Peter MacKay

[An Act To Give Effect To The Requirement For Clarity As Set Out In The Opinion Of The Supreme Court Of Canada In The Quebec Secession Reference, December 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if, through you, we could request unanimous consent that the minister have questions posed to him by members of the opposition and his own government.

[National Unity, December 13th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Will he advise the House whether, prior to Friday's release of the so-called clarity bill, he not only consulted with but sought the opinion of all provincial premiers on the bill and if he has not, will he be convening a first ministers conference prior to putting this matter to a vote in the House?

[National Unity, December 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, given the Prime Minister's unilateral provocative legislative action against Quebec, my question is for the man who desperately wants to succeed him.

Does the Minister of Finance enthusiastically support the most recent legislative action against Quebec?

[St. Francis Xavier University, December 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we are very pleased to congratulate the 207 students of St. Francis Xavier University who will receive their degrees on Saturday at fall convocation. I would also like to congratulate this year's senior class who received their cherished X-rings as part of the St. FX day festivities on December 3.

The famous X-ring has been in existence since 1942, and the ceremony has been the crowning achievement of a Xavarian's university career since 1958. This year close to 800 students received their rings. As the ring stands out, so too do St. FX grads in fields of science, business and education circles. Yes, St. FX has been known for having produced some of the most prominent politicians in the 20th century.

In special recognition, I extend congratulations to the 46 graduating students of the Coady International Institute. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the Coady Institute is renowned for educating social action and economic co-operation to community leaders around the world.

St. FX continues to be a worldclass university and I congratulate this year's graduates. You are truly excellent.

[Supply, December 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, once again we see an attitude from the Reform Party that is very much in line with the current government. It singles out one region of the country and pits it against another region.

We have seen the emperor's new clothes in the form of Mr. Manning and Mr. Chrétien when it comes to this type of thing. They want to take the divisive approach. They want to take the approach that is very provocative.

[Supply, December 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question and a very apt description.

We know that the Prime Minister has always been prepared to manipulate the process, to use a provocative, powerful approach when he has a majority government to beat other provinces over the head. We know that other governments have been less likely to do so.

What about the farmers? Why did they not make today an agriculture day instead of sitting over there on their butts?

The province of Quebec is very concerned about why this is happening now. Why is the Prime Minister creating an issue at this time when there are other important issues brewing like agriculture, the crisis in the fishery on the east coast and problems right across the country? He is just creating an issue. There is no reason whatsoever to be in this debate right now. There is no reason. It is only because the Prime Minister once again wants to create a problem.

[Supply, December 10th, 1999]

Perhaps it is that it is Christmas. Perhaps it is because the Prime Minister is very good at manipulating the rules. It is very clear to him that we will be out of here some time in the next week. Of course that is at his urging; he is the person who will control the agenda. Then Quebeckers and the rest of the country will be left to stew in their own juices over the holidays, to sit and wonder and wait to see what the Prime Minister will do next.

This supply day is focused on agriculture. There will be significant debate on the issue. My colleague for West Nova will speak further on the Conservative position. Sadly the member for Brandon—Souris cannot be in the House. He is travelling with the agriculture committee and doing his good work on behalf of his party, of Canadians, and of his home province of Manitoba.

We are faced with a very crucial issue in and of itself, the issue of what the Prime Minister is up to. We read about it through a leak. The government policy is to leak things through the press rather than have any meaningful debate or interaction with members of the opposition. We see this time and time again, not only from the Prime Minister but from all ministers across the way. They would rather leak something to the press gallery than come in here to make a ministerial announcement, talk with members of the opposition or go to committee.

Why are members of the opposition even in the House if they cannot expect some kind of meaningful dialogue, some indication that government members are listening? Members of the House have been elected to put forward their beliefs on behalf of their constituents. Yet the government completely forgets that and abrogates its responsibility when it comes to having any kind of dialogue with members of the House. We see it in committees when ministers are simply too busy to appear before members of the committees to speak about the government plan, and we are left wondering what the point is.

With respect to Quebec we know that the plan is to be provocative and reckless. The government will impose what it thinks it should do as opposed to sitting down with Quebec and discussing what should happen. Does it try to include the commentary and thoughtful insights of the province of Quebec? No, that is not the way the government approaches the situation. It has not been and it probably never will be under this Prime Minister.

The Liberal government has very skewed priorities. It knows that its one driving or motivating force for being in government is to remain in government. That is what the government is about. It is not about identifying issues that are important to Canadians. It is about how it stays in power.

Government members are like survivors of the Titanic clinging to a lifeboat. That is the way they approach this matter. They will do whatever they have to do to stay in power. They are clinging to power by dividing the country. They have taken a provocative approach that will pit members of one province against those of other provinces. That is an easy thing to do. It is always easy to find issues that divide the country. The Prime Minister has demonstrated that time and time again.

It is very easy to keep the passions of people outside Quebec enraged against those who live in Quebec. It is very easy to leave Quebeckers with the impression that the rest of Canada does not care about them, and that is not true. That is not the case. There are people right across the country, francophones both inside and outside Quebec, who want to make the country work.

We have to remind Quebeckers and Canadians of that time and time again. Unity is something that can and will work in the country, but the Prime Minister does not understand that. He would rather pick a fight, get down on a very base level and try to impose his will, his vision if he even has one, of how Quebec should exist within the country. It is a sad day in the House when that happens. It is a sad day every day that the government takes a provocative and mean-spirited approach toward one province and one people in the country.

That is not the position of the Conservative Party of Canada. It never has been and never will be. We have a long and proud record of what we have tried to do to keep the country together, not in an appeasing way or in a way that is meant to give away rights but in a way that is meant to respect, understand and at least make meaningful and truthful gestures when it comes to keeping the country united and people of the country working toward a common goal.

I realize my time is short and that we are somewhat off topic in talking about agriculture, but it is too important an issue to let it go by at this time. We have not seen the type of leadership that one would expect from the Prime Minister who is from Quebec. He has abrogated his own responsibility and understanding toward his own home province in the move he has made today.

I suspect that members of the government are surprised and taken aback at the approach their leader, the Prime Minister, has taken. There is very little unity in the government as opposed to the unity in the country at this time, yet the Prime Minister, I suggest, is prepared to stumble recklessly into this issue for his own political gain.

When the press conference occurs today, Canadians should beware and be ready for what the Prime Minister will say. It is not going to be all wine and roses. That will be the approach he takes. It will be an attempt to baffle Canadians with his insights into Quebec. They should look a little deeper as to what is behind this provocative move by the Prime Minister. It is not an approach to heal; it is an approach that will harm the unity of this country.

[Supply, December 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate. I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for West Nova.

With respect to agriculture we are very pleased that it was the Conservative Party that brought about this debate. Obviously the minister has been forthright in his remarks today, but it is increasingly clear every day that the federal government has not clearly recognized the importance of agriculture in Canada. Due to the urging of members of this party and others a standing committee is currently travelling in an attempt to deal with this crisis.

A crisis is the proper word. The government manages by crisis. It waits until the wheels come off and then it reacts. It is not like there has been any planning. The minister talked about long term planning. It will be a long time and a cold day in this place before we see long term planning coming from the government.

With respect to that topic we now know that legislation is coming that is meant to provoke the province of Quebec. Yes, the little cat from Shawinigan is out of the bag. We now know that the government plans to bring in legislation in very short order. There will be a press conference later today in which the Prime Minister will outline his attempt to poke Quebec in the eye once again and try to get the country embroiled in a debate over national unity.

We question the timing, the procedure, and the process that has been followed. It has been demonstrated again. We just finished a 40-plus hour debate over a similar issue, an issue that is divisive, an issue where the government has failed to consult, and an issue where the government deliberately ran roughshod and used a process to beat the opposition and rest of the country over the head to impose its will. We are about to embark on that same process again. Later today in a press conference the Prime Minister will outline his way to impose things upon the province of Quebec in a referendum.

We have to question that. As members of the House we are representatives of the people of Canada. It is our responsibility to question the Prime Minister as to why he is doing it and why he is continuing to demonstrate such a provocative, aggressive approach toward one province of the country. We have seen it. It is always Quebec that the government and the Prime Minister single out in an attempt to impose their will. We do not see leadership demonstrated in the government. We see dictatorship. We do not see democracy. We see autocracy. That is what the government stands for.

There has been very little insight from the Prime Minister. Time and time again he has demonstrated that he does not understand his home province. Again the process is being abused and used by the government to impose its will.

Why are we dealing with the issue of agriculture today? A supply day is traditionally and has always been a day on which the opposition was allowed to choose its priorities. It is clear that the opposition understands the priorities of the country a lot better than the government.

I am of the mind that the Prime Minister gets up every morning with no plan. It is whatever pops into his head that day. He got up one day and decided to pick a fight with the premier of Quebec and with the province of Quebec. Why? Maybe in the back of his mind he thinks that this is a way to somehow rewrite history, to correct the wrongs or correct the way he somehow dropped the ball in the pass. He is trying to make Canadians forget that he completely mismanaged this issue during 1995. He has completely misunderstood Quebec from the very day he entered public life.

There is very little faith not only in the province of Quebec but in every province. I suspect the premiers will be extremely upset when they come to understand what the Prime Minister is doing.

The premiers have not been consulted. The provinces have not been consulted. God knows the opposition has not been consulted at all on this issue. Why now? Why at this time when we have seen in the province of Quebec the most sustained period of stability that has existed for some time?

[An Act For The Recognition And Protection Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms, December 6th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-237, which is an act for the recognition and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Strengthening property rights is a sentiment that we in the Conservative Party embrace wholeheartedly. The party has a long history in this regard. This legislation would afford greater protection in the bill of rights for property rights for both individuals and corporations.

The bill was last before the House on October 1998. I congratulate the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville for bringing the issue of property rights back to the House of Commons. He has been very dogged in his pursuit of this issue and his perseverance is duly noted.

It is unfortunate in a way because if the bill of rights was properly respected to the letter, this type of amendment would not be necessary. Once again, it is to underscore or strengthen existing law to co-opt a good idea, so I think it is somewhat a statement of the obvious in some areas. The Progressive Conservative Party has always been a proponent of the rights of Canadians and in particular the rights to own and enjoy property. Fully and unconditionally we support this concept.

The Canadian bill of rights itself was enacted in 1960 by the Progressive Conservative prime minister of the day, John Diefenbaker. It extended protection for the right to enjoy property, the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process, and obviously the right to a fair hearing.

In my previous comments at second reading I noted that in 1995 the Progressive Conservative Party across Canada approved a new constitution which lists one of the four principles as the following:

A belief that the best guarantors of the prosperity and the well-being of the people of Canada are:

1. the freedom of the individual Canadian to pursue their enlightened and legitimate self-interest within a competitive economy;

2. the freedom of individual Canadians to enjoy the fruits of their labour to the greatest possible extent; and

3. the right to own property.

That is in the Conservative constitution.

The protection of property rights has long been recognized as a fundamental aspect of social and economic justice in this country. From the first settlers to those who faced the most overwhelming challenges of the size of this country, property was an immediate challenge. Yet there are inconsistencies within the laws concerning property rights today.

Article 17 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights reads as follows:

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Canada ratified the UN Declaration of Human Rights over 50 years ago. It underscores again the importance of these rights.

Through the costly and discriminatory Firearms Act, the government is depriving law-abiding Canadian citizens of their property. Let us not beat around the bush, this is what is at the principle of this bill. I am referring specifically but not exclusively to rural Canadians who rely on the use of long guns for hunting, and farmers who use them for the protection of their livestock, for the elimination of predators. It is viewed more as a tool and a farm implement.

It is incumbent upon me at this point to say that on the 10th anniversary of the Montreal massacre it is perhaps ill-timed that we find ourselves debating this issue. Anyone on either side of this gun registration debate I think would agree that we should be focusing on mourning the loss of the 14 bright young future leaders of our country who were gunned down in Montreal. Yet the debate is here, it is before the House.

It must be noted that even with the current Firearms Act, nothing could have been done to prevent the psychopathic killer Marc Lépine from engaging in his shooting rampage. Criminals simply do not register guns. The Liberals' gun registry will do nothing to prevent gun related crime, but will impose increasingly expensive and discriminatory regulations upon law-abiding citizens. Criminals will not participate in any form of legitimate gun registry. The Conservative Party would repeal that element of the gun registry system. This is a narrowly focused law. Other existing safety provisions introduced by the Conservative Party would be left in place, but the gun registry system would be gone.

Bill C-237 is not of great concern to many Liberals because most of their support comes from urban Canada. Only approximately 10% of the Canadian population would be immediately affected by this law. Most Canadians do not register their firearms. They do not have firearms to register. The perpetual costs and inconvenience of this law is affecting mostly rural gun owning Canadians who live outside of city centres.

Issues like gun registry are a concern everywhere. Guns are property. Law-abiding gun owners in rural Canada have a right to have guns.

The recent amendments to the Firearms Act unleash a discriminatory system on law-abiding property owners. The act was designed to put pressure on legitimate gun owners who have consistently demonstrated until now that they favour reasonable gun control and desire to live within the law. It targets the wrong group. The criminal code is being used to run roughshod over property rights in this regard.

Gun registry has been a complete failure, facing massive non-compliance by the over three million gun owners in Canada with seven million guns yet to be registered. Provincial challenges at the supreme court level are indicative of broad disagreement about the approach the government has taken.

With the costs now spiralling into the area of $300 million, one has to question the priorities of the government with respect to crime in Canada. As an example, $206 million has been set aside for the new youth criminal justice act over the next three years. This particular initiative has already cost Canadian taxpayers close to $300 million with very little impact, if any, on crime.

Even if registration could be processed on time, the cost is unreasonable to keep a farmer or a hunter from engaging in a very legitimate, legal exercise. Because the process has failed, many people will not register. The government will be confiscating property which legally belongs to the person in question without compensation. Many may face arrest as a result of this criminal code amendment.

To recap, big brother can take our property without compensation and then throw us in jail. This will commence an unchecked growth in illegal gun sales around the country, encouraging sales on the black market. A panel of Liberal experts told the justice minister this would happen but she did not listen to that advice.

The bill denies and drives more legitimate owners into selling their guns or giving them up. This will put more guns, illegal and otherwise, on the black market.

We know that our prison system is suffering problems from funding and overcrowding. We know that our police agencies are breaking down as a result of underfunding. But the government is spending millions of dollars seizing law-abiding citizens' property.

Will the government spend more money on organized crime? Not likely. Will it set a greater priority for where the money should actually be spent? It does not appear so. There is a lack of consistency on the part of the government. It is refusing to act on constitutional grounds with respect to this bill. It, among other groups, will oppose it. But the Progressive Conservative Party is going to support this bill for the reasons I have referred to.

The Liberals rejected a truly effective DNA data bank system for similar reasons. They said they were afraid of the legal consequences. Yet they are going to keep a law that barely survived the Alberta Court of Appeal and is now going before the Supreme Court of Canada which we hope will succeed.

Governments have a duty to taxpayers to wait until the supreme court settles issues of constitutionality. They should not be deterred or afraid by it. The government suffers perpetually from charter constipation. It has already spent close to $300 million and counting. This will be followed by confiscation and lengthy court battles as a result.

The government argues that property rights are already adequately protected under the Canadian bill of rights. If it cannot continue, this will violate article 17 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights by arbitrarily taking property from Canadian citizens.

The PC Party does not want to limit the government's ability to legislate. It needs to be constantly reminded that its powers to override property rights go against individual rights in this country. There is a delicate balance that must be respected.

The issue of property rights in our constitution is also very problematic. The omission of property rights from section 7 of the charter greatly reduces the scope of the charter in this regard. It means that section 7 affords no guarantee of compensation or a fair procedure for the taking of property by the government. It also means that section 7 affords no guarantee of fair treatment by courts, tribunals or officials with powers over purely economic interests of individuals or corporations.

Thus section 7 “liberty must be interpreted as not including property, as not including freedom of contract, and, in short, as not including economic liberty”.

Bill C-237 will help enhance the protection that most people thought they already had under the constitution. It does not try to change or challenge the charter because this is a complicated process. Rather, it tries to strengthen property rights and provisions of the bill of rights.

Section 237 would also accord greater strength to the charter of rights and for Canadians to enjoy property. It would also enhance the right to be paid fair compensation, to have fixed compensation, to have timely compensation and to apply to the courts to obtain real justice.

Bill C-237 recognizes that the gun registry system has not been working. The protests and legal challenges continue to mount against the existing Firearms Act, but the Liberal government is not using its good discretion. It is abusing its authority. We need legislation such as Bill C-237 more than ever.

In conclusion, I want to send a message to those who do oppose gun registration. Today is the day to remember the 14 women who died at École Polytechnique. It is a day to remember that violence against women still exists. The PC Party feels that this particular bill is worthy of support. We want to send our condolences to those affected by this massacre.

[Criminal Code, December 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of my colleague from West Nova. I know that he and all members of the House are very concerned about this type of scenario. He poses a very practical question.

Earlier I referred to the commentary by Judge Clyde F. MacDonald in Pictou county when he made that exact analogy. I suggested that the current criminal code provisions spoke to murder and manslaughter when alcohol was involved. Oftentimes that is the case, particularly in domestic situations. It seems in those cases it is only an aggravating circumstance. Or, sometimes defence lawyers use it as a mitigating circumstance as to the state of mind of the individual who committed the murder.

Surely impaired people, who voluntarily put alcohol in their systems and get behind the wheel and go out on the highway and kill someone, have to be dealt with very harshly under the current provisions of the criminal code.