Leon Benoit

[Immigration, November 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Immigration.

Canada's intelligence agency, CSIS, has reported that money raised by a Tamil group in Canada has been used to fund a terrorist group, the Tamil Tigers.

Mr. Suresh, a refugee in Canada since 1991, has been identified as a leader of the Tamil Tigers and in spite of the fact that he was ordered deported he still walks the streets of Toronto today. Why?

[Manitoba Claim Settlements Implementation Act, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know anything about this member's reference to a former Reform researcher being involved in some sinister kind of organization. It does not sound like something a Reform researcher would be involved in.

What we have heard from this member today is some of the most despicable kind of mud slinging I have ever heard. I have heard a lot of it before coming from across the floor, but I do not think I have ever heard anything any worse than that.

He virtually used all the ism words that he could imagine without saying them directly. I think the kind of tactic used by this member is what is killing fair and proper debate in the House of Commons and across the country.

He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself. For him to imply that Reform is trying to do anything but help aboriginal people completely ignores the truth. I hope the member would stand and apologize when he gets the next opportunity, because it is a despicable approach to take to debate in the House and he should be ashamed of himself.

I would like to refer to one of the member's comments. He thought I sounded like I was saying that all chiefs and councils across the country were corrupt. I do not believe that is the case, although we did hear from all eight reserves in the Lakeland constituency of very serious claims about money not being allocated properly. Whether that constitutes corruption or not I guess is a matter for debate.

In many cases it is very clear that there was corruption because the audits have been done and it was proven through the audits. In some cases charges were laid and guilt was affirmed through the justice system. To say that it is across the country, I do not believe that is true. I do not believe it is on all reserves, but it is on many reserves and it is certainly a problem in my constituency. We are trying to rectify the problem by calling for proper accountability. That is what the Lakeland aboriginal task force heard from grassroots aboriginal people.

Let us get some real accountability into the system so the money that is being spent and coming into the reserves from taxpayers' through the federal government, the department of Indian affairs, and the money from oil and gas revenue as an example are accounted for. How much is coming in needs to be clearly accounted for and the people themselves need to know where the money is being spent. On all eight reserves in Lakeland constituency the people said very clearly that there was not proper accounting.

In the report we certainly were not attacking chiefs and councils. We were maybe a little kind but that is the tone we wanted in the report. Our recommendation No. 2 was on accountability. To assure sound financial management on reserves and settlements the government must provide better financial management support for aboriginal councillors and administrators. The second recommendation called for some help from the department of Indian affairs to teach chiefs and councils how to account properly.

Does that sound like we are slamming chiefs and councils? We deliberately took a very conciliatory tone. We did not attack chiefs and councils although some of the individuals who made presentations did. That is reality. We cannot change that. We deliberately presented it in a way that would allow chiefs and councils to improve so that they would become truly accountable. That is the tone we took and that is what we presented to the minister.

I close by saying that it is extremely sad and troublesome that after all this time we would still have the kind of attack launched by a member of the New Democratic Party against any member of the House. It would be unfair for any member to be painted in the way that he painted some of us today.

[Manitoba Claim Settlements Implementation Act, November 16th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on Bill C-56, the Manitoba claim settlements implementation act.

My comments will be on part 2 of the legislation which establishes a means to facilitate the implementation of land claim settlements in Manitoba through the creation of new reserves or the addition of land to existing reserves.

When government is adding new land to reserves or creating new reserves would be an ideal time to look at the problems in terms of accountability on reserves now and to deal with some of the problems. It is unfortunate that did not take place in conjunction with this legislation. There was very little change that will lead to any improvement in accountability.

During my presentation I am going to refer to a task force I put in place. It is a process that three aboriginal people from my constituency of Lakeland and I went through. We wanted to find out how aboriginal people felt on these issues. I will go through all the recommendations later and then talk a bit about how the task force was set up. I will start by summarizing the comments on accountability made by some of the aboriginal people who presented their cases before the task force.

They said that more transparent financial reporting by band and settlement administrators is needed. That is no surprise. We have brought example after example before this House of the complete lack of proper fiscal accountability on reserves. They were clear that governments at all levels, including native leaders, need to consult their members far more often to ensure that those consultations are reflected in policy. They even said that they would like an ombudsman set up to act on complaints laid out by aboriginal Canadians. They also said that more scrutiny needs to be applied to bands during elections. These are only some of the recommendations made by task force members.

When I looked at this piece of legislation, I asked how many of those recommendations have been implemented in this legislation. The response from Liberal members across the floor was why should they implement changes that came from a Reform MP. I would like to respond by saying that these recommendations did not come from a Reform MP. They came from a task force which included three aboriginal people and myself.

We make it very clear that the recommendations do not necessarily reflect Reform policy, which is fine. The fact is that none of the task force members are Reform Party members. I do not even know if any of them are Reform Party supporters yet, although I do believe that because of the work we have done some of them probably are. However, that is not important.

What is important is that the recommendations came from the aboriginal people themselves. And my question is, why are those recommendations not reflected in this piece of legislation? I believe the members across the floor will probably say “Why would we want to act on a document that has been presented by a Reformer”.

I would like to read the response from the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to the task force report we presented to her. She finally agreed after a little public pressure was applied to meet with the task force members. We met in September during the first week that the House sat in this session. She gave us ample time to present our case and I appreciate that.

I was very disappointed however by some of things she said. I will begin by referring to her letter of response to the task force report. My disappointment will become evident as I read through part of this letter:

There is no question that accountability is an important issue. Accountability is key to governance. We cannot build self-sustaining, self-governing First Nation communities without it. It is an issue for us as Parliamentarians with a responsibility to Canadians, and it is an issue for First Nations who must be accountable both to their communities and to Parliament for the resources appropriated to support service delivery. That is clearly the conclusion of the work of the Lakeland task force, just as it was also identified as important in the work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and in “Gathering Strength: Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan', our response to the work of the royal commission.

What the minister is saying is the Lakeland aboriginal task force presented really fits in perfectly with what has been presented in the past, including by the most recent royal commission and by her response to that commission. So she is acknowledging that what is in the report is what they heard through their commissions as well.

I guess my question is why has the minister not acted on it. Why has she not at least made some movement toward acting on some of these recommendations in this piece of legislation?

I will read more of the minister's response:

Within “Gathering Strength”, we set out four themes to be the foundation of a changed and better relationship with aboriginal people in Canada: renewing the partnership; strengthening aboriginal governance; developing a new fiscal relationship; and investing in communities, people and economies. In each of these themes, there is an opportunity and a commitment to focus on accountability.

She goes on to reinforce that accountability is important and there is a lot of work to be done:

When we look at the tremendous challenge of building sustainable governments, and what a complex and difficult process that is, we need to recognize that there are reasons for this. For decades, we have tried to control virtually every aspect of the lives of the aboriginal people. First nations are making their own decisions—defining how they want to be governed; setting their own priorities; and speaking up to hold their leaders accountable.

I agree with part of that statement. Aboriginal people are speaking up to hold their leaders accountable. But what I do not agree with is the minister's statement that first nations are making their own decisions and defining how they want to be governed. What really is happening is that the leadership of first nations and the national leadership such as Phil Fontaine are saying what they want to see in terms of accountability. They are saying how they want leadership to look. But the aboriginal people have not been listened to at all. The grassroots aboriginal people have not been listened to and that is reflected in this legislation and what is missing from this legislation. I think I will leave my reading of the minister's response at that.

I would like to explain a bit about the Lakeland aboriginal task force and why we started it, how it was set up and then refer to some of the recommendations. I know I am not going to get through the recommendations but I am going to really try this time to get through the first five, because it is the first five that deal with accountability, both fiscal and electoral.

I think those examining this legislation and my colleague and others who have spoken on this legislation already have pointed out some of the things missing in terms of accountability. I am sure as this debate goes on others will point out how the minister has really missed the target in terms of taking the opportunity when she is expanding reserves and establishing new reserves of making sure accountability will be there. She has really missed the boat.

The reason I established the aboriginal task force in the Lakeland constituency was that shortly after the last election my constituency boundaries were changed substantially. Beaver River and Vegreville were put together, two-thirds of each, into a new Lakeland constituency. In Vegreville the constituency which I represented before the election, there were no reserves or Métis settlements. In the Lakeland constituency there are eight reserves and four Métis settlements, an aboriginal population of probably around 30,000 people which is quite substantial out of a total population of about 110,000.

Shortly after the election I started getting phone calls from aboriginal people, some on reserves, some in Métis settlements and some living in communities near reserves. Over the first couple of dozen calls I started to see common themes developing.

These themes were that there is virtually no accountability on reserves. What we have are chiefs and councils taking in the money, not accounting for it and spending the money the way they see fit. They do not necessarily follow the guidelines that are laid out by Indian affairs. What became very clear is that many people living on reserves, the people the money was supposed to find its way to, were being completely missed.

I heard one story after another of extremely crowed living conditions. People had nowhere to stay and did not know where they were going to spend this winter. People were not covered by health care for special expensive medication. They were being completely missed. I heard from a lot of people who are covered under Bill C-31 and who were supposed to have some of the benefits of reserves. They were being pushed aside and felt they belonged nowhere. Chiefs and councils decided they were not going to accept those people, so they did not. I heard from dozens and dozens of people throughout the task force process, some by telephone calls before we set the task force up.

I also got calls from people who pointed out specific examples of how money was being completely misspent. In some cases they pointed to cases of fraud which were borne out later by investigations and audits. Many of these people called for a forensic audit. They wanted audits that determined where the money was coming from, how much was coming in and how it was being spent. They felt that the current audits being done on the reserves were virtually useless. It was chiefs and councils that ordered the audits and determined what kind of audit they wanted. Furthermore, they would only make available a summary and in some cases nothing at all. The accountability was not there.

After I received enough of these calls I decided that I had to do something about it. As a member of parliament it is my job to represent my constituents. I went to some friendship centres in towns near reserves. I got together with a few people and asked them what could be done. They said they had different ideas but said we should get a group of aboriginal people together in one place and decide what could be done. We did that.

A group of about 20 aboriginal people met in Bonnyville and we set up the aboriginal task force of originally four aboriginal members and me. Then we laid out guidelines that would guide us in our process. We first determined that the purpose of the aboriginal task force would be to hear grassroots aboriginal people in the constituency. That was the purpose, to hear them, not to tell them what we thought on issues. That is what we did.

Throughout the process we heard from about 300 aboriginal members. That may not sound like a lot, but several of these people, recorded on tape and TV cameras, said they had never before in their lives had anyone in any position in government really listen to them. I thought that was a pretty sad statement. It did not come from just one. It came from several people.

They did say that from time to time they had a minister of Indian affairs listen to certain chiefs and council members. But it was rare. They said that people listened to Phil Fontaine all the time. The minister listens to Phil Fontaine but nobody has ever listened to them before. It was time and the task force was put together to do that.

We did listen and we did it in three stages. We started in the first stage with private, confidential consultations. We held these consultations at various native friendship centres around the constituency. The reason we did this was that more aboriginal people, particularly from reserves, felt comfortable coming in to native friendship centres. They did not feel that they would be detected easily. Think about that.

They felt more comfortable coming to native friendship centres but they certainly would not go to a hall in a community near a reserve because they were afraid they would be detected and that there would be a price to pay from chief and council. This was very common. Some people who went said they knew they would pay for going but they decided it was time to go anyway. And so they did. We heard from them. Some of them did pay a price.

Mr. Charles Favel was there more than once throughout the process. I heard from him before we started. I have a letter from his chief and council that says Mr. Favel will be banished from the reserve because he went to the media in Edmonton and because he was involved with this member of parliament. He was banished from the reserve. The letter is quite unbelievable. I have copies of it for anyone who would like to see it. It was a bit of a baptism for me as to what can happen and just how serious it can be for aboriginal people from reserves to dare to say things are not as they should be on reserve.

We also put the invitation to chiefs and councils by letter to all chiefs and Métis settlement councils in my constituency. The letter we got back said that I basically had no right to do this. I could not quite understand that so I sent a letter back saying I thought I did. They invited me to a tribal chiefs council meeting. I went to that meeting where some of the chiefs said that I had no right to do what I was doing. I thought that as a member of parliament I had not only a right but a responsibility to represent all constituents. I had not heard that Indian people living on reserves or Métis people living in Métis settlements or aboriginal people living in communities near reserves were not my constituents. Of course they are. I am going to represent them.

I will talk more about this aboriginal report during debate on this bill and on Bill C-49. Then I may get through all the recommendations. I am extremely disappointed that this legislation does not show the Indian affairs minister really means what she said in her letter of response to the task force when she acknowledged there are serious problems of lack of accountability, fiscal, electoral and democratic. She acknowledged that is the case but I would like someone to show me where that is reflected in this legislation, ensuring that as these reserves are expanded and as new reserves are established a proper level of accountability will be put in place so we will know the money that is going to the reserves is getting to the people it is intended to go to. It is not happening now.

[First Nations Land Management Act, November 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his questions.

With regard to the issue of transparency, I have eight reserves in my constituency. We also had people participating from four Métis settlements. In every single case there were many concerns expressed about a lack of transparency.

One person who participated said that the concept of actually fully disclosing and then having discussion among the band members as to how money should be spent was foreign to him. He said they had never heard anything like that before. Clearly transparency is not there now. There is no insurance that it will be there under the current rules, and the rules that are there are not enforced. That is something that was made very clear again and again. That is something that has to start happening.

If we are to make meaningful change and if the government really wants to move in the direction of more self-government, giving more control over their own destiny to aboriginal people, then we have to ensure through tough guidelines that are enforced that there is transparency. That has not happened.

It is complete folly moving toward giving any more power to chiefs and councils before that happens. What we have to do first is have the accountability, the transparency, then move toward giving aboriginal people more control over their own destiny in a way that they really want.

A blank cheque given to a band council on the issue of marital split is a concern I hear about quite often. I also hear about cases where a couple has split, divorced, moved apart, with one person being on the reserve and one off. If they lived on the reserve the only assets they would have had, in most cases, would have been on the reserve.

[First Nations Land Management Act, November 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am please to speak to Bill C-49. People have explained what the legislation says. Reform MPs have expressed their concerns about it.

My debate on the legislation will focus on the aspect that the legislation will give more power to chiefs and councils without first ensuring an increased level of accountability. When I speak about improved accountability I am talking about the area of fiscal accountability. In other words, the people on the reserves should know where the money comes from, how it is being spent and get the chance to have some input into how it should be spent. I am also talking about democratic accountability, starting with having fair elections and having some way of ensuring that elections are fair.

For that reason alone I cannot support the legislation and I will not support it. In fact I will do everything I can to prevent the bill from passing, including supporting the amendment to postpone the bill for six months so we can debate it, improve it and make it something we can support. I support the amendment to the bill.

I want to talk about something that happened over the past year which led me to know that my party and I and the government should not support legislation like the legislation before us. About a year ago I started representing the new Lakeland constituency. About two-thirds of the Vegreville and Beaver River constituencies were put together into one constituency. I had no reserves in the Vegreville constituency but eight reserves become a part of my Beaver River constituency. As soon as that happened I started getting phone calls from aboriginal people both on and off reserve expressing their concerns. Some of the calls were very disturbing.

One of the first ones I remember was from a man who said he was a grandfather of several grandchildren. He lived in a two-bedroom house in which were living 27 members of his family. He said they could not live like that. It was so crowded that the house was falling apart. They could not go on like that. The chief and council on the reserve would do nothing to try to improve the house or to provide housing that better suited their needs.

In pursuing this matter I found that the chief, council and families in the inner group were living in wonderful houses. Many drove new cars. They seemed to have money. Then people started telling me exactly what was happening, that the money was not getting to the people on that reserve who needed it most.

After receiving literally dozens of these calls, after about a year I decided that as the member of parliament I would try to do something about it. I did not really know what to do. I started by going to the local native friendship centres and speaking with the people. I asked what we could do. They expressed the desperate need for something to be done. They said that things were getting worse. They had been getting worse over the last 30 years. They were in a crisis situation. The things I heard were not uncommon to us. We hear them all the time.

I got a group of about 20 aboriginal people together at a native friendship centre in one of our towns and asked them what we could do. We decided to set up a small task force that would not study for years but would listen to the concerns of the aboriginal people in my constituency.

We started with four aboriginal members and me on the task force. One member left shortly after so we had three aboriginal people and me. We went through a three step process. We started by meeting confidentially with people who would come to the friendship centres in the various communities around the constituency.

We listened to 55 people in this confidential way. Many said that even by coming to the centres they risked some action being taken against them by the chiefs and councils of their reserves. They were at a point where they were willing to accept that risk because somebody had to do something to try to change the situation.

I will never forget in my lifetime what I heard from these people. I heard articulate people express their concerns about what was happening. They gave the task force recommendations as to what they thought should happen. It was am experience I will truly never forget. I am thankful to those people, some of whom I believe are my friends now.

The second phase was to put out a questionnaire in the area, on the reserves and in the towns near the reserves. I did that and received over 50 responses. The third phase was to hold public meetings. I held three public meetings in the constituency. The largest meeting was in St. Paul with about 70 aboriginals in attendance. It is the town nearest to two of the reserves. That was the process.

I will talk about the task force members to acknowledge the time and the money they contributed on their own. None of them have much money but I had no way of covering their expenses. They had to cover the costs themselves and they were willing to do that. They gladly did that because they believed that finally somebody would listen to their concerns.

There were three aboriginal people on the task force and me. There was Agnes Gendron who works at the Grand Centre Canadian Native Friendship Centre as the children's first family outreach worker. She has worked as a social worker for at least 20 years. In fact she worked for the department of Indian affairs for several years so she knows what goes on there. She understood very well some of the problems within the department and some of the problems with the Indian Act that were preventing change from happening, change which must happen to improve the situation.

The second member was Gina Russell from the Cold Lake First Nation. She also works at the friendship centre in Cold Lake. She has contributed her time to the youth justice committee, to victims services and to the Lakeland Native Parents Education Committee. Gina is presently the director of the Grand Centre Canadian Native Friendship Centre which is one of the few non-funded native friendship centres in Canada. It gets no government money and it is doing good work. I commend both these women for the work they are doing.

The third member was Ralph Whitford from Lac La Biche, a town council member who understands well how municipal politics works. He had great input in our discussions of what type of government would work on reserves. He has an incredible background. I will just mention a few things. Ralph has held several senior community positions including director of Beaver Lake Wah-Pow Detoxification and Treatment Centre. He was a member and supervisor of the Lac La Biche-St. Paul District Native Counselling Services of Alberta and he is now actively working as a member of Awasisak and Family Development Circle Association. His background is absolutely noteworthy.

I wanted to mention all these people who agreed to give their time to become members of the task force. They wanted to try to do something valuable for the people they care so much about, their families.

I have talked about why I initiated the task force. I have talked about the three stages that were involved in this process that we went through and I have talked about the members of the task force. We heard many concerns and complaints. Many were aimed at chiefs and councils. Some were aimed at the community outside of the reserve and many were aimed at the department of Indian affairs.

These people got beyond that. They gave us recommendations for change that would improve the system. That is what I want to focus on.

There were nine recommendations the task force accepted and put in the report which we presented to the minister of Indian affairs in September. The task force met with the minister and I will talk about that at the end of my presentation.

I would like to first talk about five of the nine recommendations. They are the five that deal with accountability, really the lack of accountability on reserves now. In category one we talked about financial accountability. The first recommendation is the government must enforce more comprehensive and transparent financial reporting by band and settlement administrators. This information must be freely available to all members and to the general public. This recommendation, as did all of the others, came from the aboriginal grassroots people we heard from.

These recommendations are not all supported by Reform policy. I do not support completely all the recommendations. But I was not there to put a Reform platform into this process. What I was there for was to hear from the people, what they thought could be done to improve things for themselves and for the people they care about, aboriginal people in the constituency.

That was the first recommendation. There are some notable quotes we have in this report from people who spoke to this issue. I will read one from Charles Favel from Saddle Lake reserve: “Nobody on the reserve is told how much funding is received from Indian affairs. As a result, administrators on some reserves and settlements are able to show favouritism in distribution of funds”. That was heard from several participants. Mr. Favel went on to say: “All the money benefits are certain family groups. Some living conditions on the reserve are so bad they are not even fit for an animal. Yet some families that benefit from the funding drive new cars, have new homes and have new clothes”. Mr. Favel in his presentation spelled it out about as clearly as one can. The way the money is spent on his reserve is not right at all. The money is not getting to the people most in need.

The second recommendation, again in the area of fiscal accountability, is that to ensure sound financial management on reserves and settlements the government must provide better financial management support for aboriginal councillors and administrators.

Many chiefs, councillors and administrators really do not have the knowledge they need and the understanding they need to properly account for the money they handle and which is being spent. They made no excuse for this. They said that does not mean they should not be held accountable for improper spending, because they understand when the spending is improper. But they need help to properly account for funding. They ask for that help to come from the department of Indian affairs, which makes sense. They said it is not coming now. Part of the help they need is very clear guidelines that really put in place responsible accounting for the money being spent.

I quote one of the participants on this recommendation: “Problems on reserves are the outgrowth of a system that at one time prevented people from leaving reserves and at one time starved them”. This is from George Forsyth from the Onion Lake Band. “You can't go from a system where people are watched over every minute to one where they are totally on their own and expect perfect accountability”.

This is an individual who was mad as heck at his chief and council, but he acknowledged that it was hard to move from the one system to the other quickly. He said it was insanity to move to more self-government before the proper fiscal accountability is in place. This is exactly what this piece of legislation is doing. He made it very clear that he wanted no part of this.

The third recommendation, again in the area of fiscal accountability, is the government, together with councillors and administrators, must ensure there are effective, regular and ongoing consultations with band and settlement members.

One participant on this issue said the solution may be to require band meetings where the people approve a forecast budget. This person, who previously worked in an administrative role with a band outside of Lakeland, said the crucial process was not yet in place on that reserve. This is how people reacted to that concept being presented to them. He said: “You should have seen the administrators' faces the first time I brought up the idea. They said `it is not normal that you should have people discussing how the money might be spent”'. That is how out of touch the people on his reserve were with this concept of accountability.

I will never forget a meeting held in St. Paul attended by 65 to 70 participants. All but about five were aboriginal people. I was clearly getting the message they were concerned about the movement toward self-government. I heard it so much that I finally had to ask a question. This was a meeting recorded by two television cameras. I asked how many of the people at this meeting would support moving toward self-government on their reserves.

As no hands went up on the question I wondered if they understood the question. I then put the question another way: “How many of you here are against any further movement toward self-government until the problems of fiscal accountability and electoral accountability are dealt with?” Only one person was in favour of any further movement to self-government before the accountability was in place.

That person then said that the reason she put her hand up was because she did not know what I meant by self-government. My response to her was good point. The definition really has not been put forth.

Another thing that came up at this meeting was when someone said: “Ron Irwin sent a memo out to reserves saying that no one would be forced to take self-government until everyone was ready”. They are concerned that is not what is happening.

I have just gone through the three recommendations having to do with fiscal accountability. I will have another chance at third reading to talk about the electoral accountability.

When the task force members met with the minister of Indian affairs she said “we have heard all this stuff before, it has been in the various commissions we have heard from before, this is not new”. I said “so why haven't you done something about it?” The other task force members reinforced that. I said let us take one bite sized chunk. Let us take one of the recommendations that came under the democratic accountability thing, let us have Elections Canada monitor elections on reserves. This was very simple.

The minister's response to this was “There are some chiefs and councils who do not support that concept. We have been talking about it. Until I have the support of all chiefs and councils I cannot move forward with that”.

Clearly this government will not move forward with anything if it is waiting for the support of every last chief and council because many of these things will make it so that it will have to act in a responsible and accountable way in governing on the reserves.

[Agriculture, November 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the minister of agriculture said on national TV that we cannot plan for the crisis that we have in agriculture right now. Well, we can plan.

Starting with the 1993 election campaign and then the debate leading up to the abolishment of the Crow benefit, legislation the government passed in 1995, Reform called for part of the value of the Crow benefit to go into a fund that would help farmers deal with these tough times. It would compensate farmers for a loss in value due to unfair trade practices. That is exactly what is happening now.

What will the minister do now to deal—

[Canadian Forces, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Matt Stopford has a copy of the doctor's report that was put in his file originally. When he had this file returned under access to information the report was missing. The minister ought to know that. He has had 24 hours to look into this matter.

There are 3,200 other soldiers at least who were exposed to this radioactive waste. Will the minister ensure that the doctor's reports are returned to their files so they get the medical pensions they deserve?

[Canadian Forces, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Reform's defence critic was not casting aspersions on the soldiers. He was casting aspersions on the minister and the government.

Yesterday the minister said he cared about military personnel. He has now had 24 hours to look into Matt Stopford's case so he must be aware that his officials removed the doctor's report which indicated Matt Stopford had been exposed to radioactive waste while serving in Bosnia.

Has the minister instructed officials to return the doctor's report so Matt Stopford can get the medical attention he deserves?

[Petitions, November 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents also dealing with marriage.

The petitioners are concerned about the broadening of the definition of marriage. They are showing support for private member's Bill C-225, an act to amend the Marriage Act and the Interpretation Act, to define clearly that marriage is to be entered into between a single male and a single female.

[Veterans, November 4th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, on Remembrance Day we think of our veterans from past wars. That is important. But how many Canadians remember our men and women who are currently serving and thank them for their courage and service?

Here today we have five soldiers who served in the former Yugoslavia. All were injured in separate actions.

How many of us are even aware that Tom Martineau was shot by a sniper while serving in Bosnia, that Matt Stopford was a platoon commander during the 1993 battle of Medak pocket, a four-day firefight in which Canadians held off a Croatian attack, that Sargeant Tom Hoppy has earned the honour of being the most decorated Canadian soldier since the Korean War, that Reservist Peter Vallee saw frontline action on three tours of duty for his country in the former Yugoslavia, or that Reservist Jordie Yeo was badly wounded in an ambush while his unit defended Srebrenica?

Canadians should know those things and this government should make sure they do. Sitting today in the opposition gallery we have these soldiers. They and their comrades deserve our thanks and our respect.