaced, a place where there is a fiscal and economic crisis in a developed country with a competent, hard-working and intelligent populace, it is a place where there is a massive environmental disaster happening because the chemicals that are used in the production of these drugs are being dumped into the Amazon basin. This is destroying the Amazon rain forest and the jungle is being displaced by crops to grow cocaine and heroin. Those areas are completely destroyed and will be of no use to anybody for many years.

This is also a social disaster. I was in Colombia last year. Children are being prostituted on the street to pay for the drug habits of the parents. Children are also being put into situations where they can be used as slaves and as drug runners. This is a direct result of the drug war and the drug production fueled by our demands here in North America. Colombia is also the number one kidnapping spot in the world. In one year alone, 3,042 people were kidnapped and that number is increasing. Kidnapping is used as a tool to generate money.

The major antagonists in all this are as follows. FARC is the leading guerrilla movement. I use the term guerrilla movement loosely. Certainly this conflict has been going on for 50 years. Indeed, it started off as an effort with a political objective: to make changes for much needed land reform in the country and to also put in social and economic reforms in a country that desperately needed them. However, that changed.

What changed is as follows. As we know, in the 1980s the Medellin and Cali cartels controlled cocaine production in that country. In fact, Colombia is the number one cocaine producer in the world.

In our war on drugs, with the Americans and other countries, we said that we were going to cut the head off organized crime and we were going to cut the head off the Medellin and Cali cartels. Indeed, we were successful in doing that., but what we failed to understand and anticipate in doing so is that drug production, because of the profits involved, will never stop. If there is demand, there will be production. As we destroyed the Medellin and Cali cartels a vacuum took place and FARC filled the vacuum. It began as a small guerrilla movement but massively increased in size as it actually took that spot. FARC is now the major producer of cocaine, producing some 300 tonnes a year. Now it is producing heroin. As heroin production has decreased in southeast Asia and Afghanistan, Colombia has taken on that role and is now producing some six tonnes of heroin a year, heroin that is becoming purer all the time.

Colombia became involved, but this is also more insidious than that. The conflict is spreading to the surrounding areas. It has involved Bolivia and Peru and is destabilizing those countries. FARC has also used its terrorist links with the IRA. The IRA has gone into Colombia and has taught the FARC a great deal about how to wage a war of terrorism to destabilize and destroy the country of Colombia, not for a political objective but to control a larger segment of that country so that it can produce what? Drugs, primarily cocaine but an increasing amount of heroin.

What have we done so far? We have waged a war, which has failed. We have used Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia will work to the extent that it has to strengthen domestic police and army capabilities to deal with FARC, but it is not enough. We have also tried to use herbicides to spray the crops. They do destroy the drug crops, but they also destroy a lot of edible crops and poison the riverine force in that area, dumping large amounts of toxic chemicals into the Amazon basin.

I want to talk a bit about what an ecological disaster this is. I want also to remind people out there that if they consume heroin, cocaine in particular, what they are doing is killing a country and killing innocent civilians. They are part and parcel of the murder of some 26,000 innocent people in Colombia. They are also part and parcel of an ecological disaster.

Colombia contains 10% of the earth's biodiversity in only .7% of the world's land mass. It has a third of the world's primates. It has 1,721 bird species representing an extraordinary 20% of the world's total. It also contains priceless rain forests. It has the highest capacity for carbon dioxide sequestration in the entire world. It has one of the most diverse ecosystems. It ranks fifth in the world in hydrological resources, has the largest coral reef zones in the world and has 82 different ethnic groups.

What has happened is that the production of drugs has destroyed some 6,600 hectares, which are under poppy production in the Andean rain forests. It has also destroyed a quarter of a million acres for coca crops in the rain forests of Amazonia and the Orinoco basin. Those areas are massive and the total damaged area is over one million acres under production.

Members will be interested to know that in the production of these drugs not only are we culpable by virtue of being users, but we also produce the chemicals that are necessary in the production of these drugs. The United Nations has told the western world, including Canada and European countries, that it is part and parcel of the problem because when it starts talking about trying to deal with the drug problem and conflict in Colombia, what it is really doing is being a hypocrite. It is a hypocrite because not only does it consume the drugs but it also allows the precursor chemicals that are absolutely essential for the production of these drugs to continue unabated. The western world has done nothing but turn a blind eye to the sale of these chemicals to these countries, which are used for nothing more than the production of these illegal drugs.

What can and should we be doing to deal with this? What we should be doing is what I have previously proposed in a motion that I presented to the House. First, we have to decrease consumption here in North America. It is absolutely essential that we do this. There are new European models for the treatment of people with substance abuse problems and they work very well. These people should not be looked upon as individuals who have a criminal problem. They have a medical problem and they should be treated accordingly.

Second, we need to prevent. What is the best model for prevention? It is the head start program, which is a program that works on children. It starts even before then, in the prenatal stages, to diminish the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects of illegal drugs on the developing fetus. If we ensure that children in the first eight years of life have their basic needs met, have proper nutrition, are living in a loving, caring and secure environment with proper boundaries and are subject to good parenting, the opportunities of ensuring that those children will develop into gainfully employed, functional people in our society are much greater. The work done by the Minister of Labour and others bears this out.

Third, we must employ the U.S. racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act amendments. We must use the RICO amendments in Canada to go after the money pillars that support organized crime. The best way to go after organized crime gangs is to take away the money supports that they have. Organized crime gangs are people in Armani suits, with expensive tastes, who use illegal means to generate funds. They are the ultimate in a corrupt businessperson. They are willing to use the law for their benefit, hide behind it for their benefit and prey on the weaknesses of some people.

Fourth, we must remove the barriers to trade that exist for developing countries, in particular Colombia, so farmers can grow other crops.

Fifth, we must support plan Colombia but we also must recognize that we must reduce consumption in North America.

Finally, we must use import-export permits to ensure that there are checks and balances on these chemicals that are used for the production of these drugs. If we do not do this the war in Colombia will not stop.

If we are so naive to believe that the murder of 26,000 people in our hemisphere will stop as a result of taking this war down to Colombia without decreasing consumption in North America we are sadly mistaken. It is encouraging to hear individuals like Senator McCain in the United States and the governor of New Mexico echoing the same kind of message. Some people in the United States understand this.

It is up to the government to work with our partners in the United States and say to them that we must decrease consumption in North America. We must implement a head start program in Canada and in the U.S. We must have the import-export permits and employ new European models for treatment. The current punitive models for the way we approach drug problems do not work. They are archaic and obsolete. If we look at the cold, hard facts, all they do is play into the hands of organized crime gangs which are the ones preying off the weaknesses of others.

Who pays the price? It includes: drug addicts; we as a society, through crime; property destruction; diseases such as HIV-AIDS, hep B, hep C; and the list goes on. That is the penalty we pay for not dealing with the problem in a more multifactorial and holistic approach.

The FARC and ELN are guerrilla movements not based on ideology. The paramilitary is also a group not based on ideology. They are all thugs. They are criminal organizations whose main purpose is to control the drug trade. If there were no demand, this problem would end overnight. It is our consumption in North America that is helping to drive those problems in Colombia. It is true that land reform needs to take place in Colombia and that economic and political reform must take place in that country. We must work with President Uribe.

My colleague from the Bloc had a press conference with the sister of Ingrid Betancourt that was attended by members from the House. Ingrid Betancourt was a presidential candidate who was kidnapped, like more than 3,000 other Colombians recently. Her life is in the balance. Many of these people are murdered. I am asking the government to work with the Colombian government to release Madame Betancourt from her kidnappers . If we do not do that her life is at risk. That would be a tragedy for Colombia.

This problem in Colombia will not end unless we work with like-minded countries. We cannot do this alone. We must work with the United States, the Mexicans and the Europeans to implement this multifactorial approach to deal with the drug problems that we have in our own countries.

We must also work with the Colombians to address the human rights abuses that they have there. Historically the military in Colombia has used paramilitaries to engage in human rights abuses. Colombia has done a lot to diminish that and the report cites that good work. We must continue that good work.

We must enforce the police and military capabilities to go after these groups who are thugs. They are criminals, nothing more and nothing less. We can do much by working with our counterparts to that end. If, however, we believe as some members in the U.S. congress and senate believe, that merely pouring money down plan Colombia's throat would end this, we are sadly mistaken.

I ask the government not only to listen to what I have said about the foreign policy implications but to deal with the domestic situation we have in Canada. We must deal with the consumption aspects and the implementation of import-export permits. This is easy to do. I was in Costa Rica where I met with representatives from the Organization of American States. The bureaucrats said the only thing that was holding up the import-export permits for the precursor chemicals was bureaucratic intransigence. This would require leadership that our country could show. By working with like-minded countries we could implement this system that would go a long way to undermine the ability of these countries to produce these drugs.

Organized crime in Canada is a blight on all of us. More than half of all the crime in our country is from organized crime. The penalties are not severe enough or where they are used, they are not used to the full force of the law. Too many individuals involved in organized crime are allowed to go scot-free. Too many of those who are known to be involved in organized crime, for example, the biker situation in Quebec, are allowed to operate as they always have. These individuals are not the traditional vision we have of somebody on a Harley-Davidson without a helmet going down the highway. These are sophisticated individuals who use a multiplicity of tools to buy and sell drugs, to launder money and deal with prostitution and extortion.

These are things we must deal with in our country today. The trial of Maurice “Mom” Boucher in Quebec brought to light not only the depth to which organized crime exists in Canada, how it has infiltrated all segments of our society, but that we have been woefully unable or unwilling to take a tough and firm line against organized crime gangs that are preying on the innocent, the general population and costing us all billions of dollars.

I want the government to show spine. There are good suggestions in this report. We must get tough on these people. We must employ the full force of the law to eliminate them. If we can do that the people in Canada will live a lot safer.

[First Nations Governance Act, June 17th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak to this extremely important bill. The legacy of the relationship between non-aboriginals and aboriginals in our country a pox on our House because what we have done is create an institutionalized welfare state and apartheid in Canada.

We have removed from aboriginal people the basic abilities for a people to take care of themselves. We have removed the democratic rights that any person should have. We have removed control and responsibility from them. We have continued with politically correct initiatives and structures that have done little but harm grassroots aboriginal people in the country.

Diabetes, HIV rates, substance abuse, sexual abuse, infant mortality rates, maternal mortality rates, poverty and suicide rates are all sky high and well above those within non-aboriginal communities. Why is this so?

We would see the same situation if we were to look at other communities where this has taken place, where the checks and balances have been removed, where the ability of people to take care of themselves has been removed, and where the ability to contribute to themselves, their families and their communities has been removed. Whether it is aboriginal people in Australia, Bushmen or Hottentots in South Africa or whether a white living in an urban Canadian setting, if we remove the responsibility and the tools for people to contribute to themselves, their families and communities we get a litany of social problems, the likes of which we are contemplating and dealing with here today.

I used to work in Africa. After my return from that continent I had never seen social conditions that bad until I began to see what was happening on aboriginal reserves. I saw decrepit and destroyed buildings that had “Please kill me” written on their rooftops.

Suicide rates are sky high in an area that is stunningly beautiful, where pristine waters run through the reserve surrounded by mountains. When I did my house calls I saw elderly aboriginal people lying on soiled mattresses in their living rooms, children running around with massive infections on their faces and people lying drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning. Parents were nowhere to be found. Aboriginal leaders were taking money away from the pot to buy new Ski-Doos and trucks for themselves and their friends. Mothers did not have enough money to send their children to school. Some mothers told me that the chief and the band council were taking the money slated for education and buying new trucks and Ski-Doos for themselves and their friends. This was allowed to happen.

When I presented this to the department it said that it could not intervene. When I asked it to intervene, it declined. It said it was a band responsibility. What does one do in situations where band councils, leaders and chiefs have created a system where they run their reserves like private fiefdoms and use the moneys for their own pockets and those of their cronies who keep them in power?

Who speaks for the grassroots aboriginal people? Who speaks for the mother and father who wants to send their child to school and do not have the money for that? Who speaks for the system where the normal democratic controls that ought to be there are gone? That is what we have created.

We want the bill to give the grassroots aboriginal people the same power and tools as we have to control our leaders. They must have the democratic power to control spending, to know how much money is coming in, to know what band council resolutions are all about and to control the leaders within their bands. We cannot allow the status quo to continue. If we were to allow the status quo to continue then we would allow this institutionalized welfare system and apartheid to continue.

Many chiefs and councils are crying foul. They are saying that the government cannot do this. They are crying colonialism. The government is putting up the colonial banner as a way to continue the status quo.

The government must bypass the chiefs, bands and councils. It must talk to the people on the ground away from the prying eyes of their leadership in a free and fair fashion. If it does that, in many cases it will hear true horror stories.

Many bands and chiefs do an admirable job for their people. If we look at those areas, we would see places that are run well, where people have control of the money and spend it properly. The leadership in those cases has used the money properly, has given people power of control and has been transparent and accountable.

The other group we are not talking about is the group of aboriginal people who are off-reserve, those who live in cities often enduring lives of quiet desperation. I live in Victoria. In east Vancouver vast swaths of aboriginal people are unfortunately enduring lives of prostitution, violence and drug abuse. They see absolutely no hope. If we are to help those people, we have to investment in education and health care for them. We also have to give their children better hope.

One thing has always struck me as been shocking and it has broken my heart. When I have gone onto aboriginal reserves, I have seen parents of little children, whose eyes are bright and filled with all the hope in the world, drunk at 10 o'clock in the morning, screaming at them and being abusive to them. We just have to look at the rates of sexual abuse and violence among children and the tragedy that has befallen many of them.

They could do and be whatever they wanted if they were given a chance. If the little aboriginal children were given the same opportunity, hope, possibilities and training, they would do as well or better than any of us but they have to be given the opportunity. It will not happen if the chiefs and councils control all the money and if they are allowed, in many cases, to abuse their power and position at the expense of the people on the ground. We cannot allow it to happen.

The bill must deal with that. We also have to invest in dealing with the terrible HIV rates and fetal alcohol syndrome which are tearing apart these communities. Putting posters in clinics is not the answer. I have seen some of the offers the government has made to deal with this tragedy. I have seen 15 year old and 16 year old girls who were pregnant and who were taking large amounts of alcohol and other drugs. They told me where to go when I told them what potentially could happen to their child. That cannot continue to happen.

We have to take look at other means of dealing with FAS and with diabetes. A can of Coke and a bag of potato chips is not appropriate food for little children. Nor is it appropriate food for adults. Alcoholism and drug abuse would happen to many of us if we were thrust into the same environment of hopelessness without the tools or skills to act.

Many studies have been done across the country, specific studies dealing with specific areas. On some of the reserves on which I worked, excellent work has been done on providing for economic reconstruction plans for those areas, with the people, by the people and for the people. Unfortunately these plans go absolutely no where.

My colleague mentioned the many aboriginal people who wanted to get things done within their communities. However the level of bureaucracy that they had to go through was so difficult, so onerous and time consuming, that their good ideas simply went nowhere. In fact, they were often obstructed by people higher up in the hierarchy. That cannot be allowed to continue. We must have a system that facilitates grassroots aboriginal people and which allows their them to put forward good ideas that would benefit their people.

We as a party would be willing to work with the minister. I would implore the minister to listen to grassroots aboriginal people away from the prying eyes of the chiefs and councils. Listen to what they have to say. They have great ideas and great suggestions. They need help and they need it now.

[Africa, June 14th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, six million people are about to die in Zimbabwe as a direct result of the actions of President Robert Mugabe to cut off the food supply to everyone but his most rabid and violent supporters. In the Congo two million people have died over the control of diamond fields. A further two million have died in the Sudan.

In two weeks the G-8 leaders will meet to discuss Africa and the new partnership for African development. At the meeting the Prime Minister must put the NEPAD to the test. He must ask African and G-8 leaders if they are going to side with brutal dictatorships like Robert Mugabe or if they are going to side with the rights of innocent civilians. The Prime Minister must make it clear that we are only prepared to work with governments that adopt good governance and the rule of law and that we will not work with governments that act with brutality and corruption.

This month we have a chance to save millions of lives and stand against the forces of evil like President Robert Mugabe. The choice is ours. Let us not miss this golden opportunity.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the provinces are not responsible for the management of public funds of the federal government. That is the responsibility of the federal government.

In committee a few years ago, the member gave an excellent suggestion on managing public finances better. The member from the Liberal Party suggested that a road map was needed to determine the finances that go into a department, what is spent and whether objectives are identified and met at the other end. The government should listen to its own member and implement that excellent suggestion. If that took place, every ministry would work better and more effectively on behalf of the public.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will give my colleague one example. I think the public will be very interested to hear about this, and the government should listen because it can fix it.

The technology partnerships Canada fund, a partnership between the private sector and the government, was set up in 1996. Up until December 2001, $947.7 million in approved loans had been doled out. Guess how much of that money has been repaid to the government? Only 2.58%. Of the money given out, 97.5% has never come back. This is taxpayer money. It is a not a few thousand dollars. Nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money has been given out but has never come back. That is horrendous. There are also other government loan programs that need to have a publicly disclosed audit.

We have spoken about the contracts given to Groupaction.

The other area that desperately needs a public audit is CIDA. Millions of dollars have been sent out in contracts in Canada and no one knows where those dollars have gone. We have a great deal of difficulty ascertaining for what they have been used. A public audit of CIDA is desperately needed to determine where those moneys have gone. The Prime Minister wants to make Africa a cornerstone of the G-8 summit and has asked for more money for CIDA. I would submit that no more money should go into CIDA until a public audit takes place so we can ensure public moneys are being used wisely.

There are many other examples. We on this side of the House have given a very clear case to the Canadian people and to the House that one of the government's primary roles is to manage public finances wisely and responsibly. Time and time again it has shown wilful neglect and abuse in this matter. It is incompetent to deal with public finances. The reason for that is because the government uses taxpayer money to buy votes. It uses taxpayer money to curry favour with the public, to encourage division and dissension within Canada and to essentially buy the votes of people for the next election.

Canadians demand more and want more. The government should listen to the members of the Canadian Alliance. We have the ideas on how to put public moneys on a firm fiscal footing and how to spend it wisely and effectively for the betterment of all Canadians.

[Supply, June 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion my party has put forth.

Let us look at the facts. An overpayment of some $3.3 billion was given to the provinces. What is absolutely shocking about this is that it took years for the government to miss $3.3 billion of the taxpayer's money. What kind of accounting system allows such a massive amount of money to go missing or, as an hon. member from the other side has said, what kind of computer error? What kind of computers is the government using? What kind of programs is it using? What kind of auditing is it using to miss $3.3 billion of the Canadian taxpayer's money? This is not a few thousand dollars. In view of the need for money in critical programs like health care and education it is unbelievable that it took the government so long to miss it.

The federal government has the audacity to ask the provinces to repay the money when it cut transfer payments by 33%. How does it do that in good conscience, particularly in view of some of the things I will unveil in the next while? An overpayment of $3.3 billion, 33% of it in the form of transfer payments, is being yanked away from the provinces by the federal government. The government said it had to cut costs so it will cut 6% of its own funding and remove 33% from the provinces. What does that mean? It means the government is trying to balance its books on the backs of the provinces.

What the federal government has neglected to say is that, as my hon. colleague has mentioned, there is only one taxpayer. Only one person bears the brunt and the burden of the government's actions, good or bad, in terms of money: the hard-working Canadian who slogs, is overtaxed and often underpaid for the work he or she does. That is what is happening. It is a complete violation of the public trust.

Is it intentional? That is up for debate. Some of us would argue it is. However at the very least it demonstrates gross and utter incompetence on the part of the government in managing the public finances, one of the key roles of government. One of the questions the Canadian public will ask in any election is if a political party has the competence and professionalism to manage its finances and tax money adequately. The judgment is a resounding no, and the proof will bear it out.

At issue is not only the $3.3 billion that went “missing” and was suddenly discovered. Let us look at the government's creation of foundations. The public will be interested to know that since the late 1990s the Liberal government has shuttled away $7.3 billion of the taxpayer's money into arm's length foundations which I call slush funds. Some $7.3 billion of the taxpayer's money has been hidden away from public audits leaving parliament, MPs and the minister unable to oversee where it is spent.

Given that we are labouring under a $540 billion debt and have significant expenditures in health care, education, defence and other areas, why was this done? Why was $7.3 billion shuttled away to the side, put under a carpet and hidden from public audits and the jurisdiction and oversight of parliament? Why did that happen to the public purse? There is a case against the government in terms of its misspending, misrepresentation and its neglect, misuse, and abuse of the public trust.

Let us look at the distribution of contracts. The public would be shocked to know the Prime Minister's own riding of Shawinigan received more government handouts and contracts than entire provinces in western Canada. My province of British Columbia did not receive as much as one riding which happens to belong to the Prime Minister. Is it a coincidence? I think not.

Let us also look at the government's expenditures such as ads. We shockingly found out that the government had been charged 26 times the cost that was charged to the provincial government in Quebec for ads in a Quebec publication. Why did that happen? Why does the government feel that it can spend money in such a fashion? Where is the accountability and the oversight that allows individuals in the government to spend 26 times what they should for ads? That is an important question. Why did the government pay $1.6 million for three contracts with Groupaction, two of which were identical and neither of which the government received? How did that happen?

CIDA has aid money to be spent internationally, supposedly to help the poorest of the poor. Why is the vast majority of those moneys spent in Canada, never getting to the sharp edge of aid and care for those most impoverished? The Prime Minister has asked for more money for CIDA. Why do we not ask the question first: Is the money spent appropriately? Is it spent effectively? Why is it being spent in Canada instead of being spent in the most needy countries in the world?

Part of the reason this has been allowed to happen is that the Prime Minister's office and the Prime Minister have neutered parliament. The normal oversight mechanisms that we should have to access information are onerous, complex and difficult. Why does the government hide and white out critical pieces of information that allow members from all sides of the House to analyze the way in which the public's money is spent?

One of our key roles is to use the public's money wisely. Why are we not doing that? Why are we not allowed to do our job? Why has the Prime Minister's office chosen to emasculate and neuter parliament, preventing us from doing our job? That is why the government has these problems. The hot water the Prime Minister finds himself in today is directly of his own doing. He has neutered parliament. He has amassed such a large amount of power in his office that the normal checks and balances in any healthy democracy are absent. They are absent because we live in a dictatorship and the creation of this dictatorship has removed the checks and balances that we need to do the work of the Canadian public.

It goes on. We saw the billion dollar boondoggle in HRDC. We have seen gross misrepresentation of finances by the government time and time again. One thing that may help is regular public audits. The government should be obligated to utilize the good work of the auditor general. Why the government does not use the auditor general to get the public's finances in better order, I do not know. However the auditor general is an effective resource that should be used to develop ways and methods of accountability in how we spend the public's money.

Second, we could create a system of accountability within the system. If people in the public service save money, they would receive a benefit. That would be a healthy thing to do. If they come up with good suggestions to save money without diminishing effectiveness, they should be rewarded financially. If a public servant can come up with a plan that will save the taxpayer $1 million, his or her department should receive, say, 5% of that. Giving $50,000 to a department that saves $950,000 is a good investment. Developing an incentive program would go a long way to improve the morale and the health of our public service. It would also enable us to use public money more wisely.

Many members in the public service are paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. This would be a way to improve effectiveness and encourage the public service to offer a financial reward for good work.

In closing, I hope the government sees this as a constructive motion. I hope the motion will say to the government that it has an obligation to spend the public's money wisely and effectively, that it is not doing a good job, that it should buck up, listen to the constructive solutions coming from this side of the House and implement them. If that happens, we will all be able to do our jobs better.

[Committees of the House, June 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 17th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, presented to the House on Wednesday, May 1, be concurred in.

Far from the prying eyes of the media sits Zimbabwe. Earlier this year, after President Robert Mugabe stole the election which took place in Zimbabwe, the world has turned its attention to other areas. However the situation in Zimbabwe is spiraling out of control and more people are facing starvation, torture and murder.

We may have thought when Robert Mugabe stole the presidential election in March of this year that all would be well in that country. That could not be further from the truth. What is happening there today would curl the hair on anyone's neck.

The international community is ignoring a humanitarian tragedy of enormous proportions. President Robert Mugabe is engaging in the systematic rape, murder and torture of innocent civilians as he takes out his anger and his displeasure on those who supported the opposition MDC party. While this is happening the people of Zimbabwe are crying out for help. What do they see? They see nothing. They see people turning their backs on them.

The magnitude of the problem is massive. The population of Zimbabwe is 12 million. Half the population is facing starvation at this present time. Members should imagine what would be happening if six million people in Europe were facing starvation.

Let me tell members what I saw when I was in Zimbabwe last September with the former secretary of state for Africa and Latin America, who I might add did a superb job when we were there. We went there as part of a small group of nations to find out what was happening.

What the government of Zimbabwe tried to do was to ensure that the individuals who were there from the international community would not find out the truth of what was going on. It doctored the witnesses we were supposed to meet to ensure that only those parroting the government line would be heard. What the then secretary of state did was very brave. He changed that process and ensured that we had a fair representation of people from society in Zimbabwe. What we heard was absolutely chilling.

Mr. Mugabe said to the international community that he was following the rule of law, that he had an independent judiciary, that he would stop the land reform process and that he would adhere to a set of criteria that was put together by Nigeria's President Obasanjo. Instead, we heard that the opposite was occurring. Journalists were being imprisoned. Opposition members were being beaten, tortured and murdered. Individuals could not get together to even discuss things. There was a systematic doctoring in preparation for an election that could not be fair.

I went out into the bush and met with a wide variety of farmers from about 30 different farms. Under an acacia tree, away from anyone else, I met with about 14 or 15 black farm workers. They told me that President Robert Mugabe would hire and send young, violent thugs from Harare to go to the farms and ask the black workers, not the white workers, whether they supported the government or not? If there was any indication that there would be no support for the governing party, they would be beaten and murdered, their wives tortured and raped, and their homes fire-bombed. Indeed I saw this and took photographs. There were marks written on their homes for government workers who wanted to claim those homes for themselves.

One farm worker looked into my eyes and said, “Dr. Martin, you see the land right now. If we do not plant in the next two weeks, we will face starvation and we will die. If you don't help us, we will surely die.” He begged us, as part of the international community, to help them save their lives. He also said that what President Mugabe was doing had nothing to do with the truth. He was violently abusing and cowering the rural black population to force them to vote for the ruling party.

He spoke about being forced to go with his family and other black farm workers to government Zanu-PF meetings where they had to chant government slogans. If there were any indication that they were not 100% behind the government they would be taken out back and beaten. Some were murdered. We saw that repeatedly.

Some may feel that this has stopped but it continues. When we got back we presented the evidence. The Commonwealth discredited itself by coming out with a piece of pablum that did nothing to stop Mr. Mugabe. As a result he saw that as a green light to continue his violent ways. Indeed, that is what occurred.

I am deeply disturbed by these events. The response of the international community, including the Commonwealth, the United Nations and our country, was discredited. We did not take a forceful, meaningful approach to this problem. In the face of objective views and analysis by many non-governmental organizations where hundreds of thousands of people's lives hung in the balance, we chose to do almost nothing.

Black leaders out there should be ashamed because the black leaders in Africa sat on their hands and chose to side with a despotic leader who has over the last 20 years demonstrated a flagrant abuse of basic human rights. They chose to stand with him instead of with innocent civilians.

The behaviour of Mr. Mugabe is nothing new. In the early 1980s he and his ruling party brought in his Korean trained Fifth Brigade. It is his personal army made up of North Korean trained soldiers under the command of a person named Perence Shiri. General Shiri, under the direction of Robert Mugabe, took this brigade into Matabeleland North where it murdered 16,000 people. Those are the facts.

Knowing that, the black leaders, President Mbeki, President Dos Santos of Angola as well as the leaders of other black African countries, fell over themselves to support Robert Mugabe knowing full well that the actions that he was engaging in were not only going to hurt the black population in Zimbabwe but indeed were going to hurt their own countries. The reasons for this are many.

Mr. Robert Mugabe has presented the issue in Zimbabwe as one of land reform, of taking land from the whites who own most of the arable land in the country and giving it to the blacks. Does this stand up to objective scrutiny? The answer is an emphatic no.

The government in Zimbabwe had ample opportunity since the early 1980s to bring in land reforms so that land could be taken from some of the whites and given to the rural blacks. It happened that money that was there from England was pocketed by Mr. Mugabe and his cronies.

If we take a look at land redistribution the only people who got land were friends of the ruling party. Suddenly two years ago Mr. Mugabe brought in land reform as an important issue. The government had an option by law to buy any land that came up for sale, and much land came up for sale. I looked at the gazettes myself. It did not choose to take that route. Instead, it would walk in, peg the land, take it and dispense it to whomever. It dispensed it to friends, family, ministers, police officials and a cadre of cronies who received the land. There was no land for the poor impoverished black population in Zimbabwe. That is what has been taking place.

The issue of land reform was a smoke screen. While it was important for the economic uplifting of the rural black population in Zimbabwe, the election that took place had absolutely nothing to do with land reform and everything to do with one man's desire to retain power at any cost.

Mr. Mugabe's desire to retain power not only stems from the issue of land reform and paying off his cronies, it also deals with the dark issue of blood diamonds. We know there has been a conflict in the Congo for the last two years where two million people have been murdered, innocent men, women and children.

The fact that we have been spending so much time on the tragic situation in the Middle East is understandable, but the fact that we have done so at the expense of two million people who have been brutally murdered is a shame on all of us.

Mr. Mugabe wants to retain control because he is actively involved in the blood diamond market. He sent his army into eastern Congo, not to develop peace but to secure diamond mines there. Through, in part, a man by the name of Ari Ben-Menashe , an ex-Israeli Mossad agent who now lives in Montreal and who has acted as an intermediary for him, he takes blood diamonds out of eastern Congo. The diamonds are shared with his military people who are in there now. Those diamonds are then trafficked to the illegal and corrupt diamond markets in Tel Aviv and Antwerp and then sold for money. Those moneys can go into the purchase of illegal weapons from eastern Europe. Sometimes those diamonds are traded for weapons in eastern Europe.

We can be certain that Robert Mugabe and his cronies are actively involved in the blood diamond trade, the same diamonds that many young women wear on their hands when they have the happy moment of getting engaged.

The situation in that part of the world is very murky. I am also ashamed of the appalling behaviour of the United Nations. We may be fascinated and shocked to know that Zimbabwe was asked to sit on the UN Human Rights Commission. What does that do to the credibility of the United Nations when it appoints a country such as Zimbabwe? Just in the first few months of this year, Zimbabwe had 959 documented cases of torture, 145 cases of detention, more than 100 cases of systematic executions and dozens of disappearances and kidnappings. Those are only the ones we have heard about. I am also getting very disturbing reports of innocent people who have been decapitated with shovels and buried in the ground by the thugs of Robert Mugabe.

There is also an active process by the ruling party to teach young thugs from Zimbabwe the art of torture. These people are then being sent out to torture innocent civilians and wreak havoc.

The impact of all this has been to make Zimbabwe a pariah and to destroy a country, which I visited in the early 1990s, that has immense agricultural wealth, physical beauty and resources in terms of its wild animals. It has destroyed Zimbabwe's economy, making it a country with massive unemployment in the order of 75%; a country where six million people are starving to death; and a country, which had an enormous resource of animals of which more than 600,000 them , many some of the rarest in the world, such as the black rhino, have been destroyed.

When I was in Zimbabwe and met with the black farm workers, one interesting thing they said was that they go out and teach their children about their cultural heritage, the game, the spoor and the ecology that surrounds them, but that they could not do that anymore because President Mugabe's thugs were out there shooting, massacring and poaching thousands and thousands of the animals that are their heritage. The black rhino, various forms of buck, and rare cats, including the lion and cheetah, are destroyed in this way.

Mr. Mugabe has been involved in the economic destruction, the rape and murder of his people, and the pillaging of his economy all so he can stay in power. Yet the international community's response is nothing, silence.

The fact is that we have a choice to make. Do we want to stand on the sidelines and give a green light to despotism, murder and the egregious violation of basic human rights or are we going to stand up for the basic rights and protection of innocent civilians? I want to ask that question and put it squarely on the shoulders of black leaders.

Last year in May the African community put together a plan called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, an ambitious plan that calls for, among other things, adherence to the rule of law, the protection of innocent civilians, adherence to a fair and independent judiciary, adherence to good economic policies and an investment in health and education.

Mr. Mugabe and his cronies have violated every tenet of NPAD; every single principle of the document. Why has the leadership of the black African community been silent in its response to this?

This month eight leaders of the most powerful countries in the world will be meeting in Kananaskis, Alberta. There we will have a choice of either standing up and defending the people in Zimbabwe and the people in the surrounding areas or sitting on our hands and coming out with a document full of diplomatic platitudes and short on substance.

Will we implement a plan of action to not only address Zimbabwe but also address the tragedy in the Congo in which 2 million people died, or the tragedy in Sierra Leone where child soldiers were forced at gunpoint to chop the hands and legs off babies, children, women and adults? Will we just stand by and watch 500,000 being displaced from their homes in West Africa into Guinea because one man, Foday Sankoh, who is part of the RUF, wants to control diamond mines?

Will we stand by and allow famine to claim the lives of up to 10 million people in Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa and the surrounding areas? The numbers are hard to grasp because they are so large but those people are no different from any of us. They feel, they hurt, they have families, they have children, they love, they die, they work but they have been abandoned. They have been abandoned because as yet the international community has not taken it upon itself to stand up for the very basic norms of human rights.

Yes, we have done that to some extent in the former Yugoslavia. Yes, we are trying to do that in the tragic situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. However, while we have done that, we have neglected conflicts of orders of magnitude much larger than what is taking place in other parts of the world.

Why have we done that? At the end of this month the government has to decide whether it will live up to the standing committee's report, a report that I am actually speaking about today, which asks the four simple things.

First, the report asks for the suspension of Zimbabwe, which took place at the Commonwealth, for one year. I ask that we extend that suspension indefinitely until Mr. Mugabe adheres to the rule of law and does the right thing for his people.

Second, the report asks that we ban all foreign travel by Mr. Mugabe and his cronies. Thirty identified people in his cabinet and his cronies have been allowed to travel. They have to travel given that they have been appointed as part of the human rights commission in the United Nations. We must prevent those people from travelling and from going to Europe to buy the lavish gifts that they do off the backs of the people of Zimbabwe.

Third, the report asks that we establish an arms embargo on Zimbabwe. The people are getting arms. When I was down there I saw widespread evidence of children carrying Chinese made automatic weapons. They do not make automatic weapons in Zimbabwe. They probably got the weapons through the trafficking of those illegal diamonds that they pillaged out of the eastern Congo.

Lastly, the report asks that we freeze the personal assets of Mr. Mugabe and those same cronies. There is no use whatsoever in penalizing the people of Zimbabwe. They have suffered enough. The sanctions must be targeted against Mr. Mugabe and those same cronies. If we hurt him personally then we force him to take notice. If we hurt his ego and make him a pariah within his own party and within his country, then we have a chance of changing the situation. Otherwise he is basically impervious to anything else.

We have to get tougher on the situation. If we do not the situation will continue to spiral out of control.

The problems of that country are actually shared by many other nations on that continent. The continent has been ravaged by ruthless kleptocrats who have been interested in pillaging the resources of their countries for their own gain and not their people's gain.

For too long we have bought into a notion that colonialism was the root cause of all evil on the continent. I would submit that the argument does not hold any water any more. I would also submit that the responsibility for action on the most egregious violations of human rights falls squarely on the shoulders of despotic African leaders who have hidden behind the excuse of colonialism only to pillage and rape their own countries.

Do we want to stand up and accept that argument or do we want to stand up and do the right thing? The challenge will be ours in Kananaskis. I know Canada can lead. I know that the people who will be sent there will know what to do. I know the Prime Minister's Sherpa is a very knowledgeable man on this issue. He has guided the Prime Minister and given him many good suggestions.

I beg the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs to listen to the suggestions that have come from this House on many occasions, to do the right thing, to defend innocent people and to save lives.

[Business of the House, May 2nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to congratulate my government colleague across the way, who gave a most eloquent dissertation. I hope all the people out there listening paid close heed. It was superb.

The issue is Bill C-55, an act to amend certain acts of Canada, and to enact measures for implementing the biological and toxin weapons convention in order to enhance public safety. The bottom line is that what we are trying to do here is enhance public safety. I will just deal with a couple of aspects of it, because much has been said in the past.

On the issue of transport, one of the things that we all want in airline transport in particular is some kind of unified, codified degree of standards, national standards for those individuals responsible for engaging in airport security. There are widespread differences across the country. Recently we have heard some disturbing evidence about this. The government needs to work with partners across the country, with airport and airline authorities, to ensure that security personnel across the country have the same standards, the same training, the same skills and, indeed, adequate working conditions and remuneration.

One of the problems is that the remuneration for these individuals is extremely poor. They work very hard and they are as concerned as we are about being able to do their jobs properly. They want the proper training, they want the skills and they want the standards to be the same across the country so that airline security will be top-notch.

On the issue of the security perimeter, it is essential that we work with our partners, not against them, and that we certainly pay our dues if we are going to reap the rewards of being part of this larger security perimeter. That is essential. For too long as a country, because of neglect on the part of the government, we have been following on the coattails of our partners and not paying our dues. We know that if we go to the security table and want to be a partner, we have to go to the table with some resources.

For too long our defence department and our Canadian forces personnel have had their resources removed and gutted. We have a critical need for an adequate number of personnel in our defence department. CF personnel who are on the sharp edge of our Canadian forces are cycling far too quickly in our country. As a result, incredible stress is placed upon them and their families. Quite frankly, they are suffering from burnout.

Objective evidence of this is the degree of attrition in our CF personnel. We cannot retain our individuals. Furthermore, we are not able to hire them either. The government needs to pay close heed to this to ensure that it is able to attract and retain the best. Too many of our best are leaving because they are being burnt out, because they simply are not being treated properly and fairly.

On the issue of root causes, I want to draw attention to a couple of issues that Bill C-55 should have taken into consideration. One is the issue of the biological and toxin weapons convention. I cannot imagine why the government has taken so long to implement this convention. It is a big problem. We have had some very disturbing evidence of fissionable material, things needed to make nuclear weapons, being lost, particularly in Russia. By pure luck, some of that fissionable material has been found and blocked. We know that people are trying to sell a lot of that material and there are willing buyers in the Middle East in some terrorist organizations. It is very disturbing to us, to our security partners and to other people in the world. If we do not get a handle on this so-called lost fissionable material, dirty nukes could be the way of the future. That is a serious problem.

If we do not work with our partners to find and apprehend this fissionable material, of which a substantial amount has been lost so far, we could run a serious risk of having a small nuclear device, packed with conventional explosives around the outside, exploding nuclear material in a large region. While I hope that not that many people would die, the bigger problem is that of people dying prematurely due to radiation poisoning and cancers associated with exposure to radioactive material.

It is a serious problem and I strongly encourage the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of National Defence to work with our American and NATO partners to deal with the situation quickly. It is a situation is out of control and should be of deep concern to all of us.

On the issue of root causes, we are spending a lot of time in Afghanistan and in large part we are missing the boat. If we simply look at al Qaeda, much of the terrorist organization has widespread tentacles across the world, from the Far East to the Middle East and to North America, particularly the United States.

If the government is going to cut the head off this Hydra, it has to get to the area where many of these individuals are found. The people who are the masterminds of this have a very distinct geopolitical purpose. They want to go back and make the Middle East a region where Islamic fundamentalism will take hold. The events of September 11 were as directed to countries such as Saudi Arabia as they were to the United States. Islamic fundamentalists see Saudi Arabia as somewhat of a sellout to the larger dream of having a pan-Islamic Middle East based on fundamental Islam.

The government has to get to the root causes. One way to drain the swamp is to deal with those critical areas where individuals have been pulled out to become suicide bombers or have joined terrorist organizations. We simply cannot exclude and continue to ignore the horrific situation taking place, particularly in Palestine.

We must work with the United States and other partners to do a couple of things. First, bring both parties to the table and, if necessary, use financial levers to do that. Both Palestine and Israel rely heavily on international funding. If the government can bring them together at the table by using those levers, if necessary, then it will be able to force them to do the following: first, the recognition of an independent Palestinian state; second, the recognition of a safe and secure Israel; third, that the Palestinian Authority have control over Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and other groups that would murder innocent Israeli civilians; fourth, that there be a pull-out of Israeli troops from the occupied territories in the West Bank; and fifth, that there be a complete and unconditional pull-out of all Israeli centres in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is absolutely important.

If we looked at the map of the West Bank, we would see that it is pockmarked with 141 Israeli settlements that have continued to increase in numbers. That cannot produce peace.

The Palestinian Authority, which is a highly corrupt organization, needs to have its feet put to the fire. Mr. Arafat needs to actively root out corruption in his organization and if need be get external help to that end. He simply cannot maintain the current status quo where large amounts of money are being used for the personal benefit of the power brokers within the Palestinian Authority. They must not speak with forked tongues. They have to speak for peace and they have to speak for their people.

If the leadership of the Palestinian Authority is not prepared to do that fairly, then it should leave. Similarly, if the leadership in Israel is not willing to actively engage the Palestinians in an honest and fair fashion, then it should be removed. Individuals who are willing to talk peace in a tough but fair-minded way for both groups should stay.

In the end we will not resolve the problem of terrorism that affects us all unless we are willing to deal with the root causes of this situation and unless we are willing to deal not only with the situation in Palestine, but also the situation in Saudi Arabia where there has to be a liberalization of power and a sharing of resources. We should engage also in improved bilateral relations with middle eastern states.

An intelligent thing to do would be to co-opt or work with middle eastern countries, Muslim countries, and have them work with groups in the west as a united front for peace. Both groups in combination, the west and middle eastern Islamic countries, could work together to put pressure on both sides in a united fashion.

Last, I encourage the government to look at Prince Abdullah's peace proposal. It is a very sensible one. It is certainly a base line which we could work toward.This could work toward security not only for the people of the Middle East who desperately need it, both on the Jewish side and the Muslim side, but also for the international community at large.

[Excise Act, 2001, April 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the facts and figures. He articulated the problem very well. It is almost akin to the softwood lumber tariffs that are affecting this country so disastrously.

What is the outcome of putting 38 firms out of business? It is to put many people out of work. What is the impact on the revenues to the government? It is to lessen them.

The intelligent thing to do would be to enable the microbreweries to function properly. The government should not have a tax system worth 9¢ a litre in the U.S. and 28¢ a litre in Canada. Parity would be smarter. If the government believes it would have less revenues, that is actually incorrect. Instead of the microbreweries closing down, they would stay open. Thirty-eight microbreweries would be open. Thirty-eight microbreweries would be hiring people. Thirty-eight firms would have people who were working and paying taxes as opposed to collecting employment insurance.

That is not only smart for Canada, it is smart economics. The government ought to have some level of parity with the U.S. in the tax structure. By doing that we are confident our microbreweries could compete and win on a North American scale. We owe it to them morally to give them a level playing field so they can do the fine work that they do, hire Canadians and generate tax revenue for the government.

Some years ago when Brian Mulroney was prime minister he briefly lowered the tax structure. Revenues to the government went up because the private sector could expand. More people were hired. More individuals were working and paying taxes and fewer people were acquiring funds from the public coffers through EI.

The smart thing to do is to lower taxes. It produces higher employment and lessens the demand on employment insurance and welfare. It is good for the public coffers and it is good for Canadians.