Keith Martin

[Zimbabwe, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, Zimbabwe is in crisis. It now has one of the highest torture rates in the entire world. Half the population is starving to death, not because of inclement weather but because of a deliberately engineered famine created by Robert Mugabe to kill half of the population.

To make matters worse, Mugabe and his thugs are preventing international food aid, aid that we contribute to, from getting to the starving people. Behind this are state sponsored camps where torture, gang rape and murder are commonplace.

Our government for nearly two years has touted its African agenda, yet in the face of the genocide that is taking place right now in Zimbabwe and which will kill up to seven million people, our government has maintained a hypocritical, stony silence. Next year when the pictures on CNN show the carnage in Zimbabwe and the millions of people who needlessly lost their lives, will the Liberal government merely wring its hands or will it say “Never again” and act?

The answer is to act now. The government must act to save lives in Zimbabwe or it will be culpable in the murder of seven million people.

[Contraventions Act and Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, December 5th, 2002]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-327, an act to amend the Contraventions Act and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (marihuana).

Mr. Speaker, our current drug laws with respect to marijuana possession are a dismal failure. They are applied unevenly across the country and they simply do not work.

The bill calls for the decriminalization, not legalization, of the simple possession of marijuana in amounts less than 30 grams. This would actually affect some of the youngest people in this country. It would remove the punitive effects of the drug laws we have today and hopefully put the resources from our police forces to better use, to go after the real criminals who are the organized crime gangs which are the real parasites in society.

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

[Criminal Code, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I too compliment my colleague from South Surrey—White Rock—Langley for Bill C-280, an act to protect and prevent the trafficking of endangered species.

It is reprehensible and irresponsible for the government not to support the bill and I will get to the reasons why.

If Quebec wants to say that this infringes on provincial jurisdiction and that it will somehow harm its ability to protect and prevent the trafficking of endangered species, that too is irresponsible. It would not have a problem if it supported the bill.

The objective evidence of the problem in Quebec is the fact that 200 bear gallbladders were found and trafficking organizations were busted a month ago. Those organizations are there because the penalty is only $1,800 if one is caught, compared to the federal penalty of $150,000 and five years in jail. I ask the Bloc Quebecois and the Government of Quebec to join us in supporting this bill and in trying to convince the federal government to support it, for the reasons I will mention.

After drugs and weapons, trafficking of endangered species is the third largest illegal activity in the whole world. It amounts to anywhere between $6 billion and $11 billion a year. We do not have a handle on that and I think Canadians would be utterly shocked to know that we are one of the leading conduits in the trafficking of endangered species in the entire world. Not only are we putting at risk endangered species in our country such as peregrine falcons, Peary caribou, the Vancouver Island marmot, small amphibians and plants, but we are also endangering species throughout the world.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, the port authorities have found horns from black rhinos, Sumatran rhinos, Javanese rhinos, Bengal tiger bones and a whole swath of international species that currently are at serious risk of disappearing from the face of the world.

The trafficking of endangered species is intimately entwined with organized crime. That is why the Bloc Quebecois should support this. Organized crime gangs combine drugs with endangered species products. It has been found that 40% to 50% of all drugs also have endangered species products attached to them. Organized crime gangs are profiteering from this trafficking and we, as well as many other countries, have been unable to deal with this plague because of the huge profits.

The reasons why we have been unable to deal with it are many. People can make up to an 800% profit in trafficking an endangered species product. It is too difficult to catch. The chances of being caught are low because our monitoring is very marginal and sporadic at best. Our port authorities do not have the tools to go after organized crime gangs and penalties are too low. It is exceedingly important that the House adopt this bill as soon as possible.

People may get between $100 to $800 for a bear gallbladder. However in places like Japan they will receive several thousand dollars for that same gallbladder.

In the trafficking of live animals, only one in ten arrives alive; 90% die en route. Some are laden with cocaine and other drugs. In fact in a drug bust in Colombia snakes had been force-fed condoms filled with cocaine.

The impact internationally has been massive. Let us look at some species that we know. Up to five years ago, the Congo used to have 10,000-plus eastern lowland gorilla. Now there are fewer than 100. There is a massive poaching operation taking place in West Africa. The forest elephants, forest gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos and many others are slaughtered for their babies and for body parts. The chances of getting caught are minimal. The profits again are huge.

What must we do to deal with the trafficking? First, we must increase patrols. Second, we need more powerful and stronger penalties including jail time and heavier fines. We must decrease consumption, because the trafficking in these endangered species is driven by consumption in affluent developed countries.

On the issue of CITES, the convention on international trade in endangered species, our viewers would be shocked to know that although we are a big proponent of CITES we do not live up to our commitments. I have a private member's bill that will enable us to meet those commitments. It will be before the House in February 2003. Unfortunately the government would not make it votable, which is too bad because the bill would enable us to meet our CITES commitments.

On the issue of the importing and exporting of live animals, we must have a system of permits, both import and export. Safety norms must be established under which animals can be transported back and forth. If people were to violate those norms and not treat the animals properly, they would be subjected to a fine. I also have a bill on that.

On the commodification of wildlife, hon. members would be shocked to know that there is a massive trade in putting together species that do not belong: ligers, a combination of lions and tigers; zedonks, a combination of zebras and donkeys; and fainting goats. They are all produced for markets in North America. This is a plague and a national situation of producing species which are not normal and in fact pose a threat not only to people, but also to natural species.

On the issue of protecting endangered species, habitat protection is the most important thing that we can do. Although we have a Species at Risk Act, it has loopholes that need to be plugged.

The following three things must be done. First, the identification of endangered species must be done under objective scientific evidence and COSEWIC is the organization that should do that. That would remove politics right out of the system. Second, COSEWIC should be tasked with the identification of critical habitat. Third, there must be an obligation on the part of the federal government, the provinces and individual private owners to come together to protect critical habitat. There must be an obligation for compensation at fair market value of lost private land in the protection of habitat.

All this would require money in the end, so where should it come from? If we look at the example of a place called KwaZulu Natal in southern Africa, it managed to do this. It combined conservation and development.

There has been a singular failure in conservation. Conservationists have ignored developers and developers have ignored conservationists at their mutual peril. We must have a system where conservation sites can generate funds which can be poured back into our conservation sites and also help the people in developing countries. In Canada our conservation sites must be used to generate funds through ecotourism, but also through limited hunting of excess species.

We can generate an awful lot of money if we cull a sustainable amount of certain species, but the cull is given to hunters who are prepared to spend a lot of money to hunt those species. I am not a hunter, other than with a camera, but I can tell hon. members that those kinds of hunts generate moneys that, if poured back into the reserve, could go a long way to giving our conservation patrols and employees and our conservation sites the tools to protect those sites. Right now conservationists and Canada Parks are having a huge problem getting the funds to protect our parks. That is why our parks are having a serious problem.

The bill is critically important. The trafficking of endangered species is an international problem. Canada is not doing a good job. We must increase the penalties and increase the patrols. We must adopt racketeering, influence, and corruption charges so that they can be applied to organized crime gangs which are responsible for more than half of the trafficking of these products. This has become a $6 billion a year industry. If we were to fail, the species that we have come to know and love would be wiped off the face of the earth and we would only have ourselves to blame. In the future our children would ask us what we did to protect tigers, elephants, lions and spotted cats.

There is a multitude of species in Canada including blackbirds, grizzly bears, peregrine falcons and whooping cranes that are important to our country, our history, and indeed that of the world.

[Committees of the House, December 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, after consultation with the House leaders of all parties, I hope to find unanimous consent for Motion No. 316, which I am proposing in an effort to stop the genocide in Zimbabwe. I propose: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should approach the United Nations to establish a criminal tribunal in the Hague to charge and prosecute President Robert Mugabe and other individuals from Zimbabwe for crimes against humanity.

[Petitions, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls upon the government to make the coast guard an independent body, whose priority is the saving of lives, separate from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, with all the necessary resources for staffing and equipment, including a new hovercraft, to enable it to perform rescues of those in peril.

[Petitions, December 3rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions from my constituents in Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. The first one calls upon Parliament to protect our children by taking all necessary steps to ensure that all materials which promote or glorify pedophilia or sado-masochistic activities involving children are outlawed.

[Hiv-Aids, November 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, nothing in the history of our world will kill more people than AIDS.

I just returned from Africa and saw the devastation it is causing. With many countries having one-third of their populations HIV-positive, and with more than four million people a year dying from the disease, nothing is left in its wake except millions of orphans and eviscerated economies.

AIDS is killing Africa and yet many of its leaders refuse to even acknowledge the problem. Some, like Robert Mugabe, deliberately make things worse.

We must wage nothing short of a war against AIDS. Pressure must be applied to national leaders to acknowledge the problem, and implement critical prevention and treatment programs.

The World Health Organization must purchase the patents for essential life-extending anti-retrovirals so that they can be freely distributed in developing countries.

Inaction will lead to wide swaths of our world being without adults, without viable economies and with a sea of orphans bereft of hope. This must not be allowed to happen.

[Citizenship of Canada Act, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will continue on the line of questions that I asked the hon. parliamentary secretary.

It is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-18, an act respecting Canadian citizenship. I will deal with some specific problems the immigration department has been facing and which it has not been dealing with for a long time; issues of fundamental rights and wrongs and issues of fundamental fairness.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Langley--Abbotsford.

The first problem has to do with the admission of qualified professionals into Canada. As members know, I am a physician. However getting medical professionals into Canada, whether they are physicians in particular or other medical professionals, has been exceedingly difficult even though their qualifications meet the needs of our country.

I will give some examples. A highly competent female physician, who was trained in the U.K., has been working in northern British Columbia for more than a year. She would like to move to another part of British Columbia but all kinds of obstacles have been put in place so she cannot do that. Her husband, a highly qualified paramedic in the U.K., cannot work in Canada. As a result, both of them are leaving to go back to England. We are losing two highly qualified medical personnel who want to work in an underserviced area in Canada but cannot because the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has created all kinds of roadblocks for them.

A second example is that of a South African physician who worked in Saskatchewan for five years, and who paid taxes in British Columbia for five years. He applied for landed immigrant status. His application has gone back and forth. The department asked for more money and it said that small questions, which were irrelevant to his application, were not answered to its satisfaction. For example, the department wanted to know what he was doing between the ages of 14 and 21, and what his employment record was in his early 20s. Few people in their 40s or early 50s would know that.

Those are the obstacles that are being put in place for highly trained professionals. It is miraculous that the individual is still working as a physician in an underserviced area of northern British Columbia because he certainly has options in other areas.

A third example is that of a highly trained specialist who was trained in the United States and who wants to work in northern British Columbia. He would be the only person practising his trade in an area that deals with individuals suffering the ravages of diabetes. All kinds of obstacles have been put in front of this highly qualified individual who wants to immigrate to Canada and work in our country, even though he is licensed and trained to practise in the United States.

What kind of immigration department would put blockades in front of highly trained people who have skills that Canadians desperately need in the medical field and, I believe, in other fields? The department has to deal with this problem and it has to deal with it fairly and rapidly for the sake of everyone.

In the case of the South African physician, even though he has been paying taxes for five years, his children cannot work here. Why can his children, who are in high school and would like to work, not work in Canada even though their father has been paying taxes?

We have umpteen cases of individuals applying for landed immigrant status who simply cannot work in Canada for lengthy periods of time while their application process is taking place.

Work is an important element for people who wnat to integrate and contribute to Canadian society but the Department of Citizenship and Immigration has such ossified rules that it does not allow people to do that in our country.

What the department does allow are individuals who have been convicted of indictable offences to stay in Canada. I am shocked at the number of people who have been charged and convicted of indictable and non-indictable offences and who have been allowed to stay in Canada even though they have proven not once but a number of times to be a danger to Canadian society.

The argument put forth by the department was that we cannot deport these people because they are refugees. Obviously we have sympathy for people who are applying for refugee status, but I have no sympathy for somebody who applies for refugee status in Canada and yet breaks the laws of this country in a manner that is severe. To commit an indictable offence means to commit a very serious offence, and some of them are violent offences. These violent offenders are allowed to stay in our country. Furthermore, they are allowed to receive medical care and are covered by our medical system, while those individuals who emigrate to Canada and are working here cannot get medical coverage for their children. I do not think that is fair.

I have a couple of specific cases from my riding.

One is the case of Dhamret Inderjit Kaur. She is a young woman, married to a Canadian, who has applied and reapplied for landed immigrant status. Every time we write a letter to the department asking where her application is, the processing time has been 10 to 12 months. In the meantime, there have been a number of deaths in her family in her country of origin. She would like to go back. Her husband is here in Canada, yet the department does not allow her to go back for bereavement cases, saying that she can go if she wants to but she might not be able to get back into the country.

What kind of person, knowing that she may not be allowed back into Canada, would leave her husband in Canada to go back to see family when there has been a death in the family? It is a Catch-22 for these people and I think it is fundamentally unfair given the circumstances they find themselves in. First, she is dealing with a death in her family in her country of origin. Second, she may not be able to see her husband again because she is allowed out of the country but not allowed back in.

There is also the case of Marcus Murphy. He applied for landed immigrant status in February. We sent a request on November 1 asking about this man's landed immigrant status and asking that he be allowed to work because of extreme financial hardship. The response? It will take another 10 to 12 months to process his application. That is not right.

There is the case of Edward Mukahanana. He applied on January 31. He is a qualified graduate in financial administration. There was no word on his application. We wrote to the minister on November 4 but got no answer. He cannot work. His wife is supporting him. They are in financial hardship. Why does it take from January 31 to November 4 to not even receive an answer on the status of this gentleman's application? He is not allowed to work and therefore cannot contribute to his family and our country.

Last, there is the case of Mariyka Ferrier. She applied on July 3. On August 14 her application was returned because one answer to a question was missing. What was that question? She had failed to explain what she had been doing between the ages of 14 and 21. How is that relevant to an application for this individual? The application was resubmitted on August 27. A new process was started October 1. She is a graduate linguist and cannot work or get medical benefits. We wrote to the minister on October 29 and so far there has been no answer.

This speaks to the frustrations of all members of Parliament with respect to the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. We all want to do our job. In fact, it would help the ministry if it enabled us to do our job by having a hot line we could call so that we could get answers rapidly for our constituents and deal with their immigration problems.

Second, it would also help to allow people and their children to work while they are waiting for landed immigrant status to be determined. It is good for them and it is good for Canada. They would be contributing to our country not only in terms of manpower but also in terms of taxes. Their contributions to our country would enable them to integrate and engage in our multicultural society, of which we are very proud.

In closing, I will say with respect to Bill C-18 that there are some good things and some bad things about it. What is good is that the revocation of citizenship is long overdue and this does get it into the hands of the Federal Court. I compliment the hon. member from the government who gave up his position as parliamentary secretary to make a stand on the issue. He is a courageous person who did the right thing for the right reasons and that should be known.

However, on the issue of adoption in the bill, why the government would allow people to adopt adults we can only surmise, but we are fundamentally opposed to that. Rather than allowing people to adopt adults, we should allow them to adopt children instead.

[Citizenship of Canada Act, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, of all the vexing problems that we as members of Parliament have to deal with in our ridings, one of the toughest is our ability to advocate for our constituents in terms of immigration issues.

I have a couple of questions for the hon. member. First, why is there no hotline for members of Parliament that would enable us to work with the department to solve some of the immigration problems we have?

At the end of June of this year the department changed the rules without informing anybody, especially the people applying for landed immigrant status. Applications that were received a couple of days after the end of June changeover were immediately returned without including the money. It was completely unfair that people were asked to endure and to go through the same process again.

Is the member willing to put in a window of opportunity, like a grandfather clause, so that those people who applied before the end of June of this year would have their applications dealt with as per the rules and regulations that existed in the first half of this year?

[National Defence, November 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have a message for the defence minister. Defending our borders is not a low priority. This is not a small problem; it is acute.

I am asking and pleading with the defence minister as we all are. It is not only us. Our military personnel are also asking the minister because they are deeply worried that we cannot protect our shoreline.

My question is simply this: In this age of terrorism, will the minister stand up, be counted, and put the investment back in our navy so that it does not have to ground our ships and leave our borders undefended?