Libby Davies

[An Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I want to complete the picture because this matter does have quite a history to it. I wanted to bring to the Speaker's attention and to the House that in actual fact the member for Winnipeg—Transcona, who was then the House leader for the NDP, did rise on a point of order back in December 2002. What he said at that time, in speaking to this issue of the principle of a divided bill coming from the Senate, was that it was the House that should decide what pieces of legislation should be divided up and in what way they should be dealt with.

He then went on to say that it should be up to the House of Commons to do this because the way in which the Senate dealt with Bill C-10 had infringed on the financial initiative of the Crown and on the privileges of the House of Commons.

Mr. Speaker, in hearing that point of order, you ruled it out of order stating that:

The difficulty we face in the House is that there has not been a message received from the Senate that has indicated that the bill has in fact been split. It is entirely possible that the Senate could plaster the bill back together again before it sends it back to this House.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the Senate did not plaster it back together again. In fact, it divided it and that is what is now before us. You went on to further suggest:

In the circumstances, I would suggest to the hon. member that we leave this matter for the time being until such time as we receive a message from the Senate.

Here we are, whether we characterize it as a message or an amendment the fact is it is now back before the House and it is a point of contention in terms of whether the process is legitimate.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask you to review this and give the House a ruling on this matter because this did take place. The Senate did bring it back in terms of a message or an amendment, but clearly it is before us.

[Softwood Lumber, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, given the ongoing softwood lumber fiasco and the fact that Quebec and Ontario are not going along with the Aldonas policies, is it not time for the trade minister to abandon the strategy of provincial concessions that B.C. is still pushing and make it clear that Canada has a right to make its own forestry policies?

Will the minister be clear and state he will not sell out Canadian forestry policies and jobs? Will he assert that position both to B.C. and more important, to the U.S.?

[Canadian Forces, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am astounded to hear that the minister would think that somehow that is anti-American. The question here is what is Canada's position. Maybe the Liberals need a new clarity bill to clean up their own act.

The Liberals used to call Bush's war unjustified. Now they wish him well in his mission with no qualifiers at all. Even Tony Blair is saying that there is a limit and that the reconstruction of Iraq should be done under the UN. Yet the Liberal motion does not even mention the words “United Nations”.

If they cannot be clear on war, could they at least be clear on peace. Is Canada's position on reconstruction through the UN? Yes or no?

[Canadian Forces, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the government's latest motion on the war is classic Liberal doublespeak. Only Liberals could ask Parliament to reaffirm non-participation while Canada is clearly participating. We have troops inside Iraq. Canadian ships are looking for Iraqi officials and escorting ships of war in the gulf. Canadians are serving on AWACS.

In light of all these facts, can the Prime Minister honestly say that Canada is not participating in Bush's illegal war?

[Citizenship Act, April 7th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House and speak in support of Bill C-343. I would like to thank the member for Okanagan—Shuswap for bringing this bill forward. I believe it was previously introduced by the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast.

It is an important and pertinent issue today. The citizenship and immigration committee is debating and holding hearings across the country on a new citizenship bill. It is timely that this should come forward.

I, along with millions of Canadians, was not aware of the lost generation, the lost Canadians. It was in February or early March when I attended the citizenship hearings in Vancouver on Bill C-18 that there were a number of representatives, including Mr. Chapman, who came forward. They provided information that I found quite astounding in terms of the individual situations that they had managed to track through their website. The committee was informed about the impact of the changes made back in 1997 that everyone seems to have forgotten about.

It is important that we are debating the bill today and voting on it because it is something that needs to be rectified.

When we think about citizenship, it is not something that can normally be revoked unless a person makes some decision to do that. Here we have a bizarre historical situation. If during the period 1947 to 1977 parents moved to another country for employment, and in many cases in Canada it was to the U.S., their Canadian citizenship ended. The member for the Bloc pointed out that there was no dual citizenship at the time. Lo and behold, in many cases children and spouses unknowingly lost their citizenship as well. This is what is most astounding about this historical situation that exists in our country.

It is bad enough that it existed for so long that people went to tremendous financial expense, but they invested a great deal of time and energy in an emotional sense trying to get some redress. When they found out that they were not Canadian citizens, often by accident, they would seek some relief and redress.

What I find even more disturbing is the fact that Bill C-18 addresses issues around citizenship but does not contain anything that would deal with this historical situation.

We would think that the minister and the department would put this somewhere near the top of their list for an amendment that would provide relief in a pragmatic way for the people this affects. There is nothing in Bill C-18 that would deal with this.

We have delegations coming forward telling us that they feel aggrieved. I do not blame them. They have totally legitimate cases.

In fact, let us look at Bill C-18 and what it is trying to do. In the hearings that have been held so far across the country there is near unanimous opposition to the provisions in the bill. It would take us further down the road of taking citizenship away from people and revoking citizenship in a way that there would be no fair judicial process nor appeal.

We are not correcting the situation. We are actually making it worse. Potentially, many people in this country, if the bill were to be approved and I hope it would not be, would face very arduous circumstances if they were facing allegations under a security risk and so on.

At the hearing in Vancouver we heard stories of a number of people, including Mr. Chapman, Keith Menzie, Ron Nixon, and George Kyle.

One story that I found amazing involved Ms. Magali Castro-Gyr who was a natural born Canadian of Canadian parents. She had a valid Canadian passport and a social insurance number. When she went to register her two foreign born children, she was informed that she would not be able to do that. She was informed that she herself was no longer a Canadian. This lady had sponsored her husband who was from Switzerland and the government accepted that. Now the government was telling her and her family that they were not Canadians. It is truly a bizarre situation.

In debating this at the Vancouver hearing the chair and others agreed that this was a ridiculous situation and indicated that officials would be brought in and so on.

Some people think the bill before us does not go far enough, but at least it is a step in the right direction. The government member who spoke to the bill this morning did not make any suggestions as to what could be done. There is an acknowledgement that between 1947 and 1977 there was a lost generation of Canadians who are now faced with the trauma of what happened to them, but nothing has come forward from the government side in terms of how this would be addressed, either through the citizenship act or this private member's bill. There was even a bit of criticism asking why the creator of the bill had not thought about this step or that step. If the government is acknowledging that a problem exists, then surely it has all the resources within the department to figure out how the heck it is going to fix it.

I must wonder and question the government's intent here. Debating the bill today would give us an opportunity to test where the government is at on this issue. If it were committed to redressing what took place to an unknown number of individuals, then it would be helpful to have some information indicating what would be done. We have not had that indication in committee or the House.

I am now the immigration critic for the NDP. I will continue to press this issue as will other opposition members. My predecessor in this portfolio, the member for Winnipeg North Centre, also supported the bill in its previous form. She spoke out very strongly on this issue. We will continue to do that because Canadians have a legitimate grievance here.

I urge members on the government side to listen to this debate and when it comes time to vote on the bill, to either vote for it as far as it goes or make it absolutely clear that measures will be taken within the department to rectify this wrong that has existed for many years. People should be removed from this difficult emotional and financial situation of wondering who the heck they are and wondering if they are or are not Canadians.

The NDP supports Bill C-343 and we encourage other members to support it as well.

[Privilege, April 2nd, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of parliamentary privilege this afternoon. I would like to seek your guidance about a matter that concerns the limits and procedures concerning a member's ability to speak and carry out his or her duties in a committee.

We have a situation right now where our member for Winnipeg Centre has been compelled to speak for more than 12 hours at the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee in an effort to prevent a procedural motion from being approved that would seek to limit a member's time in discussing any clause, amendment, motion or matter before the committee.

I know that in committees it is common practice that when we hear witnesses there is usually an agreement to limit the amount of time because we have to hear witnesses. However, in this case it is a procedural question that would limit a member discussing an aspect of a bill before a committee.

Equally of concern to us, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that this matter is taking place in camera. There is nothing in the matter under discussion that could in any way be characterized or considered as an in camera matter. The matter is not dealing with personnel, property matters or security matters. It is a matter of procedure that would by tradition I believe be normal practice to be in public.

It seems very bizarre to us that a committee would operate in this way in a manner that is counterproductive to the parliamentary practice of having open and reasonable debate without unreasonable restraints.

We know that the government, for example, can bring in time allocation on a bill in the House. However, it seems that in the very nature of a committee, it is a place where members work in a way that they can speak, they can go through a bill, they can have discussion.

We are very concerned about the precedent that is being set in this matter which is now taking place.

I would ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, to be given to the House and committees about this matter. I would hope that you would affirm the practice to only go in camera where there is a shown necessity to do so and to affirm the right of a member to participate in a committee without imposed restraints that limit that member's ability to carry out his or her duties and responsibilities.

[Aboriginal Affairs, April 1st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs has just concluded four weeks of hearings across Canada, where there is overwhelming opposition to the first nations governance act.

When it comes to its own practice of governance, the government is clearly anti-democratic in ramming through this flawed legislation. Will the minister today commit to go back to the drawing board, abide by the democratic principle of respect for first nations and hear their opposition to the bill? Will he go back to the drawing board because there is so much opposition, overwhelmingly so?

[New Democratic Party, March 31st, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, after a very successful federal council meeting of the federal NDP held in Montreal this weekend, I am proud to say that we are the first federal party to retire our election debt, and not by borrowing from riding associations, as was done by the Canadian Alliance. Our debt is put to bed and we are ready to go.

We are ready to tell the Canadian people that there is a real alternative to the Liberal-Alliance agenda that has harmed so many people. We have put our fiscal house in order and, with our new leader, Jack Layton, we are on the move. We know that investing in our local communities, stopping the privatization of health care and standing up for the environment are the real priorities of Canadians, not fighting an illegal and unnecessary war.

We know where Canadians are at. We are there with them and we are ready to go.

[Privilege, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a question of privilege with respect to contempt of Parliament.

As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, on March 20 the House voted on the following supply motion moved by the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie and seconded by the member for Laurentides:

That this House call upon the government not to participate in the military intervention initiated by the United States in Iraq.

That question was debated, put and passed on the following division: yeas, 153; nays, 50.

On many occasions leading up to and after the motion was passed, members have asserted that Canada will not and is not participating in the war. On March 20, for instance, the Prime Minister said “We don't have any troops and there will be no troops”. However, since then it is clear from the Prime Minister's statements in the House that this is not the case.

I would cite the following comment made by the Prime Minister in Hansard on March 26:

--of course we have ships in the ocean there....

He went on to say:

The people who are involved in flying in AWACS planes are covering many countries in their surveillance, not only one country. They are doing the job today that they have been doing for many months.

The AWACS to which the Prime Minister referred helped coordinate the bombing in Iraq. The ships he referred to are escorting American and British ships into war and which are now permitted to travel as far north as Kuwait for that purpose.

On March 25 the Prime Minister said:

They have been on loan for some time with the British and American armies.

Canadians are with British tank brigades outside Basra. Clearly this is combat.

On March 17 the Prime Minister said:

If military action proceeds without a new resolution of the Security Council, Canada will not participate.

As we know, there has been no second resolution to the Security Council, but there was a motion in this House that clearly compels Canada not to participate. The motion does not distinguish between participation in combat or non-combat. It simply deals with participation.

Nevertheless, not being in combat is being cited as an acceptable reason to be there, as the Minister of Defence has indicated. He does not deny participation, he merely tries to explain the type of participation. In his comments on March 18 he said:

As for these 31 persons, they are not in positions that involve direct combat.

On March 19 the Minister of Defence stated:

The reason there is a small number, some 30 personnel, in non-combat roles....

Yesterday, March 26, the Department of National Defence confirmed that Canadian troops were helping in the war on Iraq, that Canadians were aboard American AWACS radar planes flying command missions over Iraq, and that 31 soldiers were serving on exchange assignments with U.S. and British armies.

Today in question period in terms of the question I raised and the response from the government, clearly there was confirmation that our presence and our participation was there.

This is clearly participation but Parliament has explicitly said no participation.

As well, it is being reported today that six members of the Armed Forces are serving in logistical or support positions with combat troops on the ground.

I would say that there is a strong inconsistency between the claims that the government has made in the House and the vote that took place on March 20 which called upon the government not to participate in the war. I believe this has misled the House and that it is a contempt of this Parliament.

I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to consider these facts and the issues and if you find a prima facie case of contempt of Parliament against the government, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion to have this referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

[Iraq, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting that the Prime Minister refuses to answer this simple question. The government had an answer when it was American POWs, but no answer when it is a Canadian in the same war.

On March 20 the Prime Minister said that Canada had no troops in Iraq. On Monday that became no troops in combat. Yesterday he confirmed that Canadians were aboard AWACs, which are directing bomb runs.

Now we are getting calls from families of Canadians serving with British tanks in Iraq. Even defence officials are saying that Canadians are inside Iraq.

Again, my question is for the Prime Minister. If helping to select bombing targets and serving with tanks are not combat roles--