Keith Martin

[National Defence, May 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that the hon. Deputy Prime Minister look at the auditor general's report which excoriated the government for underfunding the military.

If the government continues to underfund the military, what it will do is compromise the lives of the brave men and women who are in Yugoslavia right now and the ones who may go there in the future. From the Griffon helicopter to the Coyote armoured personnel carrier, the equipment is not good enough to protect our troops.

I ask again the hon. Deputy Prime Minister, will the government send troops to the former Yugoslavia when our troops may be putting their lives in danger through the government's actions?

[National Defence, May 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the last chief of defence staff warned the government that the Canadian forces was undermanned, underequipped and not able to fight a war.

The current chief of defence staff is warning the government that our forces are stretched to the limit and that we are unable to increase our personnel in the Kosovo mission. The Minister of National Defence, however, is saying that he is still prepared to commit troops to the former Yugoslavia. Why is the defence minister ignoring the advice of his own chief of defence staff and the last chief of defence staff in wanting to send more troops to the former Yugoslavia?

[Public Works Canada, May 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca Public Works Canada, through this Liberal government, is ripping off the taxpayers of Esquimalt.

Public Works has deliberately changed the values of government lands causing them to be undervalued deliberately. This is causing a great deal of problems in my riding. They are saying that CFB Esquimalt is going to be closing in three years. That is news to everyone but the people in my riding.

This has resulted in an increase in municipal taxes of 8% within one year by virtue of the government yanking away grants in lieu of taxes, which it did within a couple of months. This is grossly unfair. It has resulted in an 8% increase in municipal taxes. The municipality cannot balance its budget in that period of time.

The feds need to give the municipalities at least a one year notice. It needs to value the land fairly on the basis of what the B.C. assessment has done and stop trying to rip off the taxpayer in another way.

[Criminal Code, May 28th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-79 at report stage.

I commend the member for Surrey North for the leadership he has taken to ensure that victims have a right and a say within our justice system. They have been ignored for too long. As the member is often prone to say, victims need a voice, not a veto which is unfortunately what has happened.

I want to focus on Motion No. 2. It deals with the issue of victim surcharges. This is innovative. Not only will it help victims, but it will also help those who have committed offences.

Essentially it asks that a young offender who has been convicted of a crime provide restitution to the victims. Why is this important? For one thing from a victim's perspective, too often victims have been ignored in our criminal justice system. They have been shunted to the side. I could give countless examples of victims who have received less help than the criminals who have committed the offences.

There are countless cases of children who have been abused, women and men who have been raped, people who have been assaulted. They have sustained long term ongoing devastating psychological trauma from what they have endured, yet after all is said and done within the justice system, the criminals have received more help than the victims. That simply is not fair.

My colleague from Surrey North is trying to add some balance and fairness so that victims get the help they require through our system. It also places the onus upon the criminal. If a person commits an offence, they will pay a price not only to society, but also to the victim. There are some innovative ways of doing this.

In my province of British Columbia there are some innovative ways in which the convicted person can, if the victim is in agreement, pay restitution directly to the victim. The convicted person can also say that he or she is sorry and pay some visible and vocal emotional restitution to the victim.

The benefit is it enables the victim to understand that the person who has been convicted is genuinely sorry. It also has been found to diminish the number of times the convicted person commits future offences. In other words, it breaks the cycle of crime and punishment we have found in our society. So often it goes around and around in a circle.

Motion No. 2 is very important from a restitution perspective. It is important to give victims rights. It is important from the convicted person's perspective to show that if a person commits an offence, there will be a penalty to pay. In the long term it has been shown to decrease the amount of times the person reoffends. It decreases the reoffence rate. It also decreases the costs to the taxpayer in that it diverts the convicted person from the expensive incarceration in juvenile institutions. It costs $95,000 a year for a juvenile to be incarcerated in an institution.

If we could divert those convicted to do other things such as making restitution to the victim and society and working for society as part of the penalty, then the criminal would actually learn some very useful skills. It would be beneficial to the criminal from a societal perspective, from a professional perspective and would decrease the number of times the criminal would reoffend in the future.

It is a win-win situation. We applaud this motion and support it. We look forward to speaking again at the third reading stage of Bill C-79.

[National Defence, May 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the government does not have a plan. It is continually following on the tails of the Americans.

There have been serious accusations on the part of the auditor general and the department of defence saying that the equipment our soldiers have to engage in this is less than adequate. How can the minister tell the House that he is confident in the capabilities of our soldiers and their equipment when they do not have the equipment to do the job?

[National Defence, May 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, NATO is planning on beefing its force in the former Yugoslavia to 50,000 troops. The defence minister is continually sending mixed messages as to whether or not we are going to participate in that troop involvement prior to a peace agreement.

My question is very simple. Is Canada going to send troops into this force in advance of a peace agreement, yes or no?

[Legalization Of Marijuana For Health And Medical Reasons, May 25th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the bill relates to something that is at the forefront of a number of people's minds. It deals with the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Tragically there are a number of people in our country who are suffering from debilitating diseases or are in the process of dying who need hospice care and therapeutics to relieve their suffering. In some cases we have been unable to prevent the suffering they endure in their dying moments or in their time of need and some of those people have turned toward smoking marijuana to relieve that suffering.

We do not know if the effects of marijuana consumed under those conditions are due to a medical or therapeutic effect due to the intrinsic pharmaceutical property of marijuana or whether this is a placebo effect. As a physician, I personally do not care. In my view, if somebody is dying they should be able to participate in whatever it takes to relieve their suffering as long as it does not hurt anybody else.

We have no interest in legalizing marijuana or any other currently illegal drug for general consumption. Some would disagree, but the reason for this is that there is an overwhelming body of evidence to show that marijuana is a harmful drug.

There are over 200 substances within marijuana. Some of those substances do have a detrimental effect to a person's functioning in the short term and in the long term. This is particularly profound among children who sustain cognitive disabilities as a result of the chronic consumption of marijuana. We have no interest whatsoever in furthering that. In fact, we would like to prevent it. The bill deals with the medical use of marijuana.

The government needs to work with the medical community and stakeholders to ensure there is a well defined group of people allowed to use marijuana under certain conditions. We do not want this to become a loophole whereby people can say they have a headache and need to take marijuana.

I congratulate the Minister of Health for asking the Department of Health to undertake studies on the medical effects of marijuana under these circumstances. We would like to do our best to ensure people are taking substances based on good medical science and not for other reasons.

Another problem in our country is how we are dealing with the overall drug consumption. We tend to try to manage these problems rather than to prevent them. I have spent quite a bit of time working in drug rehabilitation and detox centres. What we are doing right now by and large simply does not work. Our response to the terrible problems that drugs are inflicting on our society is to try to prevent this when teenagers are doing it or when adults are doing it. We try to deal with the management of the problem rather than dealing with children very early on in trying to prevent it.

We, along with other countries, invest a lot of money internationally trying to deal with the countries that are producing it. We try to deal with the peasants in Columbia and in southeast Asia who are producing and growing poppies in order to get money to put bread on their tables. Who can argue with these very poor people who want to be able to grow these drugs in order to survive? I would argue that most people in similar circumstances, being faced with abject poverty and an inability to care for themselves and their families, would do whatever it took to ensure that occurs.

To invest money on that side is a losing proposition and we have been unsuccessful. We spend a lot of money dealing with the producers of drugs rather than dealing with the demand. We and other countries must focus more on preventing the consumption within our own countries of illegal substances such as pot, heroin, cocaine, Ritalin, T's and R's and a kaleidoscope of illegal drugs used by many people. If we put more money into prevention to deal with the demand within our own country the supply would have to dry up. If nobody would want to consume the substances production would have to stop. Rather than investing huge amounts of money in drug interdiction in other countries like Columbia, Burma and others, we need to look closer to home and try to deal with our consumption.

We found out that if we start dealing with children very early on when they are eight to ten years of age, we will get the best bang for our buck. Dealing with children early on will have the most profound effect on our future ability to prevent children and therefore adults from consuming drugs. The head start program has had a profound effect in parts of our country, in particular in Moncton, New Brunswick, and in other parts of the world such as Ypsilanti, Michigan and Hawaii. The Minister of Labour has been a leader in pursuing this as has the secretary of state for youth who has taken a very big interest in this issue and has pursued it with great vigour.

If we all get behind the concept of a national head start program that uses existing resources, we can start dealing with children in the first eight years of life. We will deal not only with consumptive practices in teenagers and adults, but we will also try to address the very important issue of fetal alcohol syndrome, fetal alcohol effects and the effect of drug consumption while a woman is pregnant. This is no small problem. The leading cause of preventable brain damage in our country is fetal alcohol syndrome. It is epidemic.

The problems for people suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome cannot be understated. These people have an average IQ of 68. They have physical deformities. They have a number of other problems such as cognitive deficiencies. When children who have FAS of FAE go to school, their ability to interact with their peers, to study in school and to concentrate is marred forever. They have irreversible brain damage.

When the child tries to interact at school teachers are often ill equipped and under tasked to deal with them. The child becomes marginalized. The child does not get the help the little one needs and progressively becomes more isolated. Developmental and behavioural problems occur which can manifest themselves not only in behavioural problems at school but also tragically can lead to drug consumption and criminal behaviour.

It is a terrible vicious cycle which is very difficult to break. Imagine if that cycle could be broken and the child's brain had never been damaged by being subjected to alcohol and drugs in utero. The child would have a fighting chance and could potentially be on a much more level playing field.

I implore the government to look at the national head start program. Look at what the Minister of Labour has done. Look at what the Secretary of State for Children and Youth is doing on this issue. Work with members across party lines to prevent social problems rather than to manage them. The benefits of doing this are dramatic on a number of levels. They found a 50% reduction in youth crime and a 40% reduction in teen pregnancies which is a one-way route for poverty usually for both the mom and the child. They found a massive decrease in welfare. Children stayed in school longer.

In short, the head start program dealing with existing resources, strengthening the parent-child bond, teaching parents how to be good parents, learning the importance of play, discipline, setting boundaries, ensuring that children's basic needs are met, the importance of nutrition for a growing child all sound basic, but members would be surprised how many communities across the country lack them. We have to address this now. The longer we do not deal with the preventative aspects for children in the first eight years of life, the longer we will have the tragic situations we see in so many communities today.

In closing, the motion is a good one. It needs to be applied to the medicinal use of marijuana. We would like to see medical studies to substantiate this. We would also like to ensure that this is not going to be a route to legalizing marijuana which we are opposed to.

[Organ Donor Registry, May 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, last Friday the government member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam introduced a private member's bill to establish a national organ donor registry.

This is completely consistent with a Reform private member's motion passed in October 1997 and a Reform opposition minority report released last month articulating constructive solutions to address the crisis taking place right now in our organ donor system, which is causing the death of over 150 Canadians every year.

The national registry of intended donors will only work if it is implemented with other changes, including an opportunity to be a donor every year and if intended donors discuss their wishes with family members.

These and other solutions are in Reform's opposition report. The government has the report. It is a plan of action. The work has been done. We do not need more studies. We do not need to spend more time on this issue. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. We need to act.

Since government members obviously support the idea of a national organ donor registry, I urge the Minister of Health to act today to save lives.

[Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act, May 11th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the Group No. 1 amendments to Bill C-78.

This bill goes to the heart of an issue that is very important to many constituents in the ridings of all members in the House. It concerns individuals in the military, members of the RCMP, approximately 300,000 retirees, and nearly one-third of a million people in other public service activities. We oppose the bill, not for the sake of opposition but on some very important ground.

We need to go back in history. The pension plan was constructed a number of years ago. It was based on interest rates, inflation and salary increases. As a result of a combination of those factors we see now a substantial and marked surplus within the pension plan.

The government wants to take the pension surplus and put it into general revenues to use as it sees fit. Does that surplus in that pension plan belong to the government? No, it does not. The surplus belongs to the people who paid into the plan. Furthermore, the money that was put into it does not belong to the government. It belongs to the taxpayers.

Rather than taking the money away from the people who contributed it, a better way of dealing with it would be to lower the contributions they have to make without changing the amount of money they would get back. Although the pension plan is enjoying a surplus at this point in time, that has not always been the case. If we look back in history, when there has been a shortfall the taxpayer has been on the lam for putting $13 billion into the plan to pay it off.

While we are enjoying a surplus at this point in time, this will probably not be the case in the future. Interest rates will not always be as low as they are now. Nor will inflation. Although there has been a salary freeze for the last eight years at least, salaries will go up and have gone up. That will translate into an obligation on the part of the scheme to pay out more pension money.

We should maintain that surplus. It would be a buffer to ensure that the taxpayer will not have to put in more money at the end of the game to buttress the plan.

We as a party would like to speak to a number of other issues regarding the bill. One such issue is privatization. Previously the government put the contributions of workers into low interest bearing but safe rates of return vehicles. That money could also be put into vehicles that are safe but generate larger amounts of money. The bill does that, and this is what we support.

We only hope the government will do the same with the CPP. All of us who put money into the CPP know that it goes into something which generates a very small amount of return. It would be far better to put it into the market, into higher interest bearing and safe vehicles. We applaud that.

On the issue of same sex benefits, my colleague put forth a very eloquent solution to the thorny issue of what people may or may not be doing behind closed doors. My colleague mentioned something called a designated partnership.

A designated partnership could be with a brother, a sister, a family member or a friend. Both parties would be engaged in a reciprocal relationship and have reciprocal responsibility. For example, two sisters could live together for a long period of time and take care of each other. If one of them were to pass away, why should the remaining sister not benefit from her deceased sister's pension?

Obviously it was a reciprocal, long term relationship, a long term commitment between two people. This would be fair and would enable people in long term relationships to give their pensions to someone who has taken care of them in a reciprocal fashion. It would get rid of the ridiculous discussions and the thorny legal descriptions of what people may or may not be engaging in, in their personal lives.

If we take that out of the picture, the concept of a designated partnership would be fair to a wider variety of Canadians who engage in living conditions which are far more inclusive than what we have been discussing the last while.

PSAC has been very adamant about not supporting the bill. It has been in strong opposition to it because of the way it treats workers with respect to the government's plan to pocket the $30.1 billion surplus. It wants to use that surplus to pad its surpluses and tell the public it is doing a better job than it actually is in terms of how it is managing the country's finances.

We could do some very constructive work in terms of looking at what the government is trying to do with this surplus. The surplus is being reorganized in a very questionable fashion. Accountants would call it a questionable accounting practice, which enables the government to take $30 billion through subterfuge and put it into something it should not be in. It is taking it away from the workers who have earned money and put it into the plan. It is taking it from the workers and putting it somewhere else.

We are thankful the military managed to get a raise. We applaud the government for doing that. However, the working and living conditions of many people in the military have not changed substantially. In Victoria the cost of living is very high. Men and women who work for the military have a very difficult problem making ends meet, particularly in terms of accommodation. Three years ago we proposed a plan to the then minister of defence, General Dallaire, and the assistant deputy ministers involved which would enable military personnel to live more comfortably.

The plan involved making the accommodation assistance allowance applicable to all people in the military. The accommodation assistance allowance would be non-taxable. The rents that were increased egregiously, even though salaries were frozen, would be rolled back to the point in time when they were frozen. Although they have had an increase in salary, it pales in comparison to the rent increases that have occurred for their homes.

Another thing can be done to make life a little better and more comfortable for hardworking men and women in uniform. They could enable the base commanders to have more power and control over the economics of their bases. They could find some ingenious and innovative ways to generate funds for people on bases.

Historically the RCMP has not been the best paid police force in the country. Neither does it want to be, but it wants to be paid fairly. RCMP wages have plummeted to the bottom of the barrel. The way in which its salaries have been calculated has changed over the last few years.

The government has a different method of calculating the salaries of the RCMP officers so that they are now among the lowest paid police officers in the country. I implore the solicitor general and the minister of finance to pay the RCMP a salary that is at least in the middle with respect to other police forces in the country. They would find that to be fair and reasonable, given the economic circumstances we as a country are in today.

Members of the RCMP do not have the finances for the tools of their job. As we saw in my province of British Columbia, they do not even have money to put their cars back on the road after having been bashed up. They do not have the money to prosecute serious criminals. As a result serious criminals, particularly people in organized crime, are being let out and not being prosecuted, convicted and put behind bars. The reason is that the resources are not there for them to do the job.

Many RCMP officers and other police officers across the country are working for free because they feel compelled or obligated to put criminals behind bars. Unfortunately the government is not giving them the power, the resources and the tools to do their job.

I strongly urge the government to listen to the suggestions of members from this party and others and to implement them for the benefit of people who work in the public service.

[An Act To Amend The Contraventions Act And The Controlled Drugs And Substances Act (Marijuana), April 26th, 1999]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-503, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (marijuana).

Mr. Speaker, this bill seeks to decriminalize, not legalize, the simple possession of marijuana. The reason is quite simple. In our justice system today, the resources our police have to do their job and to prosecute are severely limited. In my province of British Columbia six courts have been closed. As a result, serious offences like rape and assault are not being prosecuted to the fullest extent.

This bill is intended to seek a fine for those who are found with simple possession. That money could then be used to engage in prevention. It could be put into education programs for children. We could deal with prevention and substance abuse issues.

I am happy to introduce this bill which is being supported by the Canadian Police Association.

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