Peter MacKay

[Apec Summit, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in light of this controversy, will the solicitor general now show some integrity, take responsibility for his actions and resign immediately?

[Apec Summit, October 6th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the very process which the solicitor general has so vigorously defended has now been compromised by his own irresponsibility. His feeble defence of tabling a letter from Frederick Toole is proof that he discussed APEC publicly. This is contrary to the previous statements that he could say nothing on APEC and is the equivalent of President Clinton's famous line “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”.

[Supply, October 5th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the erudite and very articulate presentation of the minister. I would like to ask her a very specific question.

With respect, she did not seem to give a lot of substance regarding the social contract itself. I am asking about a dispute resolution mechanism or anything to do with clarifying the rules of intergovernmental co-operation, or specifically the issue of tax transfer points as contemplated by Mr. Charest's platform in the Canadian covenant.

[Petitions, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition, pursuant to Standing Order 36, on behalf of the constituents of Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, which contains hundreds of names.

The petitioners call upon this government to not enact Bill C-68 and waste hundreds of millions of tax dollars, but instead to put that money toward frontline policing and more effective means of reducing crime in this country.

[Apec Summit, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, William Kaplan's recent book Presumed Guilty outlines many disturbing details about the Liberal government's politicized relationship with the RCMP. One such detail is a briefing note in August 1995 on the Airbus investigation for the then solicitor general.

In light of documented intervention of the Prime Minister's Office into RCMP security at APEC, I ask a question of our current solicitor general. Did he receive a similar briefing note from the Prime Minister's Office instructing him on the role of the RCMP during the APEC summit?

[Apec Summit, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, week after week Canadians have witnessed the dodging and weaving of the Prime Minister in an effort to avoid accountability for his actions at APEC. Yet Prime Minister staffers like Jennifer Lang are allowed to comment at random on the APEC allegations, dismissing Chief Gail Sparrows as not credible.

My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Why is it that Liberal spin doctors are allowed to comment on APEC outside the public complaints commission while the Prime Minister continues to hide? Why the double standard?

[An Act For The Recognition And Protection Of Human Rights And Fundamental Freedoms, October 5th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise following the remarks of the learned House leader for the New Democratic Party to take part in the debate concerning Bill C-304, an act to amend an act for recognition and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms with respect to property rights.

This legislation would afford greater protection in the Canadian bill of rights for the property rights of both individuals and corporations.

I congratulate the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville on bringing the issue of property rights to the floor of the House of Commons again. He has been a strong and consistent advocate of his position.

Ensuring the right of every Canadian to enjoy property ownership has been a long and sacred principle of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. The Canadian bill of rights enacted in 1960 by Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker extended protection in the following areas: the right to enjoy property, the right not to be deprived of property except by due process and the right to a fair hearing.

The Conservative Party of Canada has repeatedly supported and recognized the importance of property rights. In 1995 our party from across Canada improved a new party constitution which lists as its principles a belief that the best guarantees of prosperity and well-being for the people of Canada are as follows: the freedom of individual Canadians to pursue their enlightened and legitimate self-interest within a competitive economy, the freedom of the individual Canadian to enjoy the fruits of his or her labour to the greatest possible extent, and the right to own property.

The protection of property rights has long been a recognized and fundamental aspect of social and economic justice. In 1690 John Locke wrote:

The great and chief end of men—putting themselves under government, is the preservation of property.

A century later, Edmund Burke, one of the great conservative philosophers of the British tradition, wrote:

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice.

In 1948 the Government of Canada signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which included the protection of property rights. Appropriately John Humphrey, a Canadian law professor who was working as a director of human rights for the UN Secretariat, was a key drafter of the document.

Not only was the bill of rights passed in 1960 but the House of Commons, through a motion passed in 1988 with the support of all parties at that time, indicated its support for property rights.

Sadly the Liberal government saw fit in the last parliament to trample over the spirit of that UN declaration, Mr. Diefenbaker's legacy and his expressed will of the House through the Pearson airport fiasco.

In 1993 the Liberals cancelled the much needed agreement to privatize Pearson International Airport and nobody would dispute a new government's ability or right to reverse the decision of its predecessor. However, a new government has a mandate to take different policy directions. The Liberals decided in this instance that their decision would go one step further, that they would remove the rights of Canadian companies from seeking fair and just compensation from the government for cancelling the Pearson agreement.

Bill C-68 which has been referenced by the member for Yorkton-Melville is another example of where Canadian individual property rights have been trampled. The Liberals have even introduced legislation to do that. It is interesting to know, however, that the Reform and Bloc caucuses in the last parliament did very little to highlight what the Liberals were doing at that time with respect to the Pearson airport debacle.

Thankfully members in the upper chamber, Progressive Conservatives for the most part but with a few Liberals on side, rose to defeat Bill C-22. For all the abuse that the Reform Party inflicts upon the Senate it is paramount for Canadians to realize that those individuals concerned about property rights in the Senate did their job. They recognized that this was an opportunity for them to protect the property rights of Canadians where the Reform Party dropped the ball.

Perhaps the Reform Party in this instance should spend more time working on property rights and less time having its taxpayer funded staff engage in libelling and misrepresenting senators in political campaigns.

I am nonetheless pleased to discuss Bill C-304 and protecting property rights in this context. This is an appropriate forum for us to do so. To cite the Right Hon. John Diefenbaker:

Parliament is more than procedure. It is the custodian of the nation's freedom.

Bill C-304 would accord stronger protection for the freedom of Canadians to enjoy their property. As mentioned by the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville, it would amend the Canadian bill of rights to include protection for the following property rights: the right to be paid for fair compensation, the right to have that compensation fixed impartially, the right to have timely compensation, and the right to apply to courts to attain justice if they feel in any aspect that their property rights have been denied or infringed upon.

Members will forgive me for highlighting the inconsistency in the Reform member proposing that the courts already have the authority or may be given more authority, given the fact that we have seen in the House repeatedly Reform members stand to criticize the judiciary. Many Reformers have attacked our judges and our courts, have referred to them as greedy little parasitic fraternities and have proposed a U.S. style of justice as a remedy to Canadians' legal problems. It is therefore refreshing to see the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville break from the rhetoric of his caucus colleagues and propose that additional authority be granted to our courts in this important area of protecting property rights.

I express the support of the Progressive Conservative caucus for this piece of legislation. We need to protect the freedom of Canadians to enjoy their property to its full extent. We need to ensure the government respects the property rights of Canadians. We need to ensure there exists a due process through which property is not seized without fair and just compensation and that there is due process to make that determination.

Bill -304 meets those requirements. In light of that and in light of the recent firearms legislation protest on the Hill and other protests, we feel there is an existing trend with the Liberal government abusing its authority. For those reasons we feel there is a need for legislation such as that proposed by the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville and we will be supporting the bill.

[Airbus Investigation, October 1st, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, there is mounting evidence of political interference from the Prime Minister's office and the RCMP security at APEC.

Allegations have also surfaced which implicate the Prime Minister's office in the RCMP's Airbus investigation. Canadians want to know that their national police force is independent and not subject to political interference.

Did the Prime Minister have any knowledge of the RCMP Airbus investigation prior to November 18, 1995? What role did he play in this entire affair?

[Equalization, September 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House and to follow the remarks made by my colleague from Newfoundland. He spoke very eloquently and no doubt is going to be a fine parliamentarian in the same vein as the speaker previous to him, my colleague the House leader of the New Democratic Party.

I am pleased to speak tonight with respect to the Liberal government's mishandling of what is now becoming the APEC security issue and the scandal surrounding it.

Day after day in this House, the Canadian public and we in this chamber have been subjected to the repeated evasions and diversions to questions about the role of the Prime Minister in this matter. There is also the matter of the government's selected perception as to the role of the RCMP Public Complaints Commission in investigating last November's crackdown at the APEC summit in Vancouver.

The issue extends well beyond whether the RCMP were out of line in security measures they used against protesters. It extends beyond the appropriateness of former Indonesian President Suharto even being here on an official state visit.

At the heart of the issue is the mounting evidence that the Prime Minister and his office staff interfered with the RCMP in the arrangement of security to basically placate the wishes of a foreign dictator, to avoid offending him. We have seen e-mails, memorandums and notebooks which express the wishes of the Prime Minister and his staff. They are referenced there quite clearly.

We have also witnessed the Prime Minister in the thick of the protest. Camera angles have caught him at that. Even the Prime Minister's assertion that he was not, in the words of the NDP, barking out orders, it certainly raises questions as to what was taking place at that time.

At the very least, the Prime Minister should be given the opportunity, and I suggest he has the opportunity, to rise in this House and clarify contradictory statements made about the handling of this affair.

A ministerial statement in the House is appropriate. That is why my colleagues in the Conservative Party and I have been calling for the Prime Minister to make such a statement in this House and clearly outline what role he played in directing the RCMP during the security at APEC.

That is why as well we put a motion before the justice committee to conduct an independent review of the relationship between the PMO and the RCMP to determine whether political interference occurred in APEC and whether there are grounds to look at this further and perhaps clarify the boundaries of what the Prime Minister's role should be in political interference when the RCMP are handling matters such as this.

Canadians rightfully want answers and the government continues to throw up smoke. It points to the inquiry conducted by the RCMP Public Complaints Commission into the APEC role as a means to get to the bottom of these questions.

Regardless of the commission's inquiry, nothing prevents the Prime Minister from speaking to this matter in the House. It would not interfere with the inquiry in any way, shape or form. In fact it might raise new questions for the commission to pursue.

I suggest the cloud that hangs over the commission further complicates the matter because the commission's mandate is intended to focus on complaints directed toward the RCMP. It has nothing to do with political interference. The commission is headed by a chairperson who has made political donations to the Liberal Party of Canada, thus bringing into question the arm's length integrity of that person, sadly.

The recommendations that that commission might make in any event are not binding. The report is then made to the RCMP commissioner or the solicitor general himself, thus further undermining the integrity of that commission.

Clearly what we need to have happen in this case is have the Prime Minister stand in his place in this chamber and give Canadians what they deserve: accountability and responsible leadership in government.

Canadians need an investigative process that is open, transparent and accountable and also has the appearance of such. I call again upon the government and the Prime Minister to clarify what exactly took place in Vancouver. Let us stop the stonewalling. Let us stop talking about what the commission is charged with doing and talk about what the commission is not charged with doing, and that is the accountability of the Prime Minister and political interference that is alleged in this matter.

[Apec Summit, September 30th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I ask the Prime Minister to demonstrate dignity and integrity by speaking in the House on his role in the APEC affair.