Marlene Jennings

[DES Awareness Week, May 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this week has been designated as DES Awareness Week.

DES is a synthetic estrogen that was prescribed to pregnant women between 1941 and 1971 to prevent miscarriage and ensure a healthy pregnancy. Instead it caused serious health problems for both the mother and the child, ranging from malformations of the reproductive system and infertility to cancer.

Recent scientific research suggests that the third generation of DES exposed people may have an increased risk of developing cancer of the reproductive system. D.E.S. Action Canada is an organization whose goal is to identify all the people exposed to DES and to inform them as well as health professionals of the tragic consequences of that exposure.

I ask members to join me in applauding D.E.S. Action Canada for its achievements and in wishing it a successful public awareness week.

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have to wonder sometimes where some members of the opposition are. I will not say all as I do not want to generalize.

I understand that the member may not have been in the House of Commons for the past 20 years, but if we are to believe that he is as well read and as interested in the issue of softwood lumber, in the issue of agriculture and the protectionist attitudes of the United States, then he would know that in terms of softwood lumber there have been four disputes in the past 20 years.

The issue of whether or not Mr. Bush feels as friendly or has as heart warming sentiments toward our Prime Minister as he or his father may have had toward previous Canadian prime ministers simply is not an issue. It is silly. I cannot believe that the member, who normally tends to speak with a little more common sense than not, although I will not put a precise figure to that, would make such a statement.

Yes, there is a softwood lumber dispute going on now and Canadians know there is a dispute. The difference between the official opposition and some of the other opposition parties and the Canadian public is that the Canadian public thinks the government has taken the issue seriously. They know that the government did not just start negotiating when the agreement ended but it began working and negotiating years before, As a result of the government's action there was and still is a coalition between the provincial and territorial governments that are concerned with the sector, the players and with the unions.

It is interesting that the government was able to forge the front. The front did not just happen the day after the agreement. The specific agreement is as a result of the work of several years.

I would like the member of the opposition, if he should speak to this issue again, to at least recognize that the common front that continues to exist to defend the Canadian softwood lumber industry--

[Supply, May 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in my view, this afternoon's debate is quite an important one. It is an opportunity for us to examine the current trade relationship between Canada and the United States and to look at the tools available to the government and to Canada to manage that relationship.

Canada's trade and investment relationship with the United States is fuelled by the increasing integration of our economies and facilitated by a rules-based trade system offered by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Tree Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This relationship is also quantitatively and qualitatively different from that with any other country. Canada's relationship with the United States is both solid and dynamic. The two countries share the largest bilateral flow of goods, services, people and capital between any two countries in the world.

In 2001, Canada exported $351 billion in goods to the United States and imported $218 billion in return. Services exports totalled $31.7 billion in 2000, with corresponding imports at $37.6 billion.

Since the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement in 1989, two-way trade has more than doubled, as my colleague mentioned earlier. Since 1992, two-way trade in goods has increased by approximately 12% per year.

Moving about $1.9 billion worth of goods and services across the border each day, Canada and the United States are each other's largest customers and biggest suppliers. While the majority of Canada-U.S. trade moves freely across the border each day, disputes inevitably arise. Given the magnitude and complexity of the relationship, management of the Canada-U.S. trade relationship is Canada's top trade policy priority.

I now wish to address certain dispute settlement mechanisms.

Many people focus on the dispute settlement systems under the WTO and the NAFTA, which we are using, for example, in our softwood lumber challenges, as the key means of resolving disputes. However, Canada has an array of tools at its disposal to deal with disputes and to address issues before they become more problematic. These of course include consultative and dispute settlement mechanisms under the WTO and the NAFTA.

Before looking at the consultative mechanisms in more detail, I want to re-emphasize the preferential benefits for Canadian trade that have been a direct result of the NAFTA.

You will recall, for example, that Canadian exports were exempted from the U.S. safeguard action announced on March 4, 2002, imposing additional tariffs on imports of 16 steel products.

The fact that our exports of these 16 products were not subjected to these additional tariffs is very important. Since NAFTA, there has been an integration of the North American steel production sector. This is an integration that is not necessarily seen in other North American sectors. Canadian producers will tell us this and have told me this. In addition, American and Mexican producers have confirmed that steel is the most integrated industrial sector in North America.

This exemption was pursuant to those provisions of NAFTA that allow imports from Canada to be exempted from actions if certain conditions are met.

Over the past several years, this particular provision of NAFTA has meant that Canadian imports were exempt from the application of American safeguard action on such products as steel wire rod, line pipe, wheat gluten, tomatoes and bell peppers, and corn brooms.

In addition, Canadian exporters have benefited from the dispute settlement provisions governing anti-dumping and countervailing duty measures established by chapter 19 of first the Canada-U.S. free trade agreement and then by the North American Free Trade Agreement. On 22 separate occasions, anti-dumping and countervailing duties were reduced following chapter 19 review and, on one occasion, the duties were removed entirely as a result of such a review—softwood lumber in 1994.

I think it is important to focus on this good news, these positive effects, which demonstrate that we are indeed an important vendor to the United States and they are an important customer of Canada, as far as Canada-U.S. trade is concerned. In a goodly number of cases, disputes are settled with no negative effects. The mechanisms are in place and they are more than ever useful and effective.

Then there are the consultative mechanisms. I note that under the NAFTA, over 30 entities were established to facilitate trade and investment and to ensure the effective implementation and administration of the agreement. Key areas of ongoing work include trade in goods, rules of origin, customs, agricultural trade and subsidies, standards, government procurement, investment and services and cross-border movement of business people. These NAFTA working groups and committees help to smooth the implementation of the agreement and provide forums for exploring ways of further liberalizing trade between members.

Another important mechanism for managing bilateral issues is the Canada-U.S. Consultative Committee on Agriculture, the CCA. The main objective of the CCA , which is co-chaired by Canadian and U.S. officials, is to reach solutions to emerging bilateral agricultural concerns before these become major irritants.

The CCA has proven to be useful in a number of instances in relieving bilateral trade tensions and in forestalling precipitous actions by Northern Tier states in particular. An important feature of the CCA is the formal role provided for states and provinces: the Province/State Advisory Group serves as a forum for provincial and state governments—usually at the level of the provincial agricultural minister and his U.S. counterpart—to discuss bilateral agricultural trade issues and to work together on areas of concern.

I have not been able to address the involvement and role of parliamentarians but I think I have been able to demonstrate that the government will continue to make full use of the various mechanisms—some of which I have listed—and will do everything possible to ensure prompt resolution of the inevitable disputes.

We are counting on the WTO and NAFTA to further improve access to markets and to fine tune the rules of international trade. I think this is the general strategy that is required.

[World Partnership Walk, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday thousands of Canadians in cities across the country participated in the 18th annual World Partnership Walk. The Aga Khan Foundation organizes the annual walk in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and Portugal. It raises money for development projects in the poorest parts of Africa and Asia.

This year's walk brought in an estimated $2.6 million in Canada, 25% more than last year. There was also record breaking participation in many cities.

In the past 18 years this entirely volunteer run event has raised millions of dollars for the funding of early childhood development, health care improvements and rural development.

I ask all hon. members to join me in congratulating the Aga Khan Foundation on another successful World Partnership Walk and in applauding them for their very important work.

[Child Predator Act, May 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak today on Bill C-437, which creates the new category of child predator, and restricts release on parole for offenders in this category.

An examination of this child predator act, which the member is asking us to support, might lead one to conclude that there is not, at the present time, any legislative instrument to deal with this category of offenders, and this is not the case.

Contrary to what some might suggest, I am not against this bill today because of any softness of attitude toward those who commit sexual offences on children. The truth is that I cannot see the point of creating a new category of offender. The deviant behaviour involved is already, by definition, addressed by the criminal code provisions on dangerous offenders. Dangerous offenders, the large majority of whom are in fact sexual offenders, can already have sentences of indeterminate length imposed upon them.

A dangerous offender is a dangerous offender. Calling one a child predator will change nothing.

If an offender cannot be classified as dangerous under the present criteria, there is still the possibility of declaring him a long term offender, and thus subject to the addition of a maximum of ten years monitoring at the end of his sentence. This category was created specifically for sex offenders for whom it is advisable to add a long period of monitoring once they are back in the community in order to reduce the risk of repeat offences.

These provisions, which exist only in Canada—I repeat, only in Canada—have been held up as examples by experts in other countries, who saw them as an excellent means of closely monitoring high risk offenders within the limits imposed by our charter of rights and freedoms. Too often we try to adopt new solutions that are copied from what is done in other countries, where there are not the same wise measures as there are here.

I would point out in particular that this bill is particularly off track when it proposes restriction of gradual release or parole for this category of sex offenders, which is in my opinion contrary to its avowed objective of protecting Canadians.

This bill starts from the premise that public security is less threatened by an offender who serves his entire sentence, and then is required to report to the police once a month once set free. My colleague may not know this, but an offender under conditional release is subject to much stricter conditions than that, and can be sent back behind bars if he is deemed likely to reoffend. Once the sentence has been served, the police cannot act on a mere hunch.

Whether on day parole, full parole, or statutory release, the offender must report to a parole officer. The offender must abide by the conditions established by the National Parole Board, or risk having his parole suspended by his parole officer and being sent back to jail. Also, the parole officer can discuss the offender's behaviour with his entourage, such as his family or his employer, which makes it possible to detect any increase in the likelihood of reoffending. The police certainly do not have the time to monitor all sexual offenders this closely.

The other premise of this bill is that longer sentences constitute the best guarantee of public safety, which is not true.

According to research dating from May 2002, the longer a person is incarcerated, the greater that person's chances of reoffending upon release. This study was based on 111 studies, involving more than 442,000 offenders. I think that conclusions based on this amount of supporting data deserve to be taken into consideration. The conclusions stated specifically that a longer prison sentence was associated with a slight increase in the chances of reoffending, the repeat rate of approximately 3% rose to 7% when the sentence was longer than two years. So it is not by locking criminals up for longer that we will protect the public over the long term.

Even if this bill were passed, most offenders would return to the community one day. Experience has taught us that the best way to reintegrate offenders is to give them gradual freedom, and to monitor and supervise them properly to help them live their lives in abidance of the law.

The fact that the parole program begins with short escorted absences is not a coincidence. These are followed by unescorted temporary absences designed to evaluate the offender's ability to adjust to life in society. Day parole is a less restrictive form of freedom, but it does involve significant monitoring and controlling, since the offender must go back to a halfway house every evening. Full parole brings the offender closer to full release, but the parole officer can follow up on that person and take action if he deems that the situation is deteriorating.

Taking action does not necessarily mean putting the offender back in jail immediately. It may mean to make him go for counselling, impose stricter parole conditions, or require the offender to see his parole officer more often. It may also mean sending the offender back in jail if there is a serious risk that he may reoffend.

We must also not put all sexual offenders in the same boat. The risk of reoffending varies from one individual to another. Our system is based on that reality. We can evaluate the risk posed by an individual but not an homogeneous group and, depending on the seriousness of this risk and our ability to monitor it in the community, decide when the individual should be freed. If the offender is automatically released, something which is often criticized, he will be monitored until the end of his sentence. However, if he remains incarcerated until the end of his sentence, we no longer have the right to monitor his activities once he is released.

As I mentioned earlier, when an offender requires long term monitoring, we have two options. A dangerous offender is necessarily imposed an indeterminate sentence and remains under the surveillance of the parole board for the rest of his days, even if he is released.

If an individual is deemed to be a long term offender—and this is an option that already exists—he may be under surveillance for a maximum of ten years after the end of his sentence.

Finally, these figures show how important it is to ensure that offenders remain in the community without reoffending. An excellent way to help them achieve this is precisely to monitor them through a parole program.

In conclusion, it is not at all necessary to create new categories and to eliminate the discretionary power in the whole system. What we must do is to make educated choices based on current knowledge, so as to truly help increase public safety. This is a very important issue. It is unfortunate that there is not more time to debate it, but that is the way things are.

[National Missing Children's Day, May 24th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, on June 2, RCMP officials will attend the baseball game played by the Ottawa Lynx, the local professional team, and they will distribute kits that will include instructions to photograph children attending the game and take their fingerprints.

If, through some misfortune, one of these children were to go missing, this information would help authorities find them. Each year, thousands of children go missing in Canada, which generates a feeling of horror for many parents and friends.

Since May 25, is National Missing Children's Day, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the organizers of this event and all those who help find missing children by holding special identification activities.

I also want to encourage non-profit organizations and private groups to make a commitment to this important cause.

[Protection of the Unborn Child, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I do not support the motion that is being debated tonight. My statement will be very simple.

I have had the opportunity to hear the statements of some of the members in the House, particularly those of the member for Winnipeg North Centre and the member for Terrebonne--Blainville. I appreciate their considered statements and views and I appreciate the suggestions they made. In particular, I appreciated those statements made by the member for Winnipeg North Centre as to the kind of issues on which the time of the House of Commons could be best used in order to get on with the business of providing quality of life for our children here in Canada and elsewhere. I support wholeheartedly the statements made by the member for Terrebonne--Blainville and the member for Winnipeg North Centre.

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I am quite disappointed. One of the points I made was that I called on our members here to try make statements as accurately as possible. I expected at least that from the member who just made some statements and finished with a question.

She said I made the statement that the government was beyond reproach. I never once, in any part of my statement, made such a statement. It is an example of what I attempted to show. It can create false perceptions within the public. If I were not here to correct it, one of my constituents could see a transcript of that member's statement and beat me over the head figuratively and ask me how I could make such a statement. I did not.

Neither did I say that the government has not committed mistakes. The government itself, because of mistakes, which either its own internal audits within the various departments have brought to light or the auditor general's audit have brought to light, has changed processes, procedures, rules and guidelines.

The auditor general herself stated that in follow-ups to her reports and audits that showed problems. An example is Human Resources Development Canada and the grants and contributions program. On her follow-up, the auditor general commended HRDC and the minister responsible for, and let me quote, “improved management of grants and contributions”. She used that as an example of good management, which she cites throughout her report, “but which gets lost in the glare”, and I am using her words, “of publicity that surrounds the bad examples”.

What I ask is that when accusations are made they are based on fact. I ask that members not distort the facts because there is some other objective out there. I honestly believe that if there are reasons why our government has been re-elected three times they are, first, because most Canadians think we are a good government, and second, because the opposition, in my view, has fallen down on its job.

[Supply, May 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Kitchener Centre.

I would like to quickly read the motion we are debating today. It says:

That, in the opinion of this House, the reason why 69% of Canadians polled in a recent survey viewed the “federal political system” as corrupt is because Ministers of this government have failed to make public their secret Code of Conduct, have broken their own Liberal Red Book promises such as the one to appoint an independent Ethics Counsellor who reports directly to Parliament and have failed to clear the air over allegations of abusing their positions to further their own interests and those of their friends.

I must inform all members of the House that I am opposed to the very principle of this motion. This motion is confusing and misleads Canadians about the significance of the survey in question and about the work of this government.

Politicians from every party, not just the party in power, need to take some responsibility for the way Canadians view the political system. When I speak about the political system, I mean the provincial, municipal or federal political system. However, I will limit my remarks to the federal political system.

As the Prime Minister told this House in 1994, “trust in the institutions of government is not a partisan issue, but something all of us elected to public office have an obligation to restore”.

The public trust must be earned day after day. It is the cornerstone of good government. It promotes acceptance of our democratic institutions and creates a sense of confidence in the ability of our governments to improve the wellbeing of our society and of our citizens.

The word “honesty” is not an empty word for me or for my government. In a report tabled in 2000, the former Auditor General of Canada told us that a prerequisite for the success of ongoing measures to promote values and ethics is the leadership of parliamentarians, ministers and senior officials.

This government has shown leadership by putting in place mechanisms and procedures to protect the integrity of public affairs. All is not perfect, as we are the first to admit. But I would like to mention something the new auditor general said when she tabled her report in December 2001.

She was commenting on how this government responds to the conclusions in her reports. She said:

Although we do mention examples of good management throughout our report, sometimes these get lost in the glare of publicity that surrounds the bad examples. I'd like to mention just a few examples of good management, most of which came to light in the course of our follow-up work:

--Human Resources Development Canada's improved management of grants and contributions.

--Meeting the deadline for bringing departmental financial systems on-line as part of implementing the Financial Information Strategy.

--The processing of GST refunds.

--The successful management of Y2K readiness.

--The Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade's management of capital projects.

I am encouraged to find these examples of good management throughout government.

These are the words of the auditor general herself, who felt it necessary to underline examples that she has found of good management because she finds that unfortunately the few bad examples catch the glare of the publicity. This is one of the points that leads to the perception within our Canadian society that all politicians and all political regimes in Canada suffer from corruption.

We could look at a few of the mechanisms put in place by our government to protect the integrity of public affairs. These include the 1996 amendments to the Lobbyists Registration Act, increasing transparency and casting the light of day onto the lobby industry, and the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders applicable to ministers and senior officials.

The government has also introduced more transparency into the work of parliament: it holds more policy debates; it introduced pre-budget consultations; and it has allowed members to play a larger role in drafting legislation.

In addition, as other members have already mentioned, the auditor general can now table up to four reports a year in parliament, instead of one annual report.

In my opinion, by adopting measures such as these, the government is showing the leadership mentioned by the former auditor general. In this regard, the Prime Minister has truly orchestrated all our efforts. He is personally responsible for the standards and conduct of the government as a whole.

I would like to mention—even though a colleague across the way has already done so, but it bears repeating—the issue of our government's transparency and probity.

There is an international non-governmental agency known as Transparency International. This agency is dedicated to rooting out corruption and promoting transparency in governments throughout the world. It therefore enjoys unparalleled respect worldwide.

It has consistently ranked Canada as one of the cleanest and most transparent governments in the world. In fact, Transparency International ranks Canada as the cleanest and most transparent of all the G-8 countries. I think this needs to be highlighted.

When a member of the opposition tables a motion, as was done and which we are debating right now, the very nature of that motion in my view is only to continue to throw sand into the eyes of Canadians, to continue to encourage and push Canadians to believe that government is corrupt, to bandy about those words that are of such a serious nature in such a cavalier fashion knowing very well that they disinform and misinform.

We had an example just moments ago. A member of the Canadian Alliance, citing the survey, said the survey showed that 69% of Canadians think this federal government is corrupt. He knew full well that was not what the survey said. Members on the government side had to correct him several times before he finally made the correct factual statement.

I will not be supporting the motion. That is the first thing. The second thing is that I would like to encourage all 301 members of the House, and I would call on our colleagues in the other House as well, to do our part as individuals to make sure that if we are going to lay accusations they are based on fact, that there is no exaggeration, no disinformation or misinformation, and that the debate that takes place is one of seriousness, gravity and mutual respect.

If we are going to take the auditor general's word on one, she has proven her qualifications, so we have to take it on all. When she says that there are many examples of good management and good governance on the part of the government, I ask that members recognize that as well.

[Quebec City's Synagogue, May 22nd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, imagine the dismay and horror of Canadians who awoke on May 19, a Sunday morning, to the news that the Beth Israel Synagogue in Quebec City had been the target of a violent act of anti-Semitism. Imagine our collective relief and joy at the news that, by happenstance, the rabbi and his family were in Montreal and thus unscathed.

This act of hatred, intolerance and pure anti-Semitism cannot pass unnoticed. Peace loving Canadians, leaders of all religious faiths, be they Christians, Muslims or other, must denounce this hate crime. After the tragedy of September 11 when here in Canada our Muslim and Arab communities became victims to acts of hatred and intolerance, we all spoke out vigorously and applauded our Prime Minister's public call for mutual respect and peace. Now is the time for another such public statement.

I urge all my fellow parliamentarians to join me in denouncing this repugnant act of anti-Semitism and in reaffirming our pride and respect of all diversity that makes this country great.