Libby Davies

[Terrorism, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The NDP did not give consent. We would be prepared to do that if other members of the House can also make a brief statement. That would be acceptable.

[Terrorism, June 5th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in the House today to respond to the statements made by the Solicitor General on the question of national security, and the report that is being tabled in the House.

First off, the NDP has been a party in this Parliament that has stood up time and again to speak out and express what I think are the really very deep concerns of Canadians around issues of security as well as the increasing use of very substantive strong legislative powers, such as Bill C-36, which go far beyond the purview of dealing with security and which move us into the environment of fundamental civil liberties, a right to privacy and respect for the rights of individuals.

In our party, our former House leader, the member for Winnipeg—Transcona, our former justice critic, our current justice critic, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, as well as the member for Windsor—St. Clair, in fact all of us in our caucus, have really monitored and analyzed the government's performance and progress or lack thereof on the issue of national security.

Since the passage of Bill C-36, the anti-terrorism legislation, in December 2001, we have had increasing concerns about what is happening as a result of this legislation, as well as other legislation that has been approved and is currently in the process of being debated, legislation such as Bill C-17, the public safety act which is currently before the House and Bill C-18, the new citizens act. What holds these pieces of legislation together is they all contain extraordinary powers that when used by organizations like CSIS or the RCMP, can fundamentally violate the rights of individual Canadians.

While the minister has said today that there is a threat against Canada in terms of terrorism, it is most important that we ensure the war on terrorism does not also become a war on targeted minorities, especially those Canadians of Middle Eastern background or from the Muslim community.

We have been monitoring various cases that have taken place in Canada. We are very aware of the fact that there has been an increase in problems at border crossings for Canadians. They are being held up, being fingerprinted, having mug shots taken and being turned back. We are seeing an increase of racial profiling take place.

The whole question of the harmonization of our borders with the U.S. under the guise of security is something that should be of deep concern to us. One of the fundamental problems is whether we have adequate civilian oversight in terms of what is taking place as a result of this legislation being implemented and others that are now about to be approved through the House.

Even over the last few days, in the House of Commons in question period, the Solicitor General has been questioned by members of the opposition, including our party, about the role that CSIS has played. While in his statement today the minister claims that this department acts in full cooperation with all other federal departments, clearly what is coming out of the trial which is underway in Vancouver on the Air India case are some very serious questions about the lack of cooperation and the territorialism between the RCMP and CSIS.

We have a very significant concern about the nature of the work of CSIS as it is implemented as a result of legislation like Bill C-36, and who is actually protecting the civil liberties of Canadians.

I notice that today in the minister's statement that he barely mentioned that element. It seems to us that this is a fundamental question which the government needs to monitor in terms of, as he himself has argued today in the House, legislation that has incredibly strong powers.

We want to know why the Solicitor General is not taking the necessary steps to ensure there is proper civilian oversight of Canada's secret police. We want to know why there is not adequate civilian oversight on legislation like Bill C-36. We want to know how groups can be added to lists and yet there is not adequate disclosure for the reasons behind it.

However the biggest concern we have and one which has been expressed by many Canadians is that the legislation would create a political and social environment where people become suspect on the basis of how they look, where they come from or what their religion is.

I see the Solicitor General smiling at this but this is a very serious question. We have cases in Canada, such as the case of Mohamed Harkat who has been in jail since December 2002. We have the case of Mahmoud Jaballah who has been in jail since August 2001 on the basis of security certificates. A couple of cases were recently shut down by a judge as not having merit.

Today I will be going to the citizenship committee where we are beginning clause by clause debate on Bill C-18 where the use of security certificates will now be extended into possible use against citizens. The net is widening and the powers are widening and it is done, we hear from the government, on the basis of protecting Canadian security.

What about the protections of our democratic rights? Who in the government, what agency, what body is providing that kind of accountability so Canadians can be assured that the legislation, which was previously approved, does not go so far down the road that we have fundamentally changed the nature of our society?

We appreciate the fact that the report has been tabled today but we want to say in response that we have deep fears and concerns about the report, about the powers that have been given to CSIS and other law enforcement agencies, and about the continual undermining and erosion of democratic rights and civil liberties in the country based on the guise of security. This is something that we will continue to speak out on in the House to ensure that the government is held to account.

[First Nations Governance Act, June 3rd, 2003]

Madam Speaker, I have been sitting here listening to the debate on Bill C-7, the first nations governance act, and I have been thinking about what our role is as members of Parliament. Our role is to create legislation. We actually create our own rules in terms of how we govern ourselves. I have been sitting here tonight thinking how we parliamentarians would feel if another body, divorced and separate from us, had the power to create the rules under which we govern ourselves.

We should remember that the British North America Act was repatriated to Canada and the Canadian Constitution was made here in Canada. It was a very significant day historically for Canada because it was something that was made in our country by our governing body. There is a very important parallel to be drawn here. Tonight we are witnessing a very sad day in Canada's history. We are debating a bill which basically will dictate how first nations shall govern themselves in this country. I really believe that I do not have the right to do that and I do not believe that the Government of Canada has the right to do that.

I along with many other members in the House participated in some of the committee hearings. What struck me about the committee hearings and going through the bill clause by clause, and the 200 or so amendments that the committee went through, was how incredibly prescriptive the bill is.

If the government is true to its word that this bill is somehow about liberating and freeing first nations to take their rightful place in Canadian society and to govern themselves, we only have to look at the bill to think otherwise. Every single little thing has been spelled out, such as fines, and who is appointed to what, and what can and cannot be done. It is the kind of legislation we would have expected 100 years ago.

If we are being led to believe that somehow this is bringing us into the modern age, and it is bringing first nations into the modern age in terms of self-governance, I really am quite stunned. What we actually see in the bill, which is so prescriptive and patronizing, is a far cry from the political rhetoric we have heard from the government.

I want to pay tribute to our member for Winnipeg Centre along with other members of the committee. They have done an incredibly heroic job in trying to expose the fundamental flaws in the bill. Night after night the committee sat through the night. I see other committee members are here. They spoke on and on. Many members from first nations communities also came to the committee to witness what was going on. All they could do was bear witness, because they could not speak at that point. They could not say anything about the very thing that was being done to them by Parliament, by the government.

I want to pay tribute to the incredible work that was done by the opposition members in the committee. They used every single thing they could think of in a parliamentary sense to show their utter contempt for the bill.

Now we are being forced to do that in this chamber as well. We are quite frank about it. We will do everything we can to hold up this bill and to see that it does not go through, because of the very strong message that has come from across the country from first nations communities. They believe that this bill is something which cannot be imposed upon them. The bill is describing a system of governance which in many ways is completely contrary to what has been the practice in first nations communities.

I am proud to be one of the many members of the opposition who are standing up to Bill C-7. We are saying shame on the federal government for what clearly is its intent to ram this piece of legislation through before the House recesses in the middle of June.

Another thing that strikes me about Bill C-7 is the huge issue in terms of form and substance. One thing I have learned over the years is that when somebody does not want to deal with substance, it is very easy for him or her to deal with the issue of form or structure. That is really what this bill is about.

I represent the urban riding of Vancouver East. I represent a community that includes the downtown east side which probably has among the highest residency levels of urban aboriginal people, people who have come off reserve. We should be looking at issues of substance and actually devoting to them the same kind of time, energy and resources that have gone into this horrible bill. If we devoted even 10% of that energy and government resources into the real substantive issues that are facing first nations and aboriginal people in this country, then we would be doing our job and the government would be doing its job.

I feel absolutely sick to my stomach when I see young aboriginal women living on the street, destitute, involved in the sex trade. I feel sick that 63 women have been murdered in the downtown east side. I feel sick when I see young people who have been forced into a life of complete destitution and drug use. I feel sick when I see the misery and the desperation that takes place in that neighbourhood. I feel sick when I see the pathetic response from the government with all of its press releases, with all of the agreements that supposedly are there are and still there are people who are dying on the streets.

Aboriginal people are dying on the streets in the downtown east side and in other communities. My colleague from Winnipeg Centre faces a similar situation in what is happening to first nations people in his neighbourhood. That is the reality of what is happening to aboriginal people.

The government should be making it a priority to focus on those issues. It should be looking at homelessness and making sure that there is adequate, well-maintained, safe, appropriate, affordable housing. It should be making sure that there are adequate treatment programs for people with addictions. It should be making sure that there are programs to help people exit from the sex trade. Those are the kinds of issues we should be dealing with in the House.

The committee should be dealing with these issues instead of having to spend, as the hon. member said, 55 days and 55 nights of merry-go-round hearings. Everyone but the government could see the writing on the wall that the bill was completely unacceptable.

I want to register my deep concern and indignation that we are now debating the bill in 10-minute segments. We never had a proper second reading debate of the bill. I raised this earlier today. Even within our own little parliamentary world and the rules that we live by, we have completely violated the regular procedures that we go through for dealing with legislation.

Because the bill was considered to be of such magnitude and scope, it was referred to the committee to have a broad discussion. In effect we bypassed second reading stage. The bill is now at report stage which is the stage when the House usually would deal with amendments. As the member from the Conservative Party pointed out, there are some 107 report stage amendments. There were 200 or so amendments that were already dealt with and disposed of in the committee. Here we are at report stage and we have not yet properly debated the bill in principle.

Not only is it a travesty from the point of view of parliamentary procedure, it is also a total failure from the point of view of living up to what I believe are the legitimate expectations that first nations people have about their own governance and about their own expectations for their communities.

This is probably a done deal but I want to end by saying that we on this side of the House will use everything we can dream up, every procedural trick we can think of to try to stop the bill from going through. We feel so strongly that it is a flawed piece of legislation that it should be stopped and it should be sent back. We will continue until the very last moment to try to stop the bill.

[Points of Order, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will certainly echo the comments of the hon. member from the Conservative Party. I would argue as well that not only have first nations representatives not had adequate time to deal with the fundamental aspects of this bill and how it will affect their communities and their lives, but members of Parliament as well have had inadequate time to deal with the bill.

What I would draw your attention to, Mr. Speaker, is that in the order of business today we are about to go to Bill C-7, and you will note that it says for Bill C-7, the first nations governance act, that we will be dealing with both report stage and second reading concurrently, that is, we will be dealing with them together.

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out to you that about a year ago the bill was very briefly debated in the House and then it was immediately sent to the committee on the basis that it had such a broad scope and such a magnitude and impact on all of the first nations in Canada that the committee would undertake very broad consultations to get people's reactions and so on. The bill subsequently was bridged over a prorogation and in fact, as we know, for the past year the committee has had sometimes very acrimonious debates and discussions about the bill, and now here we are back at report stage.

Even at the committee, in fact, there were something like 200 amendments. Now we are here at report stage with 104 amendments, two of which, I might say, are very substantive changes to the bill. One of them deals with the creation of an ombudsman. Another deals with the establishment of a first nations governance centre.

What I really want to address here is that we are short-circuiting the established procedure for how we deal with a bill in each of its particular stages. I would refer you to the stages in the legislative process as laid out in Marleau and Montpetit on page 625, where it is stated quite clearly, in referring to the stages of a bill:

These stages “constitute a simple and logical process in which each stage transcends the one immediately before it, so that although the basic motions--that the bill be read a first (second or third) time--ostensibly are the same, and seem repetitious, they have very different meanings”.

I would certainly agree with that, but in this particular case we are already back at report stage and second reading when we have not yet had an opportunity to debate the bill in terms of its principle, especially given that this bill is now likely to be changed substantially in terms of government amendments that are coming forward.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to consider this and to make a ruling that when we have dealt with report stage, that is, when we have dealt with all of the amendments that are before us in the groups that exist and so on, at that point afterwards we would then go back to second reading, which properly we should have done before, to debate this bill in principle. Only then will we be following the logical steps that have been set out in the practice of the House for many years.

To circumvent that is an injustice not only to first nations people, who have had a great deal of concern about this bill, but also to members of Parliament who want to have due time and adequate opportunity to debate and discuss each stage of the legislative process on the bill.

[Employment Insurance, June 3rd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, if EI is covering so much why are so many people hurting?

The Liberals are bungling softwood lumber just like they bungled SARS and mad cow. Whether it is the Atlantic Canada exemption or forest jobs from B.C. to Quebec, thousands of jobs are on the line.

Before the Liberals bungle this again, will the minister commit to sitting down with affected communities, workers and companies from across Canada so he can get input from the people who know what they are doing?

[Trade, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the minister might want to be a tad careful because when the Tories dumped Mr. Orchard, he might be coming after his party and his membership.

The WTO and the FTAA hearings are both coming up. We have seen how chapter 11 has overturned the Liberal's own stated policies. Surely the minister should know what Canadians already know, that we want out of NAFTA and out of any future deals.

Will the minister stand up and protect Canadian sovereignty and refuse to sign any new deals?

[Trade, June 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International Trade.

With some of the most expensive prescriptions in the world, with chemical companies that are overturning bans on toxic chemicals, and with public services like medicare on the negotiating table, does the minister agree that free trade is Brian Mulroney's crown jewel, or is it a millstone around the neck of Canadian sovereignty and Canadian democracy?

[National Defence, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about star wars because that is exactly to what this system is going to lead. It really is too bad the emperor is away today and we get Yoda instead.

The minister knows very well that George Bush has already blown $90 billion on star wars with hundreds of billions of dollars more to come.

Could the minister tell hotel workers laid off by SARS, or nurses who now want danger pay as a result of SARS, or meat workers laid off by mad cow why star wars gets billions of dollars and those workers get nothing?

[National Defence, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the last star wars test missed its target by hundreds of miles but clearly the defence minister has missed the mark altogether. Canada should have no part of star wars, period. It is destabilizing, it is expensive and it does not work.

Very simply, I would like to ask the minister if it is now Liberal policy that if a country wants a new weapons system, it is okay to tear up an arms control treaty? Is that okay by him?

[Supply, May 29th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, that is so ridiculous. I do not want to see any of these missiles flying around over any country. I do not want to see any lives lost, military or civilian. To suggest that somehow we are saying that Canada should be set aside and that missiles should be sent to the U.S. and that people should be killed as a result of that is absolutely absurd.

The point here is to work for international treaties that will prevent these missiles from even being developed. We should be eliminating nuclear missiles, ballistic weapons, all weapons of mass destruction.