Pat Martin

[Immigration, June 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Canada claims to welcome new Canadians to our country. In fact we rely on immigration to grow our population. Yet the road to becoming a Canadian is fraught with barriers, roadblocks and pitfalls.

First, there is the landing fee head tax of $975, plus $500 of other fees and charges. This is a huge barrier to people from poor and developing nations.

The head tax is bad enough, but even more and more frequently landed immigrants wishing to reunite their families are being forced to produce DNA evidence to prove they are related. The cost of over $1,000 per person in advance is absolutely prohibitive and completely unfair.

On behalf of the Somalian community and other ethnic groups that are disproportionately inconvenienced by these harsh and punitive measures, I urge the government to change its policies regarding the DNA testing and stop deterring those who seek to make Canada their home.

[Preclearance Act, June 4th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my remarks by pointing out as well that the number of this bill is S-22. People are not aware that most pieces of legislation we deal with are numbered C something, C and then a number, meaning that bill originated in the House of Commons. S-22 means that it originated in the Senate, in the other place, the unelected and as other members have pointed out, unaccountable other place.

It makes me wonder and it is mind boggling that if the government wanted to garner the Canadian public's interest and support for this bill why it would originate the bill in a place that only has the support of 5% of the population. Recent polling shows that a full 45% of the population wants to see the Senate radically reformed, the triple E model, elected, effective, et cetera. Another full 40% of Canadians want to see the Senate abolished altogether. They want to see it done away with. There are very few Canadians left who really like it the way it is. Probably the immediate families of senators are the only people left who think it is a really good idea.

If the government were serious about having people rally around Bill S-22, it should have been a bill with a C number. It should have originated in the House of Commons from elected representatives.

Speaking to the bill, the preclearance act was introduced in the Senate by the deputy leader of the government side in the Senate. The bill would provide U.S. federal inspection services with the appropriate statutory authority at designated areas in Canada to determine what people and what goods would be allowed entry into the United States.

Canada has allowed the U.S. federal inspection services to operate air passenger preclearance in Canada since the 1950s. This is not really anything new. It seeks to broaden and expand the preclearance situation in the airports.

The NDP caucus has serious reservations about Bill S-22. We recognize, as do members of the other parties who have spoken, that it is in the interests of Canadian travellers to be processed more quickly and to move more freely through the airports if it is only a simple trip to the United States, to our main trading partner. However we should point out a number of problems with the bill as it stands. Our caucus hopes to have the opportunity to move amendments which I will speak to later.

Bill S-22 represents a substantial intrusion on Canadian sovereignty. It gives officers of a foreign government the power to enforce foreign preclearance laws on Canadian soil. We believe that preclearance and intransit facilities can be legislated in a manner that is less intrusive, particularly for Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

We also have concerns about the legal implications of the bill. While some of our arguments were already addressed by amendments that have been made earlier, we still have some concerns as it is presently drafted. I would like to go through a few of those in the time I have.

The NDP remains of the view that it is possible to achieve our goals with a voluntary rather than a compulsory framework. Persons wishing to go to the U.S. could voluntarily submit themselves to examination and if necessary search. If they did not wish to undergo that kind of process, they could then withdraw their application to enter the U.S. and leave the preclearance area.

We do not believe it is necessary to create Canadian offences for resisting the enforcement of foreign laws on Canadian soil. As such we believe that clauses 33 and 34 should be removed and that clause 10 should be amended to clearly provide that right of withdrawal.

We also believe it is not necessary to grant preclearance officers the power to enforce U.S. laws on Canadian soil. In particular, we see no reason for granting the power to levy fines, seize property or to declare it forfeit as per U.S. law. Those in favour of the bill are arguing that the U.S. officers should have the same powers that they enjoy at land crossings where they are operating on American soil. In this case they would not be operating on American soil. We believe this is a major difference both legally and geographically.

If we grant these powers, they can result in enforcement of penalties or the forfeiture of goods in Canada for doing things which are not against the law under Canadian law. We are granting U.S. officers the right to enforce and penalize Canadians on our soil. We think this is a breach of Canadian sovereignty.

Under the use of force, we are very concerned about clause 12 which authorizes preclearance officers to use “as much force as is necessary” in order to effect their purposes. At the very least, this section should be modified to add the word “reasonably”. It is common in statutes of this type to use the term “reasonable force” and not give carte blanche to use as much force as is necessary. I know it is a fine legal point but it does give a lot of latitude to the enforcement officers.

These foreign officers would have the right to hold people and stop people from leaving. That is a fairly sweeping power to grant a foreign officer on our soil. It means they could detain people. If the officers think people are guilty of breaking a law in another country, they could be held, essentially arrested. We are granting foreigners powers on our soil which we do not think is necessary. This needs to be reviewed.

Under that article, clauses 10 and 22 of the bill need to be revised because they have a very low threshold for who can be detained. The NDP is very serious about that particular issue.

We submit that the test contained in clause 24 is preferable. There it has to be belief on reasonable grounds. Again it is a term that would stand up in court if it was tested and challenged. This is not present in clauses 10 and 22. At the very least, we want the same test that is given in clause 24, to be treated the same way in clauses 22 and 10.

On passenger information, there is a whole series of questions that people are asked when entering the country. A lot of it is very private information. What is done with that information? How long is it kept?

We have to keep in mind that we are giving this information to a foreign country, not to a Canadian official. We may not wish to have this private information spread around, personal information such as health records. We are told that this information will be quickly destroyed but we do not know when. We are not told how long this information is kept. Can this information be sold or are they bound to keep it private? We do not have any control over that. Privacy is becoming more and more of an issue.

The NDP remains firmly opposed to the creation of Canadian offences for resisting or misleading a foreign preclearance officer. We do not think it should be a Canadian offence to mislead a foreign officer about an issue entering a foreign country. I suppose they have every right once a person is in their country to charge them with offences, but why should it be a crime in Canada to knowingly mislead a foreign officer on our soil? These are things we have serious problems with. We want clauses 33 and 34 modified to point to those concerns.

It is not just the NDP caucus that has problems with this. The Canadian Bar Association made a presentation to the committee and coincidentally it pointed to many of the same clauses we want changed. The association wants clause 10, clause 12, clause 24, clause 28, clause 32(h) and clauses 33 and 34 amended, most of which I mentioned in my original concerns. This is the Canadian Bar Association, people who actually know something about this.

In the interests of trying to make travel more convenient for frequent travellers, like us and business people who travel a lot, we are ready to trample on Canadian sovereignty. Why? Where is the payback in this? The two things are of completely different weight.

We are willing to give foreign officers the right to penalize Canadians under Canadian law for telling them stories that are not true. Frankly, it opens up such a can of worms that it should be sent back to the other place for them to try again and take into consideration such basic things as national pride.

The other group which spoke out very strongly against the bill is the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It wrote:

In our view, the bill should not empower the officials of any foreign state to detain Canadians against their will, in this country, simply for a suspected violation of foreign law.

As I understand it, I could be arrested by a foreigner in my country because he thinks maybe I did something wrong in misleading by giving false information. If he thinks I might have some illegal substance on me he is allowed to strip search me, do all those things and hold me there against my will. In any event, that is one of their problems. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association went on to say:

Thus, even if there are reasonable grounds to suspect that any Canadians seeking admission to the United States have lied about possessing goods that they may not lawfully take into the United States—Such Canadians should have a presumptive right to leave the preclearance area without travelling to the United States.

In other words, rather than be arrested because the officer thinks perhaps I have some contraband, I should at least be allowed to leave, to change my mind, “Okay, maybe I will not go to the U.S. If you are going to be so difficult about this, I will just leave”. That would not be allowed. They could hold me there against my will, detained, arrested by a foreign cop on our soil. That is what the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a real problem with.

Another person who has a problem with Bill S-22 is our own Privacy Commissioner of Canada. He wrote a very strong letter. Mr. Bruce Phillips, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, wrote to the chair of the foreign affairs and international trade committee:

I am writing to express my concern regarding potential privacy issues relating to Bill S-22. ...one must not forget the fact that customs officers in the course of exercising their duties often collect vast amounts of personal information about travellers, sometimes of a highly sensitive nature. As such, I feel it is my duty to impress on the Committee the need to ensure that the privacy rights of the travelling public are adequately honoured and protected under this Bill.

He has serious reservations that they are being adequately honoured under this bill. Again, as I have pointed out, there is no real detail about how long that information can be held and in what way that information might be used. In this electronic age our information is at risk all the time. We dealt with that in a previous bill in the House about privacy, electronic information, selling of credit card numbers and no end of things.

Those are some of the reasons we cannot support Bill S-22. Starting with its place of origin, the other place, we disapprove of that wholeheartedly. We have made that clear. I predict, Mr. Speaker, you are going to hear that from all the members on this side of the House. The origin of the bill is our first problem with it.

A key problem is clauses 33 and 34. We do not believe it is necessary to create Canadian offences for resisting the enforcement of foreign laws on Canadian soil. Also, we would like to see amendments to clause 12 which authorizes the preclearance officers to use “as much force as is necessary” without even adding the word “reasonably” or if there are reasonable grounds to think that someone is doing something wrong.

There is a problem with clauses 10 and 22, holding people against their will. If I walk into that preclearance area and the U.S. customs official, the foreign officer, looks at me and says, “It looks to me like you are carrying some kind of contraband”, I cannot just turn around and walk out and say, “I have changed my mind, this is too much trouble. I think I will go home”. The foreign officer can arrest me and detain me. We certainly want that amended.

Foreign officers can arrest for any number of reasons. I just used contraband as one example. They might think I am carrying an exotic plant, a parakeet, or whatever I might have up my sleeve.

We want to know how long they are allowed to keep this private information and what they intend to do with it. We need that section amended. As well, we remain firmly opposed to the creation of Canadian offences for resisting or misleading a foreign preclearance officer. I have summarized that one already. Unless we see serious amendments to the bill we cannot vote for it.

[Canada Elections Act, June 3rd, 1999]

The members opposite are chuckling. There are people who certainly feel that way. They are biased toward having women in politics. They might vote that way. I am just saying it is a possibility and it is one of the reservations that should be raised here.

There are other things such as ethnic background. People who are racially prejudiced would notice right off the bat, never mind the merits and qualities of the person. One person might be wearing a turban, for instance, and one not. They might have similar names and the voter might be biased against a certain type of person.

What about people with obvious physical disabilities? Somebody like Stephen Hawking would not have much of a chance if he was going strictly on physical appearance if the voter did not think handicapped people could conduct themselves as well as somebody else. We all know that having somebody like Stephen Hawking would be a great asset to any political environment.

There are ways to tamper photographs to one's advantage. People have done all kinds of research on reactions to people who are physically beautiful. If one looks like a 30 year old Olympic athlete and has the same name as a person who is paunchy, middle aged and more my vintage, the 30 year old Olympic athlete would have a clear advantage over me personally. I would find that troublesome because I might think I would be the better candidate.

For those reasons I would oppose this idea, even though I understand that it was put forward with all the best of intentions to make it a better system. Our party could not vote for the bill as it currently stands because of the possibility of biases based on physical appearance.

[Canada Elections Act, June 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I did not plan on speaking to the bill today but there is one thing I would like to point out which I have not heard today in the comments of other members.

I too have reservations with the whole idea of putting photographs on the ballot. I would disagree with the hon. member from the Bloc who just pointed out that members of his party would probably not have much problem if all the candidates had their photographs on the ballot. The point I want to raise is a good argument for having neither. Neither should all the photos be on the ballot. Nor should just two in the case of names that are very similar.

For people who do not know what their candidates look like, if they do not follow politics very much or did not really pay any attention to the leaflets and literature that might have come to their doors, there is a very real possibility they are the type of people who do not really know a lot about politics and would make their choices based on what the candidate looked like.

I think everybody here would agree that would be fundamentally wrong. There are all kinds of biases that exist: racial bias or racial prejudice or gender bias, people who do not want women in politics. My name is one that could be used for a male or female. Many people with the name Pat are from both genders.

There may be two people with the name Pat, one a man and one a woman, and the choice would be made simply because someone might not want women in politics and would vote for the male, never mind what the virtues are.

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for both the tone and the content of her speech. She has actually done something to elevate the whole standard of debate we have been hearing all day today. I thank her for pointing out some amazing facts that we should keep in mind.

These people have lived for 10,000 years in the Nass Valley with their own traditional ways of governance and their own traditional cultural values, et cetera. Those 10,000 years make 100 years of persecution and cultural genocide actually seem like a fairly short period of time. Maybe that is why we see such great stoicism and patience on their part.

I want to speak about the point the hon. member made, that it is classic white arrogance and Eurocentricism for us to think that the only way of governance is our own British parliamentary system. I would like to share one story with the House.

I took part in the Charlottetown aboriginal hearings. I was sitting with a group of aboriginal women, one of whom was saying that in her culture and community women were not allowed to run for chief. Everybody shook their heads and said that was terrible. Then she said that the men were not allowed to vote. Somehow these people over hundreds and thousands of years have found a pretty interesting way to make sure that the chief is accountable, et cetera. That is just one example.

As a point of clarification, I have a question for the hon. member. She pointed out a number of clarifications about taxation, et cetera, to try to put to bed some of the fear-mongering and the misinformation being spread around British Columbia and all of western Canada.

Is it true that in the case of income tax the Nisga'a government and its corporations will be treated the same as a municipality? Is it also true that the Nisga'a government will not be able to tax non-Nisga'a residents on Nisga'a land? Finally, is it true that the Nisga'a taxation power will not limit or displace federal or provincial taxation powers? Could the hon. member clarify some of those things for the House?

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member began his remarks by trying to distance himself from B.C. FIRE, the hate movement or the anti-Indian movement in B.C.

In an interview on CBC television, journalist Carol Off was interviewing Mel Smith, the author of Our Home or Native Land?: What Government's Aboriginal Policy is Doing to Canada . That is the book which has become the bible for the B.C. anti-Indian movement and is often quoted by the Reform Party. In fact, the Reform Party hired Mel Smith to head up its Indian task force hearings.

Ms. Off said: “In fact, a lot of FIRE organizers have Reform connections. Brian Richardson is running for the Reform Party in the next federal election (the 1997 election). Greg Hollingsworth was on the payroll of the Reform Party until he left to start B.C. FIRE. Georgeanne Sanders, who was an activist in the Okanagan and who was active in B.C. FIRE, is a member of the Reform Party. So are Marcia Gilbert and Judy Kilgour both prominent members in the anti-Indian movement in the Okanagan. Preston Manning only announced Reform's Indian policy last month, but yet it bears a striking resemblance to the policy of B.C. FIRE”.

Carol Off is a credible journalist with the CBC. She found in her own research example after example of direct links to the hate movement, the people who are promoting hatred in British Columbia. I am not saying it is the Reform Party that is promoting hatred; I am saying it is intricately linked with the people who are promoting hatred. We all know it is a lot easier to promote hatred than it is to promote tolerance.

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Nunavut for raising one point with which most Canadians have a very easy time agreeing. The Nisga'a final agreement is turning a page on a chapter of our history that most Canadians would rather put well in our past.

As we get closer to the reality of aboriginal self-government, right wing extremist groups all across western Canada are escalating their campaign to try to put any semblance of self-government to bed.

Is the hon. member for Nunavut aware that the anti-Indian movement in British Columbia called B.C. FIRE was actually put together by a Reform Party member's staffer, a person who worked on the Hill for the Reform Party, on a salary from the party or from the government, really? He quit his job here to go to British Columbia to set up what they call B.C. FIRE, which is the anti-Indian movement in British Columbia, working full time to squash any deals like the Nisga'a deal. Was the hon. member aware of that fact?

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, is it also true that the Nisga'a government will not be able to tax non-Nisga'a residents on Nisga'a lands? This is certainly one of the fears that we have heard spread throughout B.C. by the people who are trying to block the Nisga'a deal.

Further along those same lines, in the case of income tax will the Nisga'a government and its corporations be treated the same as any other municipality, to the hon. member's knowledge?

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I know that members on the government side have been actively involved and I would like to take the opportunity to ask for some clarification on certain points in the Nisga'a treaty.

Is it true that with the new Nisga'a treaty the Nisga'a people would now be subject to all provincial and federal taxes? Is it also true that they would become responsible for an increasing portion of the cost of public services to develop their own sources of revenue?

Is it also true that they would get a lesser contribution for public services from federal and provincial governments? In other words, will the changes being brought about actually lead to less spending by the federal government and more sources of taxation revenue for the federal government with the new Nisga'a self-governance?

[Supply, June 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remark on one comment made by the hon. member which has not yet been raised today. One new idea has come up today that we have not heard rehashed over and over again, and that is that treating people equally is not the same as treating everyone in the exact same way. Equality is not the same as treating everybody in the exact same way because it does not recognize the historic imbalances which may exist. We should be shooting for equal opportunity or access to equal opportunity, and that may make it necessary to treat some people unequally in order to raise them up to the same, level platform.

I would like to quote from Judge Murray Sinclair of Manitoba in the Manitoba aboriginal justice inquiry. He put it very well and in very short terms. He stated:

Discrimination involves the concept that the application of uniform standards, common rules and treatment of people who are not the same constitutes a form of discrimination. It means that in treating unlike people alike, adverse consequences, hardships or injustice may result.

I want to thank the member for raising that very key point because it helps to defuse some of the misinformation that we have heard from members today.