Leon Benoit

[Petitions, June 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am honoured to present concerns the children of divorced and divorcing parents.

The petition states that no parent should ever lose legal custody of a child, or by legal process be denied adequate parenting time unless there has been due process to determine that the parent is unfit. This is signed by petitioners from my constituency.

[Petitions, June 2nd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions today from constituents. The first petition is with regard to marriage.

The petitioners are expressing parliament's responsibility to ensure that marriage remains defined as it always has been which is the union of a single, unmarried male and a single, unmarried female.

[Petitions, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to present a petition on behalf of the constituency of Lakeland requesting that public funds being designated as grants to individuals or groups be more carefully scrutinized. The petitioners refer particularly to the $98,000 granted to the Montreal publisher Edimag for the 500 best dumb blonde jokes. My constituents do not feel that this is an appropriate use of taxpayers' money and they ask that the government withdraw this grant and disallow similar grants in the future.

[Canadian Armed Forces, May 31st, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate being given this time. I had not planned to speak on this motion but after listening to the last member speak, I thought I should make some comments.

I was surprised by the way the member for Ottawa Centre spoke against the motion. I have had members from my party speak against it from the point of view that they do not want political interference in the process of making decisions on contracts. The motion reads:

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should have a standing committee of the House of Commons hold public hearings on every proposed procurement of goods or services by the Canadian Armed Forces valued at more than $100 million, in order to ensure that the procurement process is transparent and fair to all concerned.

It does not say that the standing committee would make decisions on whether the contract would go ahead; it says that it would make the process more transparent. From that point of view, I will speak in favour of the motion. I am going to speak in favour of it for two reasons.

First, looking at the committee structure and the value of House of Commons committees, there is a need for a pretty dramatic change. Last year the Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, and I was a member of that committee, did a study on the quality of life in the Canadian forces. We listened to members of the forces, members in the community and people who were interested in the Canadian armed forces. I do not feel that the report that was presented at the end of this extensive process represented what was heard.

Second, even though that report was presented and even though it was not anywhere near complete and in a lot of areas it did not reflect what we had heard, it was pretty much ignored. I do not expect that in the end there will be much done about that at all.

Having the function of scrutinizing the procurement process in the forces of contracts over $100 million would be a very important role for that committee. It would increase the value of the committee. The committees are not very useful right now. Often a lot of good work is done but very little happens as a result. In this case the committee could serve a very important role.

I am sure opposition members and even some government members would ask important questions about the procurement procedure in particular contracts. Those questions may well spark a more intensive study by the auditor general. In some cases where the information is damning enough, it may cause the defence department to back off or reissue certain contracts.

An important function of the committees should be to carefully scrutinize the spending of taxpayers' dollars. That is not happening enough right now. Even when it does happen through the estimates and bringing ministers before the committee and so on, often the quality of the scrutiny is not good enough and it is pretty much ignored anyway. So what it is the purpose?

In this case that function would be worthwhile. It would be valuable because issues surrounding the contracts would be brought to the attention of the government, the department, the auditor general and most important, the public.

I congratulate the member brought forward Motion No. 73. It is certainly not enough but I will support the motion as far as it goes. It makes a lot of sense.

I am concerned that the member for Ottawa Centre spoke out against this further scrutiny. It cannot be provided properly by any other body, or at least it has not been. He spoke out against it as something that would be of little value. Maybe the member is not looking at how ineffective House of Commons committees have become, particularly in this parliament. In the last parliament the committees functioned better. They were given a larger role than they had before, but that has been taken away.

As the Reform critic for immigration and as a member of the immigration committee, I certainly know the value of that committee has been reduced very dramatically. I question whether it is worth going to the meetings. That is how ineffective that committee has become.

Other members from all parties, including the government party, have indicated that a lot of committees are like that now. They have lost their value, which is unfortunate. House of Commons committees could truly be the place where the useful background and detailed work could be done. It could help to improve legislation. The legislation would be debated in the House of Commons. It would be better quality legislation.

Clearly it is a deliberate move on the part of the government to make sure the committees do not work like that. Their value has been reduced dramatically. This is one way we could improve the quality of whatever committee would perform that function. Probably it would be the defence committee.

Personally, I would like to see this motion pass. I encourage all members to look at it. It does not say that there would be political interference in the decision. The role of the committee would be to bring important considerations that otherwise might be missed to the forefront and to the attention of the public.

I appreciate having had the time to make this presentation. I encourage other members to allow this change to take place. It would increase the value of that committee. It would allow the committee to do something important, which would be very hard for government and for the defence department to ignore. This kind of motion is to be applauded.

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

Madam Speaker, I am pleased indeed to speak to this bill today. I would like to repeat what the motions we are debating in Group No. 1 are about. Several of the amendments that are proposed in this group were presented by Reform. These motions deal pretty much with accountability.

One would find it hard to understand why the government would not support these amendments which would lead to more openness and more accountability on the part of government. Some of the things being asked are things which one would think any government would find acceptable.

For example, Motion No. 4 would force the board of directors of the PSPIB to establish and maintain contact on an ongoing basis with actuaries of each fund. That is something that I think we would find to be not only acceptable, but we would expect it to be part of the legislation. We have to wonder why it is not.

Motion No. 8 would force the government to lay before parliament a copy of the appointment establishing the chairperson of the PSPIB. I do not think the government should vote against this amendment. All we are asking for is a reasonable degree of openness in this regard.

Motion No. 11, which again is a Reform amendment, is similar to Motion No. 2, except that it would deal specifically with the investment committee of the board and not the board as a whole. Again it is asking for more accountability.

With Motion No. 16 all we are asking for is openness and accountability. I do not believe that this government should oppose these amendments. This motion would force an act of parliament to be passed in order for changes to be made to the contribution rates.

Bill C-78 currently reads that rates are determined by the Treasury Board on the recommendation of the minister. Why on something this important, affecting this many Canadians, would it be done in the backrooms? Indeed, why should this process not come before parliament so that it would be a very open and transparent process?

I can ask the questions, but it is up to the government to provide the answers. It is not providing the answers. Not only is it not providing the answers to the questions that we are asking on these issues, it is also going to invoke closure or time allocation on this legislation and it will not allow debate.

I think it is important to talk about that and the process that this government has used. I believe it has invoked time allocation 51 times. It has become routine in a way that we have never seen with any government before, even the hated Mulroney government. We know how Canadians felt about the Mulroney government by the time it was near the end of its second term. Even the Mulroney government did not abuse the use of closure and time allocation the way this government has. It has set a new standard and it is not a standard about which it should proud. It is a standard about which the government should be completely ashamed. I will talk more about that a little later.

One of the big concerns about this legislation, which has been expressed several times before, is that the government is proposing to rob the public service pension plan of $30 billion. It wants to take $30 billion out of the public service pension plan. That is completely unacceptable.

It is hard to understand how a government which talks like it supports the public service can propose this kind of action. It is really hard to understand. We do not understand it, except when we look at the record over the past five years. When we look at the record of the government we see tax increase after tax increase after tax increase. It has balanced the budget, eliminated the deficit, on the basis of tax increases. The revenue is up somewhere over $25 billion per year from the time the Liberals took office. There have been incredible increases in the amount of taxation.

Some of the increase is due to growth in the economy, but much of it is due to tax increases. Frankly, I lost track after the first several dozen tax increases of just how many there have been, but the number is certainly substantial.

Now we have a balanced budget due to the increase in taxes. We would think that the tax grab would stop. Not only has the tax grab not stopped, now the government is trying to rob the public service pension plan of $30 billion besides the incredible tax burden it has put on people.

We have the public service pension plan and the people involved in it treated in this way. What about other Canadians? What we have seen from this government with regard to pensions of other Canadians over the five years that we have been here is a record about which it ought not to be proud. We have seen reductions in pensions to seniors that have caused hardship to many of the seniors involved. Such reductions in pensions to seniors, one of the most vulnerable groups in our society, is completely unacceptable.

We have seen Canada pension plan premiums increase by 73% and that probably will not be the end of it. It is a plan that can offer a maximum of $8,800 a year to someone upon retirement, yet we are looking at 10% of income which will be put into the premiums in this plan. That is an unacceptable development. Reform has proposed an alternative to this proposal put forward by the government which would offer Canadians, especially young Canadians, but all Canadians, a much better return on their pension plan dollars.

So far that has been rejected by the government. Instead it tries to take $30 billion out of the public service pension plan, and it will be successful. I can stand here right now and say that it will be successful. The reason is that we do not have a functioning democracy in this House.

I have been spending a lot of time lately in Toronto working with new immigrant groups and people from new immigrant communities. Several have commented that what they see in our government in Canada is not a properly functioning democracy but is more like an elected dictatorship. These are not concepts I have heard first from these people. I have heard them from people across the country. However, they are comparing Canada to democracies in which they have lived, come from or seen. They are comparing our Canadian political system to political systems from other countries, and ours does not compare in a positive way to democracies in other countries.

Part of what those people see that leads them to the conclusion that we have an elected dictatorship rather than a well-functioning democracy is the number of times time allocation and closure have been used in the House of Commons. I believe they have been used 51 times. With the government invoking time allocation on this bill, which, mark my words, it will, it will be 52. Is that a democracy functioning as it should? I think not. Those people have recognized that and they are very concerned about it.

I would encourage the government to stop using time allocation and closure as a routine way of forcing legislation through the House of Commons. It is forced through for two main reasons. The first reason is to stop a debate from developing across the country on these important issues. These issues are kept within the confines of this House. There is not enough debate across the country to really have a healthy, open debate, involving all Canadians. Second, the Prime Minister and his very small group who run this country use time allocation so the policies and changes they want will pass. Then they use their whips to whip their members into line.

We are going to see that again with this legislation. Mark my words. Watch the voting record on the groups of amendments we are debating today. We will see that all government members will vote the way they are told to vote. No matter what they believe is right, they will vote the way they are told to vote. That is wrong. I think they should be ashamed of themselves.

[Agriculture, May 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, spring is here and farmers in Lakeland constituency have started seeding the 1999 crop. Many have been dealing with the fallout from the worst drought in recent history and again are planting into dry soil. They are faced with low prices due to unfair European and U.S. subsidies and unfair import restrictions into Asian markets.

For eight long years the Reform Party has promoted its policy of creating a trade distortion adjustment program which would use part of the capitalized value of the Crow rate subsidy to create a fund to compensate farmers for this type of financial loss.

The Liberal response was to announce a $900 million compensation program which was supposed to be delivered to all farmers before seeding began. Show me the money. In my riding where the disaster is the worst I have yet to hear that a single grain farmer has received a cheque from this $900 million program. Why does this government routinely make promises it has no intention of keeping?

[Kosovo Refugees, May 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, today I am proud to be a Canadian. This is the day our country will accept the first flight carrying over 200 refugees from Kosovo.

After an assessment of refugee camps in countries neighbouring Kosovo, our Minister of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations have determined that refugees must be removed from these camps to relieve pressure due to deteriorating conditions.

We must trust that this assessment is reliable. Soon those hundreds and thousands of Canadians who eagerly volunteered to open their homes and their hearts to these unfortunate people will be allowed to act on their generosity.

In a very direct and personal way I want to thank them all for giving in such a meaningful way. Today I am proud to be a Canadian, a citizen of a country whose people can be counted on to extend a helping hand when help is truly needed.

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I certainly am very pleased and thank the House for the unanimous consent to extend the question and comment period. This is an extremely sensitive situation and an extremely important issue of debate.

The Prime Minister expressed support for Canadians accelerating the conflict in the Balkans in two ways: first by the possibility of putting an embargo in place and second by sending Canadian troops to the area.

My question is for the Minister of National Defence. Are we in fact at war now? Has the government now decided that Canada is at war and, if not, should the decision of whether Canada goes to war be made by the executive branch of government or by parliament, by all members of the House?

The second question has to do with the chief of defence staff. We are sending 800 troops to the area. They are going as peacekeepers. The minister said that. However, with the acceleration of the conflict, it is quite possible that these troops could be involved in full combat before this situation is over.

Does the minister have assurance from the chief of defence staff, the person who would make decisions about the capability of our troops and whether they are properly equipped, that if it becomes a full combat situation Canadian troops can in fact meet the obligations that NATO will place on them?

[Supply, April 27th, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Because of the extra sense of urgency, the even added sense of urgency that has come about as a result of the Prime Minister's statement, I seek unanimous consent of the House to extend the question and comment period by five minutes.

[Criminal Code, April 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the bill today. I too would like to give credit to the two Reform members, the hon. member for Langley—Abbotsford and the hon. member for Surrey North, for all the work they have done in leading up to the legislation being presented.

As others have already said, the legislation will not go nearly as far as it should in terms of providing victims their rights. To demonstrate that, I want to read one of the most touching letters I have ever received from a constituent. This person was the victim of a heinous crime. I will read as much of this letter as I can and use it to demonstrate that there are still some huge gaps in legislation that must be filled to deal with situations such as this one.

This letter is from Linda Ryan of Lloydminister, Alberta, and I received it about a year ago. She wrote:

I am writing this letter in regard to the parole hearing of Jack Edgar. I am aware that Jack will receive a copy of this letter. I am asking that the parole board members take my letter and the enclosed documents into consideration in making a decision regarding Jack's application for parole.

I will just interject by saying that this woman desperately wanted to make a verbal petition to the parole board not to allow Jack Edgar to be released on parole. She went on to write:

On August 18, 1985 Jack Edgar murdered my mother and my aunt and that act changed my life forever. That act began my life sentence of fear, grief and betrayal. This man was my stepfather. A man who portrayed a caring, loving father, grandfather, uncle and son-in-law. Although in hindsight, I can see the cracks in his facade.

She goes on to talk about the impact of this murder committed by her stepfather against her mother and the impact on her daughter. In part she wrote:

It was a very long time before my little girl began to heal. She, too, carries a life sentence of grief and fear and betrayal. My children have missed so much. They had a right to all the love these two special people had to give them. My heart aches for the part of my children's lives they are missing. They also had a right to a mom who was not incapacitated by grief and to a family that was whole. It has taken a great deal of courage to survive this and make a life for my family. I have struggled to regain my optimism in life, to trust people and my ability to judge character; to maintain a sense of humour. I have done this for my children, for my mom and for my aunt. They would want this, as these are qualities they instilled in me.

The letter was written to the head of the parole board who was to hear the parole hearing which may have released Jack Edgar, the person who murdered her mother and aunt. She continued:

I know I can't predict what Jack will do, no one can, perhaps not even Jack himself. I do know I cannot live my life and raise my children with “what if's”. I cannot imagine being able to stay here in my home, near my family if Jack is released. I have not slept through an entire night since Nellie Taylor called to tell me he is applying for parole. The thought of him being released terrifies me. I live each and every day with what he did to them, their terror, their helplessness. That is enough. I should not have to live in fear of what he may do next. Releasing Jack is a violation of my right to safety. My fears are real and grounded and shared by many.

She goes on to list people who are also terrified at the thought of this person being paroled and who would see it as extremely important to have a say at the parole hearing. She wrote:

Money, power and position were always crucial to Jack, for his sense of self-worth. If Jack is released, there will be no money, no power, no position. The “important” people will no longer be there for him. He is a convicted double murderer. I fear he is a man with little to lose.

For the sake of time I will omit parts of what she had to say. I want to read a bit more about what she feels about this person that she desperately wants to remain in jail, this person who killed her mother and her aunt. She continued:

There is, however, another side to Jack Edgar which no one can predict.

In the paragraph before she talked about Jack and the impression he had left on people in the prison. She indicated:

I know from reading letters from the prison that Jack is highly regarded and is viewed to have many good qualities. This does not surprise me as Jack is a highly polished con artist and he has a way of gaining people's trust.

There is however another side to Jack Edgar which no one can predict. It enabled him to slaughter my Mom and my Aunt while they sobbed on their hands and knees. He did this with no regard for their lives, no regard for the agony he would cause for their families. His needs came first and he did not care who he destroyed to get what he wanted. This side of Jack is still there. He was 57 years old when he committed the murders and his character was cemented.

Over the years, in my conversations with the National Parole Board, I know that Jack has never taken any responsibility nor has he shown any remorse for the brutal murders of my Mom and my Aunt. I believe that Jack's recent admittance of “some” responsibility for the murders is directly related to his desire to obtain his freedom. I think Jack is a man with little conscience and his only remorse is for himself and his situation.

I realize that nothing will ever bring my Mom and my Aunt back, but a mere 6.5 years each of the loss of Jack's freedom is an insult to their memory.

I am asking that you deny parole for Jack, for the safety of myself, my family—

Then she named some other people. She continued:

I ask that if an error is to be made let it be made on the side of caution.

Those are some excerpts from a letter which unfortunately is in a file of about a dozen victims of extremely serious crime from whom I have heard.

The question is whether the bill we are debating today will in any way do anything to provide what this woman, a victim of a heinous crime, wants. She wants to be able to go to a parole hearing and to say what is in her heart, what she feels and what she lives with every day, so that she can put some kind of closure to the whole situation. She wants to feel safe in knowing that this person will probably never be released. That is what she wants. She wants to be able to read that impact statement herself at a parole hearing.

Unfortunately the legislation does not provide for that. It does nothing to provide for that. There is some word that legislation will be coming to deal with corrections and conditional release. That of course would deal with this issue, but it would make sense that it should be in place before this legislation is debated.

Let us make sure this is only considered by the government to be the first step. Let us carry forth and do a lot more to help victims of crime.