Keith Martin

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

As my colleague says, we will continue to do that.

We have francophone alienation. Part of the reason we have such a terrible situation historically in Quebec is a lack of communication. There is justifiable alienation on the part of the Quebec people, the francophonie in this entire country, because they too have not been listened to. If we scratch the surface of many separatists we find some very real concerns, some very real desires to reform the country and to make it a better place for everybody.

That is what we need to listen to and we need to address. It is not rocket science. The government needs to listen to what these people are saying. It needs to go to their territory, their homes and their communities to ask them what they are saying and to listen to what they are saying. Lo and behold it will find that many of the communities across the country are saying the same thing.

I do not subscribe to the notion that we have different types of species of Canadians. We do not have homo sapiens British Columbiensis, homo sapiens Maritimiensis or homo sapiens Ontarioensis. We have one Canadian and one Canada. The hopes, the fears and the concerns of people from coast to coast, whether they are westerners, Ontarians, people from the prairies, maritimers, aboriginals, non-aboriginals, immigrants, non-immigrants, rural people or city folk, their hopes, their fears and their concerns are the same.

They want a job. They want safe streets. They want good health care. They want social programs to be there in their time of need. They want to be sure the people who are most disadvantaged in our community will be taken care of. They want a better future for their children than they have had.

If the government were to address the problems and concerns of the people of the nation in a forthright fashion, it would be elected time and time again. However there is a political vacuum in which we are trying to engage. My party is trying to force the government to say to the Canadian people that it can do better.

Why do we accept a 66 cent dollar? Why do we accept a higher unemployment rate than that of the U.S.? Why do we accept a taxation rate that is so much higher than the American one that it drives the best and brightest out of the country?

Why do we accept education standards in post-secondary and grade school that are below those of our competitors? Why do we accept environmental standards that are not adhered to? Why do we accept aboriginal communities that have social program parameters akin to the third world? Why do we accept three and a half year waits to see an orthopedic surgeon? Why do we accept health care that approaches that of a second world nation? Why do we accept our best and brightest leaving the country?

We should not and do not accept the level of mediocrity the government has been trying to sell to the Canadian people, and the people are not buying it. We can aspire to much more. It is not complex. Effective constructive solutions exist that must be applied in a quick, rapid and effective fashion to address the problems. If we do so, we will be able to aspire to more than we have and to build a country that provides a better future for all Canadians and especially for our children.

What are some of the things we can do? Many members in my caucus have put forth constructive solutions. Our House leader put forth many. My colleagues from British Columbia and Alberta and members from across party lines have put forth constructive solutions, and some have done so for many years.

We have fought for free votes in the House of Commons, and I mean true free votes. No bill can be made a vote of confidence in the government. If a bill fails because it was not good enough, we should send it back to committee and fix the bill.

We can also reform the committee structure. Why have a committee structure that is a make work project for MPs? We should give the committees a greater say. We should let them have greater flexibility in what they study. We should let them address the big issues. We should not allow parliamentary secretaries to act as mini whips who force government members to vote in a certain way. We should have secret votes for committee chairmen so that the best person across party lines has an opportunity to chair the committee. Then we would have the most effective committee possible.

We should expand private members' business. The public might be fascinated to know that members of parliament can get private members' bills into the House only by lottery. Names are drawn. If members are lucky enough to have their names drawn, their bills will go to committee and the committee will decide whether the bills are votable.

No other democracy in the entire world allows private members' bills to be put forward that are made non-votable. What an oxymoron, a non-votable private member's bill. Why even have a private member's bill if it can never become law? It is a waste of time.

The public may also want to ask why the government gutted the legal opportunities and powers we need to put our private members' bills together. They were gutted and removed. The lawyers, the key linchpin in our ability to put private members' business forward, were taken away from us.

At one time there were only three lawyers for more than 225 members of parliament, yet the cabinet had more than 70 lawyers at its disposal. That was a sly but effective way of preventing private members across party lines from being able to put forth bills on behalf of their constituents.

We should be given more lawyers to craft our private members' bills. We should expand private members' hour by two hours on Friday and one hour on Monday. We should make sure that every member of parliament has at least one bill to put forth.

As my time is running out, I would implore the government, for the betterment of everyone here, but more important for the benefit of our country, to democratize the House. If we fail to democratize the House we do not deserve the respect of the Canadian people. The House will be nothing but a dictatorship that compromises the ability of Canada to be as good as it can become. We need to do this now. There is cross party support for it. If we do not do it now we do not deserve the respect we should have.

[Standing Orders, February 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to speak to the motion because it bespeaks a continuation of what we were dealing with earlier today, the undemocratization of the House of Commons.

Members from across party lines have for years eloquently described the frustration of being an MP. There is the frustration of going home and speaking to the people who sent us to the House, listening to their concerns and feeling impotent in our ability to represent their concerns in the House.

We agree with the basic idea and principle of the motion put forth by the government that we do not want to have a situation where frivolous amendments are put forth merely to drag the House into a prolonged period of irrelevant action. On the other hand, as my colleague for Elk Island has said, we cannot allow the rights of the minorities to be compromised. That is what we are talking about today.

It is not only the rights of the minorities, but the rights of the majority. We have a situation today where the House is ruled by a Prime Minister who has an iron hammerlock upon the goings on of the House and of the country.

The public understands that and we understand that. That is why we saw voter turnout of less than 60% in the last federal election. That is not something to be proud of. That is something that should be a red flag that says we need to do something to engage the public. We need to do something to bring back the confidence that people should have in this great institution.

Over decades this institution has whittled away. The democratic powers of elected members have been removed year after year. The late Prime Minister Trudeau said something to the effect that members of parliament are nobodies 100 feet off the Hill. I suggest that members of parliament are nobodies on the Hill and that is the problem.

The public understands that and we understand that if we are to be truthful about it. The fact of the matter is that there are good people across party lines who have great things to contribute for the betterment of Canadians from coast to coast, but they do not have the power to represent their people.

Certainly we are accountable. Every four years we are accountable. However during that intervening period of time do we really have the power to represent our constituents so that people can adequately judge us on the actions that we engage in? No, we do not because we do not have the power to represent our constituents.

We have seen over the years the corpses of members of parliament lying beside House because they have tried to do the right thing. They have tried to represent their constituents and to represent their conscience. When that falls afoul of the leaders of parties they are emasculated, rendered impotent, and at the worst level they are thrown out of their party.

Who can forget John Nunziata, who on a matter of principle, a matter of conscience and indeed the issue of the GST and a government promise, said he could not support the government on the particular issue? It violated a promise that he made when he was elected. As a result of doing that he was thrown out of the caucus.

This is the situation faced by every political party today to varying degrees. It is something we have to change. Members of my party have put up ideas such as the ethics counsellor. We put forth a motion to give the government an opportunity to vote for the promise that it made to the Canadian people in the first red book.

The government voted against its own promise of having an independent ethics counsellor. We do not want an ethics counsellor who answers to the Prime Minister; neither do the members from the other side. What we should have is an ethics counsellor who is independent of the Prime Minister and who responds to the House.

We are concerned that with this motion the Prime Minister will exercise more undue and unnecessary control over the House and further strengthen his hold so that decisions will further be made by the Prime Minister and his office staff, who are a group of unelected, unaccountable and invisible individuals who rule the country.

Many members of the public watching today may not know or understand that the structure we have created today prevents and inhibits their views, wishes and desires from being exercised in the House.

Another serious problem is that we do not have any free votes. We talk about it but in effect we do not debate it.

Committees, by and large, are make work projects for members of parliament, and the health committee is a case in point. We have a crisis in our health care system today. Over the years members from across party lines have, as has the NDP critic for health, stood shoulder to shoulder with us. We may have a difference of opinion on what needs to be done to fix the problem but we certainly stand shoulder to shoulder in saying that we need to look at it. We need to examine it and implement effective solutions to save our publicly funded health care system. Given the fact that this is the biggest problem affecting Canadians, not an academic issue but a blood and guts issue where people's lives are at stake, we have a government that has directed the committee to study plain packaging of cigarettes, aboriginal health and other issues that, while important, pale in comparison to the overarching issue of how we manage to save our public health system.

Is the government dealing with the issue of our aging population? We have an aging population and a demographic that will turn all our social programs on their end, from CPP to health care, to other social programs. It is an impending crisis that looms on the horizon. The failure to deal with our aging population and the impact upon our social programs, and indeed on our economy, will have such a profound impact on our society that we will not be able to deal with it and those people who are the poorest in our society, the most vulnerable, from the aged to the young, are the ones who will get hurt. The only way to deal with that is to deal with it proactively. We cannot deal with it in a knee-jerk reactive mode. We have to deal with these problems proactively because it takes time to develop the solutions and enact them. If we do not do it now people will be hurt.

On the issue of the environment, Canada has been repeatedly told that we have some serious environmental problems. We need to address them but are we? No. We go through this mill that goes around and around. Ideas are tossed around in a big circle and they go nowhere quickly. Our failure to deal with these issues causes untold hardship to the public.

People in our health care system who are watching their rivers being polluted by a minority of the industrialists who dump garbage into our rivers and streams want to know why the government is not dealing with it. What do they hear? They hear the sound of silence. They hear nothing. Does that engender respect and a willingness to engage and work with the government? Does that engender a desire to get involved in the political process? No, it does not. In fact, most people want to get involved but they recognize that the House does not work and that maybe they should find other ways to exercise their democratic rights. Unfortunately, too many people have become so apathetic that they are not getting involved at all.

Part of the reason that we have this situation is the unwritten code of conduct we have in the House, a code that rewards zealotry over objectiveness and a code that says if our ideas, our objectivity and our professional training run adverse to the leadership, we must be removed or follow blindly what we have been told. It is a code of conduct that says one must blindly follow the leadership of their party. It is a code that excludes external information from other sources when they run adverse to what the leadership of the party says.

This is disingenuous. We have a system that naturally rewards being able to destroy the other side. Indeed, the role of the opposition is to keep the government on its toes. It is to be the toughest critic of the government that can be found, but it should not and must not preclude the ability of members in every political party to engage in constructive and positive discourse for the betterment of Canadians.

If we cannot use our God given brains, if we cannot engage and pull out the best and brightest ideas from the people of our country, if we cannot stimulate and inspire the people of our nation to bring forth and have acted upon their ideas to make Canada the best nation in the world, what are we here for?

We cannot do that right now. We are seeing cracks develop in our great nation. We talk about western alienation. We talk about the well known disaffection of the west, but it is not the only alienation. We have eastern alienation. We have the maritimers saying that what goes on in Ottawa has very little to do with them. They feel left out.

We have rural alienation. We have a rural-urban split that is not well analyzed or spoken about. The rural alienation is very real. A lot of people who provide the economic backbone of the country are forgotten about. Because of a lack of health care, a lack of resources and an abysmal or a non-existence infrastructure on the part of the government, we have people who are turned off, tuned out, and have a great deal of antipathy toward the federal government.

We have aboriginal alienation, large swaths of aboriginal communities who are suffering the worst possible social parameters in the country today. That has been going on for too long.

My party has been wrongfully accused of being against grassroots aboriginal people. We are the only party which has given the grassroots aboriginal people a vector, a voice in the House. We are not as interested in advocating for the leadership they have as we are in ensuring that the wishes, the hopes and the fears of grassroots aboriginal people are brought into the House in the most eloquent and forceful terms possible. We have tried to do that time and time again.

[Canada Elections Act, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-213. I compliment my friend from the NDP for putting it forward.

She addressed something that is extremely important, not only to the youth of the country but to adults: why we as a nation are disengaged from the political process in appalling numbers. We went through a federal election last November where we saw the lowest voter turnout in the last 60 years. Less than 60% of Canadians voted in the federal election.

Why is that so? Canadians are not only apathetic and disaffected but are utterly turned off by the political process in the House and in the country today for some very good reasons. The reason that is so is that we do not live in a democracy.

We live in a totalitarian regime. The system is controlled by a Prime Minister and a small cabal of individuals who are unelected, unaccountable and invisible. They tell members what to do, what to say and when to say it. Lo and behold the member who goes against them. It is a top down situation. Members vote as they are told to do, not what their conscience or their constituents tell them to do.

The committee structure is under tight government control and that is why they start pursuing efforts and initiatives that have very little to do with the large pressing problems of the nation today. They deal with irrelevancies because committees and most of the House are designed to be a make work project for MPs, not to address the big problems that exist in the country today.

To understand why members vote this way, it is interesting to look at an unwritten code of conduct in the House which explains to Canadians why they see members voting clearly against their conscience, clearly against what they want to do and in violation of what is the right thing to do.

It goes something like this: do what the leadership tells them to do. It is also known as the principle of blind loyalty. If information comes to them from outside sources that is adverse to what the leadership says, they must be ignored at all cost, even if it goes against what the leadership says and the external information is true. If their personal ethics and knowledge are against what the leadership tells them to do, they must ignore that. It creates an internal schizophrenic environment in the brain that prevents them from doing the right thing and is very difficult to live with.

Zealotry is rewarded; objectivity is penalized. The consequences for living up to what their constituents want them to do, what they feel is ethically responsible or intellectually responsible, where it runs adverse to what the leadership wants to do, is to be excommunicated from their party, have their democratic rights compromised, have their ability to represent their constituents severely restricted and be rendered politically impotent.

Indeed the landscape is littered with the political corpses of individuals who have run afoul of their leadership and have done the right thing. The system is weak. It lends to the political disaffection and the disconnectiveness that Canadians have for the House of Commons.

What should we do? Many members of the House have fought for constructive democratic solutions to make this place a responsible place for Canadians. We hear about free votes, but do we have them? Absolutely not. I am talking about true free votes for non-money bills. We need them for members of all political parties.

Why not have all bills go in draft form to committees? If bills went in draft form to committees then both the MPs and the public would have constructive input into forming bills. Right now committees basically rubber stamp the bills that come forward which are already constructed by the Prime Minister's Office and the department. They come from the department and go through the sham of engaging in an analysis.

It breaks my heart, as I am sure it does of every member of the House, to see well meaning, intelligent public individuals come before committees with bright and intelligent solutions to deal with problems they are studying. Yet that input is largely ignored. It is certainly ignored by the leaders of the country.

A committee report is put forward. It gets a day of press and then is tossed on a shelf to collect dust in some unknown hideaway. That is what happens to all the hard work of committee members.

Committees must be independent. Parliamentary secretaries should be removed from committees. They do not belong there. They are acting as mini whips of the government. They greatly impede the ability of committees to do their work. Committees should be independent in order to do effective work that benefits Canadians.

Private members' business should be expanded by three hours a week. We could have two more hours on Friday and one more hour on Monday. The system upon which private members' business is chosen should be changed. Right now it is a lottery. Every MP must have one votable private member's bill and one private member's motion at a minimum every parliament.

There is a need for more constructive debates and less destructive action on the part of the government. Presently the government rolls itself up in a carapace and the opposition parties hammer away at it, often on issues that the public does not care about.

Why are we not seeing any effective debate on how to save our health care system? Why are we not seeing a debate on the demographic impact on Canadian society, from pensions to social programs? We have unsustainable pensions, an unsustainable health care system and an unsustainable CPP. Our environment is being polluted. There are solutions out there to address it, yet we see no effective action to deal with these and many other problems.

Why is that so? The reason is that this place has nothing to do with being constructive in addressing the problems of the nation but has everything to do with the maintenance and acquisition of power. It is true that one has to get into power to implement what one wants to have done, but that does not preclude the ability of each and every member of the House to use their talents and their skills to represent their constituents for the betterment of Canada.

We need to create an environment in the House that will enable the big issues of the country to be addressed. We need to create awareness to address the issue the member has raised in her bill. When we speak to the public and the young it is sad that they know very little about the big issues affecting our country.

The government could work with the provinces to introduce a civics course starting in grade school. It is easier to hardwire people when they are younger. They need to be hardwired about being involved and connected with their environment. A civics course in school would enable students to be aware of what is happening in their environment and to get involved in their environment. Then when they are older they would have a greater propensity and a greater desire to get involved in the processes, be they political or otherwise.

There is a massive dearth in the interactivity of our processes with the Canadian public. We have to regenerate that. The only way we can do that is to ensure that the House is democratic so that what people are saying will be listened to and acted on.

Second, we have to ensure that our youth today are aware of what is happening. One way we can do it, and indeed the government should do it, is to work with the provinces to introduce a civics course into the schools across this country, starting with children at a very early age. That way we will create generations of children who will become the adult leaders who will address the problems of our nation.

I have only a minute left, but I again thank the hon. member, and I issue a plea to the government. This is not an issue that affects only members in the opposition. This affects every single member in the House of Commons, across all party lines. If we fail to democratize the House and if we fail to enable the public to have adequate input through their MPs and through the systems of the House, we do not deserve to be here and the House does not deserve to have a higher reputation than it has.

Listen to what has been said in this place over the years and act on it, and we will be able to do our country proud.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the current estimates are about 30,000 individuals who come into the country as false refugees. More than 95% are travelling through our airports, many of whom have destroyed their identification papers at origin and arrive here without them. That is why I said that one of the challenges the department needs to address is that people who come to this country claiming refugee status, the onus should be on them to identify themselves. There are, of course, extraneous situations that would not allow that, but that is what needs to happen.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely invite the hon. member to cross the floor and join the Canadian Alliance. He has eloquently spoken about what my party stands for. He spoke about free trade, fair trade, environmental standards, labour laws and labour protection. Indeed, I know the hon. member would work shoulder to shoulder with us to ensure that free trade agreements that come to the floor of the House will involve all of that. That is what free trade and fair trade must be about.

The failure is that a lot of these agreements are not communicated to the public. As mentioned in my speech, the government is not drawn into the discussion and debates individuals who have the same kind of commitment that the hon. member does, and indeed members from across party lines.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I thought I was specific for the last 20 minutes on a number of issues. The hon. member asked a whole litany of questions and addressed a number of issues.

When he began, he spoke about allowing independent class immigrants. We are firmly supportive of that. We need more of them because with the demographic changes in our country, we cannot hope to have the number of skilled workers in our workforce that our economy requires.

I would also like to say that we are not raiding other countries. People come in from other countries and people leave to go to other countries.

What we need is an effective way of ensuring that these people are allowed to come to the country. Right now, a lot of skilled people who want to come into Canada are not allowed to, which is shocking. I mentioned one specific example and that was nurses. They are not even on our list of required professions and skills. As I said to the government in my speech, it needs to update that list of skills because it does not reflect the needs of our economy.

On the issue of criminality, individuals who have committed crimes in this country should be sent back to their country of origin.

Canada, through the RCMP and CSIS, needs to work with Interpol at the entrance to our country to ensure that people who are wanted by Interpol are apprehended and sent back to the country where they are wanted. We do not do that enough and we should.

[Immigration And Refugee Protection Act, February 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on Bill C-11.

I want to preface my remarks by saying that I, like many people in the House, am an immigrant. Back in 1968 my parents moved my brothers and me to Canada. At that time, they had a choice of moving to a number of countries. At great personal sacrifice to them, they chose to move to Canada. They had the option to move to the United States, Australia and a few other countries but they chose Canada because they wanted to give their boys a better future. Indeed it is a debt that I could never repay. Canada has given myself, my family and my brothers a future that could never be surpassed anywhere in the world. It is a debt that I could never repay to this country.

In 1993 I joined the then Reform Party with a view to doing a number of things. One of the things that attracted me to this party was the pragmatic view to improving our immigration system. I think the fact that this caucus has the most ethnically diverse caucus in the House reflects the fact that the now Canadian Alliance strongly supports a strong, effective immigration policy. That is something that perhaps is not widely known because we have been accused of doing something very different.

My party believes very strongly that immigration is one of the pillars of Canada. Waves of immigrants over the years have ensured that Canada is a leader in so many areas. These immigrants have contributed to Canadian society in ways that are countless and too long to articulate in any one speech. It is something from which we all benefit.

Unfortunately over the years our immigration system has declined so that it does not enable Canadians to have the best immigration system they deserve. Indeed it does not enable people who wish to come to the country to have the best opportunities to immigrate to Canada.

We believe in an immigration system that is fair and effective; that enables true refugees to come to the country; that believes in true and rapid family reunification; and that believes in an onus and emphasis upon the independent class of immigrant, the ones that built the country.

That is what I will address in this speech, as my colleagues have done. The member for Dauphin—Swan River has given the government constructive and effective solutions to ensure that Bill C-11 will do all that we ask and what the Canadian public demands.

The first issue I want to deal with is the issue of refugees. The riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca had the refugees who came over from fujian province a summer ago. It was a big issue for all of us.

Here are some ways that we could improve the system. The first one is to try to differentiate between true and false refugees at source. Individuals who come to the country, and indeed most of the people who are false refugees, actually come by plane and through our airports.

It is estimated that we have about 30,000 false refugees. They are economic refugees, and frankly who would blame them? Many of us would do the same if we were in their shoes. However, it is our responsibility to differentiate between true and false refugees. One thing we could do is to ensure that it is up to the people who are claiming refugee status to produce their identification. Rapid identification at entrance to Canada is important.

The bill provides for a 90 day hearing in the IRB. That is too long. People deserve a rapid hearing and a rapid identification and determination to assess whether or not they are true or false refugees.

Another issue is the independent class of refugees. We need to put a greater emphasis on it. A little while ago I was looking at the list of professions required by Canada. It was shocking that it has not been updated in a long time. One profession that is glaringly absent is nursing. Nurses are not on the list, yet our country is faced with a crisis in nursing. We need to update that list of professions and skills required to build what the minister wants and what we all want: an effective skills set within our economy.

Refugees should be assessed for that in an effective way and those people should be expedited to come to the country. Let us update the skills set to make sure it is equal to the needs of our country. It has not been done for a very long time. I hope the parliamentary secretary takes that back to the minister. It is wanted on the ground. It is wanted in the country. It should be done as soon as possible so that we will have a better immigration system.

On the issue of charter of rights, when people come to the country they are protected by our charter of rights. They have the same protection as Canadian citizens. No other country in the world allows that to happen. We should protect all individuals who come to the country under the same basic norms that protect all citizens of the world, the norms of human rights guaranteed under the UN charter. Those basic norms of human rights should be provided for everyone in the country, particularly so for individuals who are immigrating to Canada.

Human smuggling is an international problem. It is linked with international crime gangs. These people are criminals and we are very happy that the minister put extra penalties in the bill. There are $1 million in penalties to individuals who are profiting from the human misery that goes with human smuggling. The people who are engaged in this activity are organized criminals. They are profiting from human misery. We need to work with our partners on this matter.

I have a suggestion for the government. The summit of the Americas is taking place from April 20 to April 22 in Quebec City. Since this problem is an international problem, it should be placed on the floor of the summit. Let us have a transhemispheric approach to the trafficking of human refugees. Let us work with our partners, work with international legal offices such as Interpol, and use the CSIS and the RCMP. Let us work with other nations so we can block this at source. It will require a multinational approach to deal with these individuals. It should be raised at the summit of the Americas. It is a good start to expand into other countries.

My colleague from the NDP asked a very good question on the issue of dealing with a lot of the economic refugees. Economic refugees would not be coming to our country if they had strong, stable economies where they live.

I just returned from Colombia with the secretary of state, who did an excellent job there representing Canada on the issue of tariffs and the issue of freer trade. It is extraordinary that we claim we want to improve the situation in many of these countries abroad, and yet we engage in tariffs and blocks to the ability of those countries to provide for themselves. We block their ability to have a strong economy, and yet we claim we want one.

If we were honest about trying to improve the situation in impoverished developing countries, we would eliminate barriers to trade for them as well as for us. We would eliminate the tariffs. We would provide for freer trade. We would eliminate double taxation laws which say that if a company wants to invest in another country it is not only taxed in its country of origin but also taxed in the country it works in.

That is absurd. That should not be allowed. If we removed these obstacles to economic trade we would have fewer economic refugees. Then developing countries would be able to improve their lot at home and require less trade and less emigration from their countries. They would be able to provide for themselves and develop a strong economy, which would provide for regional and international security, if they are allowed to do it.

At the summit of the Americas from April 20 to April 22 let us show some leadership. Let Canada bring this issue to the floor of the summit. Let us talk about freer trade. Let us talk about a transhemispheric free trade zone. Let us remove those barriers to trade and let us enable these countries to stand on their own feet. That is the best thing we could do for decreasing economic refugees that wish to come to our country.

Governance and corruption are issues of an international nature. We have to work with our partners in dealing with issues of corruption. My colleague from Alberta is doing innovative groundwork on dealing with corruption. He is working internationally, as well as with members of the government and other parties, on putting together an integrated plan on dealing with international corruption. We could be leaders in governance and anti-corruption laws, which would help to improve economic security and global security for everybody.

On the issue of CIDA and development, we should be focusing on primary health and education in developing countries as well as placing a greater emphasis on microcredit, small loans that enable individual people and small groups to get up on their own feet to provide the commerce which provides security in impoverished areas.

My colleagues have raised the issue of criminals time and time again. Why should criminals be allowed into the country? Recently we have heard repeatedly of criminals who have come through our borders because of our complete and utter lack of ability to secure our borders and to differentiate and identify them from those who are true refugees. We are not working with Interpol. There is a lack of communication among CSIS, the RCMP and Interpol. As a result individuals who are criminals are allowed to come into our country.

The United States has legitimately criticized Canada for not being able to secure its borders in this fashion. As a result many of those people have gone to the U.S. It is telling Canada to get its act in order, to secure its borders, and we will all benefit.

When individuals who are wanted by Interpol are found at our border we should arrest them, put them in jail and send them back to their country of origin where they can engage in a fair trial. Canada must not and cannot become a haven for criminals, which is what has been happening.

On the issue of health testing, the list of diseases that we test for is 40 years old. It is the responsibility of the department to secure the health and welfare of all Canadians and people who wish to come to Canada.

Immigrants and Canadian citizens do not want diseases to run through our country. Let us make sure that people who wish to come to our country are tested at their country of origin and that we upgrade the list of diseases.

I also bring to the attention of the government another issue which was raised before, the issue of listening to the hard working people in the department. They are a wealth of information. They are the ones in the trenches who bear the brunt and interface with the people who want to come into Canada. They deal with the wishes, desires and the laws of Canada. They are getting it from both sides. They are finding it very difficult. The good side is that they are a wealth of constructive information.

This issue has been raised in the House before, but I ask the secretary of state and the minister to listen to those employees. They should not listen only to the many qualified ambassadors but should listen in an unthreatening environment to embassy staff who have to deal with these problems.

They have great ideas on simplifying the system. They can provide information in a secure fashion to individuals who want to know how they can immigrate to Canada. This is basic information. I know there are some very good reasons it is not provided, but by not providing it a great deal of work is created for many MP offices across the country.

This is avoidable by simplifying the system to ensure that we are listening to our people on the ground. The minister could have an anonymous suggestion box. It could be sent directly to the minister's office through normal diplomatic channels. In that way effective simple solutions could be put forth that would enable us to have a more effective immigration system. This would certainly make our lives easier as MPs and make the work of hard working staff a lot easier.

Canada is a land of opportunity. We have an obligation to work with our partners to ensure that we have an effective immigration system which puts a greater emphasis on the independent class of immigrants so that we have a true refugee system. This would also enable us to have a system that is fair to all.

One issue we are continually confronted with that I think is grossly unfair to people who immigrate to Canada is the period of time they cannot work. Why do we not allow people who are immigrating to Canada to work when they get on our shores? The best social program we could ever have for anyone is a job. These people want to work. They want to work hard. They want to contribute to the country they wish to be a part of. Let them apply. Let them work.

If we were keen on dealing with true refugees we would seek them out through sources such as Amnesty International and others that provide effective and accurate information on people who are truly persecuted and are in danger and wish to live their countries of origin. We could do the humanitarian thing by providing a safe haven for them in Canada. We could seek out those individuals and provide them a home under our refugee banner. If we do that, we will be saving lives.

We could also become an effective tool in improving the lot of countries. I address issues such as tariffs and free trade. We also need to deal with the World Trade Organization. Many individuals and groups complain and vehemently oppose the WTO. It is interesting to listen to what they are saying. Many individuals who are opposed to the talks in Seattle, the Davos talks that occurred and many others, are the ones who are complaining about the people who are trying to do exactly what they want. They are the ones who are talking about environmental protection. They are talking about safe standards for workers. They are talking about labour codes. They are talking about improving the lot of individuals in developing countries. However part of the reason we are seeing a lot of individuals complaining is that there is a lack of communication and transparency.

Just a few days ago in committee we spoke about this with a group from the Bundestag, the German elected house. It asked us why people were complaining about the WTO and other organizations. It wanted to know if free trade was that bad. No, free trade and fair trade is good. The problem is that we do not have a transparent process.

My party supported a movement by the Bloc that would have ensured that free trade agreements would come to the House for a transparent and public analysis of what was in these agreements. I will go further than that. I suggest that the government could do a lot to dispel and decrease opposition to its efforts to improve free trade, which the Canadian Alliance supports. It could ensure that discussions, which have taken place behind closed doors, become publicly known. It could bring those people who are complaining about the free trade agreement into the decision making process. It could listen to what they were saying and act on it. The government could make its position in these talks public.

If we make what we do public and transparent we will have far fewer complaints. At the end of the day many of the people who are complaining will know that the people who are meeting behind closed doors at the WTO, the MAI and in the Davos talks are actually trying to pursue a common agenda.

In closing, I hope that the government listens to the constructive suggestions that have been put forth by members across political parties, that it listens to its own members and acts. The bill is not good enough. There have been constructive solutions put forward to build a strong, effective immigration policy for all Canadians.

[Correctional Service Canada, February 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member is mistaking Liberal values for Canadian values.

Let us take another example. We have Ian Gordon. What does he do? He murders his girlfriend with an axe. He goes out, teaches a course, comes back and murders two little girls with an axe. What is happening? Liberal values say that this man has to serve only two years of a maximum security sentence in a maximum facility. Where is he now? He is in a medium facility.

Maybe the member across the way would like to explain to the Canadian public and the House why this murderer is spending time in a minimum security prison and not in maximum security.

[Correctional Service Canada, February 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Maurice Boucher is a vicious gang leader. He is in jail for murdering two prison guards, yet he has two TV sets, unlimited food and his own gym.

Could the government explain to the Canadian public why a man who is convicted of killing two prison guards has these privileges while they do not? Is this Liberal justice?

[Supply, February 15th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the minister. First, 400,000 Canadians every year travel to Cuba, yet Cuba has not been invited to the summit of the Americas. In the post-Castro era which will come in the not too distant future, the exclusion of Cuba from a free trade agreement with the Americas will only contribute to the continued poverty that exists in that country. Why has Cuba been excluded from the summit in Canada?

Second, will the minister present to her counterparts in cabinet that all free trade agreements and international treaties be put in front of the relevant standing committee before they are ratified by the government?