Keith Martin

[International Boundary Waters Treaty Act, September 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Lethbridge for kindly allowing me to share his time.

Bill C-6 is extraordinary in that it deals with a substance that we cannot live without. Millions of people live without love. We can live without food for a month, but we will die within a week if we do not have water. As an ancient poet said: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink”. It is not quite that bad but we have some significant problems.

As my colleague and others have mentioned, the bill is very important in terms of securing our water resources. Canada has 9% of the world's freshwater. This is a significant issue from an international perspective and is one which I will address later in my speech.

The bill does a good job of guarding our water but much more needs to be done. Ninety-seven per cent of the water in the world is salt water, which is made up of 3% solids and 97% freshwater. Therefore, only 3% of all the water in the world right now, if we exclude salt water, is freshwater in various pockets and pools. Extraordinarily enough, the amount of water we have today is the same as we had at the beginning of time. It just changes and flows through the hydrological cycle throughout the world, which is quite fascinating. However, we are abusing it. With our burgeoning population, increasing demands and urbanization, we are putting extraordinary stresses on the world's water systems.

My colleagues mentioned the stresses on the Great Lakes system, such as acid rain, acidification of waters, the damming of waters, the changing of the hydrological cycle, the modifying of it, pollution, mercury and cadmium, the latter of which has caused significant health problems in a number of populations around the world, including Canada. In the St. Lawrence system, the content of carcinogenic and teratogenic substances in the meat of beluga whales is so high that a dead beluga whale would be considered toxic waste. That is the result of the elements and pollutants in the water.

Internationally, more than one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. In North America we are prolific users of water. We use a lot of it, waste a lot of it and pollute a lot of it. Internationally the impact upon water has been significant. In the Dead Sea the water level has dropped by about 10 metres. In China more than 80% of the rivers do not support fish anymore. That is extraordinary and is a growing problem all over the world.

Pollution, desertification, the damming and wasting of our waters is having a significant effect. I had hoped that the bill would have had something to say about these important issues.

As I mentioned before, we are prolific users because we do not value water. The cost of water in North America is far less than its value. Some places in the United States have about $500 worth of subsidies per acre on some lands, which greatly exceeds the value of those lands. Some farmers pay about 3% of the value of the water they receive.

What can we do to preserve it? Domestically, we have to ensure that the cost reflects the value. Australia has done some very exciting work in terms of having a market oriented approach to water. This has greatly improved its ability to conserve water, reducing consumption by about 40% with no effect on the GDP.

We also have to conserve more. In Asia they are using pour toilets instead of flush toilets, saving between six and sixteen litres of water per flush. Australia and the Middle East specialize in new and better irrigation systems where they can use salt water for certain crops or use desalinization processes which are becoming more efficient.

Internationally, more than 300 river systems are transboundary. They will have a massive effect on the future as our population grows. We fear that countries will fight that over water. None of us can survive without water. Thomas Homer-Dixon, Robert Kaplan and many other authors have repeatedly and quite eloquently warned that in the future, water is what we will fight over.

When one looks at the Middle East as an example, people are fighting over land, land which is by and large desert. It is land where the aquifers are so low that in the future there will not be any water there at all. The wars which are taking place right now will wars over pieces of land which will be largely uninhabitable in the future, yet nobody really talks about that.

Internationally, we have to look at other countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sudan and Egypt and many other areas where water will be a potential area of conflict. Part of Canada's role in the future will be looking at ways to conserve and improve water not only at home, but also internationally by researching and developing new methods of water conservation, finding new ways to use salt water, such as desalinization procedures which would be more efficient, and finding ways to stop polluting our waters.

This has been a significant problem. We saw the tragedy in Walkerton. We have seen the effect of acid rain. We know that many of our lakes and rivers have been completely destroyed. The fish are toxic. As a country it behooves us to take responsibility for our water systems. What we do to our water systems not only affects us but affects people in other countries too. The House of Commons and the government has a responsibility to all Canadians to ensure that the very essence of life, which is water, will be preserved in some way.

Ways of doing that would be by decreasing demand, looking at new conservation tools and spreading them widely across the country, having new pricing mechanisms so that the value of water is truly reflected in its cost and making sure that existing conservation mechanisms are more efficient.

A lot of exciting work is being done all over the world demonstrating the ways we can preserve and conserve water. I hope the government works with its provincial counterparts to do that.

Speaking now on the international scene, there are a lot of water borne diseases. Malaria can be considered a water borne disease. Bilharzia, which is spread by snails and affects almost 200 million people, is expanding dramatically and is having a profound impact on people. This disease can kill. I remember treating a 20 year old woman in Africa who bled to death as a direct result of being infected by this parasite. Her veins in her esophagus burst and we could not stop the bleeding.

This is not an academic exercise at all. This issue affects people all over the world. In Canada we have seen the effect of the Walkerton tragedy and our inability to secure our water system. Canadians have a deep seated concern. There are boiled water warnings. I do not have the exact figures but they are quite significant. From Newfoundland to British Columbia, boiled water advisories are out because we have been unable to secure our water resources and ensure that safe, potable water is the right of all Canadians.

At the present time none of us see adequate leadership on this level. I hope the federal government will work with its provincial counterparts to develop a national strategy to secure our water resources. The bill is good in terms of ensuring that we will not damage our water resources or impede or damage the water resources that go to other countries. It is very important that we ensure that the water within our borders is secure. It is important that we ensure that Canadians have access to potable water so we do not have further tragedies such as Walkerton.

There are two basic elements in what we should do beyond this. There are domestic issues in terms of conservation, dealing with the pollution of our water systems and new irrigation methodologies which can be very efficient. Internationally, it is important that our Minster of Foreign Affairs work with other countries and point out that water is a potential flash point for conflicts in the future and things have to be done to ensure that this is dealt with.

[Sudan, September 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague for bringing up this issue. Because I have only three minutes I will work on dispelling some myths about this conflict and proffering some solutions.

I was in Khartoum earlier this year. The following are my observations. First, this war is less about religion and has everything to do with economics. It is about control of the White Nile, control over timber resources, gold, mining and other resources.

Second, there is a lot of proxy war going on right now. The Ugandans are supporting the SPLA in the south to fight their own internal war with the Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda. That is a significant contributing factor in all of this.

Both the SPLA and the government in Khartoum feel at this time that they both have tactical advantages on the ground. In my view neither are actually fully honest in their desire to pursue peace. There are as we know at least three peace endeavours. One is the IGADD process, another is an Egyptian-Libyan process and the third is a Kenyan process.

I would encourage our government to do the following. First it should apply pressure to those governments that are using the Sudan as a proxy conflict. Pressure should be put on the Ugandan government of Mr. Museveni to stop supporting the SPLA. To the international groups and organizations that I believe have been misled into believing that this is a religious war between the Christians in the south who are being beaten up by the Arab-Islamic people in the north, let me say that is a complete misnomer. They should stop supporting the people in the south until the various factions of the SPLA make an honest effort to produce peace.

Second, international communities must tell the government in Khartoum to stop all bombings, engage in an immediate ceasefire, allow relief shipments to go into the south freely and support a peace process among groups in the south that are fighting each other. There is a massive amount of internecine conflict between and among the Nuer and Dinka tribes in the south. It is an issue that is not brought up as often as it should be.

Third, peace and relief operations from the south must be allowed to get into the south free of charge. No longer can the SPLA in the south charge moneys to international NGOs to relieve the suffering. As my colleagues mentioned, almost two million people are poised to die in the next few months. The FAO has said that this is a massive humanitarian crisis. Imagine what would happen if two million people were going to die in North America or in Europe. Yet the international community has largely turned a blind eye to this and allowed this bloodletting to continue. It cannot continue.

On the issue of Talisman, it is the best of a bad situation. If Talisman is removed from the equation the small amounts of resources that are put in for the people on the ground for primary health and education would evaporate. Another country like China would take it over and all the primary health and education in the south would disappear, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of other people.

I bring that to everyone's attention. On my website www.keithmartin.org there is actually a complete peace solution to this which I have distributed widely. I thank my colleague for bringing this important issue to the floor of the House.

[Nunavut Waters and Nunavut Surface Rights Tribunal Act, September 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing with Nunavut and I am sure our fellow colleague will give the most eloquent and knowledgeable information about it. Nunavut is an area that has had profound troubles for some time. It is an area with some 24,000 people. It has an extraordinarily high suicide rate. Sexual abuse rates are very high and it has unemployment rates of 20% to 40%. Federal moneys are being put in at a rate of about $24,000 per person.

What solutions should have been put in the bill to address some of the profound, tragic and underlying social problems the people of Nunavut have been suffering for far too long?

[Terrorism, September 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, that is a complete cop-out and the minister knows it. If the United States can do it so can we. In fact one of the groups on President Bush's list is Algeria's armed Islamic group which has used Canada as a base for theft and fundraising. The GIA ringleader is from Montreal and is currently on trial in Paris.

What efforts has the government taken to freeze and seize any assets that the GIA currently has in Canada?

[Terrorism, September 26th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice has just said that we have the power to freeze the assets of terrorist organizations. Given that the United States has frozen the assets of 27 terrorist organizations, and yet our government chooses to give charitable status to same organizations, will the government tell the Canadian public which terrorist organizations' assets has it frozen?

[Customs Act, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have for some time lamented and made some strong comments on the fact that the judicial aspect of customs officers has been removed to make them revenue collecting officers rather than individuals who are able to uphold the law.

I know my colleague from Wild Rose has been travelling from coast to coast and meeting with the grassroots. I would encourage the government to listen to his suggestions as well as those of the grassroots, the men and women who work at customs and revenue. They have a lot of good suggestions to put forward that would improve the system. We are also not listening to the men and women in our defence forces. They also have some excellent suggestions on how we can improve our department of defence.

[Customs Act, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have repeatedly made representations to the government on how we can increase the funding and where it should go to make a more effective customs and revenue agency. I echo the member's comments to say that the men and women who work for customs and revenue have been trying to do a very good job under very difficult circumstances.

For years my colleagues have repeatedly put forth suggestions to the government on how to improve the system but they fell on deaf ears until this catastrophe took place. We will continue to put forth suggestions on how to improve both domestic and international security.

On the issue of defence, we have advocated a $2 billion infusion into our defence budget urgently.

The House may be interested to know that in terms of ourselves and NATO, Canada spends the second lowest amount of all NATO countries in terms of a percentage of our GDP on military. That is sad. We have known this for a long time. A year ago NATO rapped our knuckles because we were unable to meet our commitments internationally.

We have asked for a $2 billion infusion into defence. We would like to increase our percentage of GDP from about 1% today to at least 1.5% in the future. We feel that is a reasonable amount to bring our armed forces up to snuff.

[Customs Act, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from the NDP made a number of points. However I do take issue with him that poverty is the root cause of why Mr. bin Laden and his group engage in what they do. Mr. bin Laden is worth $300 million. If Mr. bin Laden is worth $300 million, it refutes the idea of poverty being the root cause.

If he is talking about poverty as a root cause of this, then presumably they would have numerous terrorists coming out of the Congo, Liberia or Sierra Leone but that is not the case.

I agree to some extent with the hon. member when he says that there has been a perception on the part of individuals in certain parts of the Middle East of an unfair application of foreign policy. To some extent that is a failure of communication and we have not been able to get our message out to the individuals concerned.

Yes, he is right when he says that we have turned a blind eye to the illegal introduction of settlements in Palestine, which we do not support in any way, shape or form and believe we should take a much stronger stance on. However, the issue is much more complicated than that.

The Osama bin Ladens of this world are the sharp edge of some very rare problems and we cannot negotiate with those individuals. Even if the issue of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were to be resolved, it would not be enough because Osama bin Laden hates western culture. He perceives the west as being a threat to the tenets of Islam. That is a central issue for people of his ilk.

On the issue of economics, the member should know that the leaders of the Taliban are quite affluent. While the Afghani people have been suffering beyond comprehension for years and live in grinding poverty, members of the Taliban have been lining their pockets with money from illegal trucking in the southern part of Afghanistan and through the sale of illegal drugs. That is how they are actually living. They drive around in Mercedes Benzes while their people are starving to death. I would ask the member to consider those points.

[Customs Act, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on Bill S-23, particularly in view of the events of September 11. Those events have changed the whole complexion upon which this debate has taken place and will take place.

All members of the House have had an opportunity to focus on many of the issues, which have been neglected for a long time, and how we can ensure the security of Canadians at home and abroad.

The bill is a balancing act. Basically, it is about ensuring that we have rapid and easy movement of goods, services and people across our border to the United States. At the same, it is about preventing individuals and elements which are of risk to Canadians from crossing the border. That is the challenge. The bill manages to address that to some extent.

Economic exchange between Canada and the United States is $500 billion a year and 108 million people cross the border every year, which is massive. However, the our current situation is less than ideal.

Before I go into that, I would be remiss if I did not make some comments on the events of September 11 and how they relate to our own internal security.

The Osama bin Ladens of this world did not materialize out of thin air. They are the sharp and extreme edge of some very real problems that, to some extent, have been neglected by the world. Foreign policy challenges have been perceived to have been dealt with in a fair and even-handed fashion.

People like Osama bin Laden and the individuals who follow him see the sword as their only recourse, and there is no room for negotiation. They decided to blow up the negotiating table rather than sit at it.

Those individuals who are filled with hatred, as is this man, who are able and willing to twist a beautiful religion like Islam into something it does not represent, have made a very clear decision and have sent a very clear message to other countries that they are not willing to engage in peaceful negotiations. Therefore, a multifactorial response, including military, international financial institutions and other levers will be required to stop these individuals.

Once we take Mr. bin Laden out, no doubt he will be replaced by others of his ilk. I believe a lot of people who follow individuals like Osama bin Laden would be able to change if our foreign policy took a bit of a different tact, along with foreign policies of other countries being changed somewhat.

There are a couple of issues that I would like to address. Western countries have to at least be perceived as fair-minded in their dealings with international problems, be it the Palestinian-Israeli question, or Saudi Arabia, or Iraq or others. It must be perceived that we are dealing with these issues and problems in a fair and even-handed fashion.

People like Osama bin Laden or those individuals who were celebrating the mass murder of innocent civilians in the United States, as we saw on television, use this type of manipulation. Curiously enough, a lot of the information they receive is through a very thick sieve or a thick prism which warped. Therefore, the information they are fed often bears absolutely no resemblance to reality.

I have heard outrageous allegations against the west, the Israelis and other Arab states from individuals who support the likes of Osama bin Laden. They are a complete and utter fabrication. If we were subjected to only those fabricated messages of hate which try to stimulate a group of people to suggest that another group will kill or threaten them, perhaps other people would respond in a similar fashion. I would hope not.

It leads us to believe and leads us to show that communication and how communication is used is essential for those individuals who try to stimulate people with that kind of hatred. Therefore within that is an opportunity for west to try to get the message out to the people in the Middle East that the west has been a friend to Muslims. The west tried to defend Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. The west tried to help the Kurds in northern Iraq who were being massacred by Saddam Hussein. The west tried to be fair minded with respect to the Palestinian-Israeli situation. Canada has supported a policy of an independent Palestinian state and an independent Israeli state living side by side in peace. Canada has not tried to take sides and we have tried to be even-handed.

Unfortunately, this message does not get out to the shantytowns of the West Bank nor does not it get out to the types of individuals who Osama bin Laden and people like him who they try to curry favour. It does not get through to some people in Afghanistan. Therein lies the challenge for us in the west.

We have to improve communication, improve connection and improve discourse. We have to have a greater number of meetings between people of different philosophical backgrounds. That is the only way we will be able to achieve a measure of peace. By doing so, we will be able to remove some of the supporters of terrorists like Osama bin Laden. It will not remove all of them. As I said before, individuals filled with that kind of hate, who are willing to completely warp and misrepresent a faith like Islam and who are willing to lie to their people are individuals beyond the pale and stage of negotiation.

With respect to our border security and our ability to deal with this problem, this will require a multifactorial approach. This will not only include foreign policy initiatives with our allies and the Americans to root out individuals such as Mr. bin Laden, to root out his support and to root out individuals who think it is acceptable to hide and coddle him, but we will also have to go after the money, which is essential in trying to cut the support to these individuals.

We can do that through the international financial institutions. The IFIs and their countries, or the international family which includes all of us, have to develop a comprehensive plan of action to find out the economic resources and sources of money that support these terrorist groups. Once we find them, we have to apprehend those funds. Cutting off the money supply is one of the most effective ways to weaken these terrorist organizations. It is absolutely essential.

My colleagues have repeatedly, in very eloquent statements, brought out what has happened to our defence forces. The Prime Minister has gone to the United States to speak with Mr. Bush, presumably to articulate some of the things that Canada can do in this initiative against terrorists. The Prime Minister knows full well that for over eight years he and his government have gutted our military to appalling degrees.

In the 1994 white paper an obligation was made by the government. It said it could put in the theatre in short order a battalion plus a brigade or 6,000 plus people. According to our defence forces, it would take a minimum of three months to introduce a brigade into the field. Furthermore, we could not sustain that brigade for six months. That is a terrible indictment, not on the men and women of our military who put their lives on the line and who are working under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, but on this government's willingness to gut our military.

With respect to our navy, at this point in time we are able to put one frigate in the theatre, in part because we have had a massive loss and attrition of skilled individuals able to man our frigates.

Furthermore, our ability to promote their strength has been severely hampered by the fact that we do not have functional Sea Kings.

Our Sea Kings are more than 30 years old. Some are dropping out of the sky. We do not have faith in functioning of those helicopters, which severely compromises the ability of our forces.

With respect to our land forces, the hardware such as tanks, et cetera necessary to back them up is severely lacking.

With respect to air, according to the 1994 white paper, Canada was supposed to put a minimum of 24 to 48 fighters into the theatre, if called upon. Can we do this? No, we cannot. Furthermore, the CF-18s we have are becoming incompatible with their American counterparts because of the high tech hardware that each of those planes requires. That means our CF-18s cannot nor will they be likely to function appropriately, other than in a token fashion, in any kind of required air effort. I wonder if the public is aware of what is going on. Our military men and women know about this because they have been labouring under it for a very long time.

We also need to look at our internal security mechanisms. CSIS is the agency we rely upon for internal security, yet over the last seven years its budget has been cut by at least 30%. Furthermore, it has had a 28% cut in manpower, which has severely compromised our internal security forces to engage in surveillance and apprehend, along with the RCMP, individuals who are a threat to our security and international security.

A gentleman who used to work as a very high level intelligence officer made the comment that Canada had become an aircraft carrier jihad for those groups that were willing to engage in terrorist activities abroad. This did not happen overnight. This happened over years because terrorist organizations knew they could easily gain access into Canada. Our ability to engage in surveillance has been severely compromised.

We understand the economic restrictions that the government is under and we support balanced cuts. However, we do not support activities and actions that compromise the security of Canadians at home and abroad. As a party, we are asking the government to put money back into the security elements that we desperately required yesterday, not two years from now. We will continually ask for and demand this.

We know that hardworking individuals in our immigration services have been frustrated for a long time. Over the last few years, my colleagues have repeatedly put out constructive suggestions to strengthen our immigration so that true refugees can come into Canada under what we feel are our humanitarian obligations. We have also asked that those individuals who are a security risk and those refugees coming here under false pretenses be prevented from entering into Canada.

Time and time again we have demonstrated that the government has failed to initiate in the House an effective immigration bill that would allow us to accomplish those objectives. We have also asked the minister of immigration why there is not proper surveillance of individuals, who claim refugee status, once they come to Canada.

Other models in the world work better than ours. Although Australia has its own difficulties, we can learn from some of its lessons which will enable us to streamline our immigration procedures.

My private member's bill would put the onus of identification, barring any extenuating circumstances, directly on the shoulders of persons claiming refugee status. They would be required to prove their identification as opposed to coming in claiming they did not have identification. Ninety per cent of individuals who are false refugees come through our borders by way of our airports. I do not know why we have not introduced that.

My colleague made a very impressive comment in her statement by members today requesting that Canadians have a photo identification card, a universal card, that would allow us to be identified from other individuals.

If our social insurance and health card numbers were on that card it would go a long way to removing fraud which costs the health care system and HRDC a lot of money. My colleague's suggestion is very intelligent and easily managed, and one that the government could do almost overnight. This would save tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars and add a very important element of security into our system.

Another purpose of the bill is to reduce the amount of illegal drugs coming into Canada. I was in Costa Rico and in Colombia earlier this year meeting with President Pastrana. What we have in front of us right now is a grand opportunity to address the trade in illegal drugs. What we can do is as follows. First, we have to recognize that the war on drugs that we have today is a failure. If we think we can go to Colombia and burn all the coca and poppy crops that are growing there and somehow believe this will solve the problem, it will not. Those crops will spread to Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil, which is what is happening now.

If there is one thing the Taliban has done correctly over the last few months it has been to burn its poppy crops. We know the smuggling of heroin is still a serious problem in those countries but how do we deal with it? We must accept the fact that trying to address this problem at the production source will not win the so-called war against drugs.

Senator McCain of the United States made a very interesting comment when I was there. He said that we need to decrease consumption in North America. He could not be more right. If we want to address the war on drugs we must deal with it in our own house in Canada and indeed in North America. We need to decrease consumption.

Europe has some exciting models that would work very well. It has some new treatment modalities which look at addicts, not in a punitive or criminal fashion but from a medical perspective. Some of those models have a 60% one year success rate for the worst of the worst heroin addicts, which is extraordinary. It works very well.

Canada can use another avenue which has widespread support but it requires some leadership. It is the introduction of import-export permits for the precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of cocaine and heroin.

A few months ago Canada's knuckles were wrapped publicly and internationally, along with Norway and some other European countries. The reason was very interesting. We, as countries, were wilfully and knowingly selling the precursor chemicals required to produce cocaine and heroin. We know we are selling these chemicals to individuals who are using them to produce drugs but we say that it is not our problem. It is our problem and we can do something about it. We can do something through the introduction of import-export permits. In other words, a company would need an export permit for the bulk export of these precursor chemicals and the recipient would need an import permit. This would enable us to track and identify the individuals producing these drugs. Then we could stop it. If they do not have the chemicals to produce the cocaine and the heroin they cannot produce those drugs. We would cut it off at our side, which is doable.

Another thing we can do is implement something called the RICO amendments, the racketeering, investigation and criminal organization amendments, that they have in the United States. This would enable us to go after the money. It would enable us to go after those organizations that are engaging in criminal activities. It would choke off the money supply for them.

In conclusion, a number of elements need to be added to the bill in terms of strengthening our borders. We need to strengthen our defence forces, CSIS and our immigration borders. We also need to ensure that our customs officers have the ability to apprehend from a criminal perspective, not just be individuals who are trying to collect money for Revenue Canada.

[National Defence, September 24th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is meeting with President Bush today. Let us look at what Canada can offer under a Liberal managed military. The minimum number of troops the Americans would require is 5,000. Our army has not practised at that level in over nine years. The Department of National Defence said it would take at least three months to deploy and we cannot even sustain these numbers for longer than six months in the field.

Our airlift capability deployment is quoted as a near catastrophe by our own defence people. Nineteen of our thirty-two C-130 transports are 35 years old and in need of replacement. The navy has one functional support ship that it can send out. Due to our losses of manpower only seven can be sent out at any one time.

Our Sea King helicopters are 35 years old and falling out of the sky. Most of our CF-18 fighters are obsolete and cannot integrate with the American air force.

Nearly 40 Canadians died in the tragedy in the United States but our government has gutted the military and our ability to protect ourselves here and abroad.