Raymonde Folco

[Volunteerism, April 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw attention to the hard work and perseverance of a number of volunteers in my riding of Laval West.

Thanks to the devotion of Mrs. Irène Mackriss and the generosity of Mr. Paul Champagne, as well as many legion members, Royal Canadian Legion branch 251 in Chomeday, Laval, is now equipped with an elevator. Now older or disabled legion members, which means the majority of the branch membership, have easy access to the legion premises, which are on the second floor and were reachable only by some very hard to manoeuvre stairs.

This initiative took a number of years to achieve. Once again, the volunteers continued their efforts despite numerous refusals. Their success reflects upon the entire voluntary sector.

I salute all of the people who helped this project to see the light of day through their efforts and their financial contributions, thus making it possible for the mobility impaired to gain easier access to the Laval Royal Canadian Legion .

[National Volunteer Week, April 23rd, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that this week is National Volunteer Week 2002, a time to publicly thank the millions of Canadians who give of their time and talent to help others.

From April 21 to 27, we are celebrating National Volunteer Week. This week is dedicated to the spirit of volunteering. Without volunteers, a great many needs would not be met, and our lives would be much colder and lonelier.

Over the years, volunteers have done immeasurable work for the collective good. The cumulative action of ordinary people from across the country has left a lasting impression on virtually every aspect of Canadian society, promoting its growth and development.

Volunteers have played a major role in shaping our country and they will continue to play a leading role in shaping our future. Their dedication and commitment are a true testimony to Canada's values and identity.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that Bloc Quebecois members get confused sometimes and do not know where they stand.

I would just like to repeat the words of a Bloc member, who recently stated “The minister has made efforts to locate these people. For example, she sends letters to those who are not collecting the guaranteed income supplement, or even the old age pension”.

“There are some 65,000 people not even collecting the old age pension, and the minister has made an effort”. That is what a Bloc Quebecois MP had to say.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, as far as the GIS is concerned, there has always been a retroactivity provision. I would emphasize, as has been said here in the House already on numerous occasions, that the guaranteed income supplement is subject to an 11 month retroactive period.

However, since the hon. member is boasting about representing the people of Quebec and wanting to help them, I would again point out that the government of Quebec allows retroactivity only in certain programs, which I could easily list. There is either no retroactivity or a maximum of one year.

[Ethnic Tolerance, April 19th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to add my voice to that of the whip, who spoke earlier.

Some recent incidents in Canada have shown that we are not immune to international conflicts.

We must strongly condemn the violence and intolerance directed at certain people because they belong to an ethnic or religious group.

The Liberal government has adopted appropriate measures to ensure that those who choose violence to express their political beliefs will receive a fitting punishment.

However, legislation cannot solve everything and the state cannot stop all the activities of a minority that prefers conflict to peace.

I am asking all Canadians to unanimously condemn those who take conflicts abroad and turn them into conflicts in Canada.

Let us remember our values and what it means to be Canadians.

[Copyright Act, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in response to the hon member for Acadie--Bathurst, I would say that the Government of New Brunswick's workforce reduction plan meets the employment insurance criteria concerning early retirement incentive programs. HRDC obtained from the Government of New Brunswick the necessary information to conclude that its workforce reduction plan met the criteria in section 51 of the regulations, the section referred to by the member.

I therefore conclude that, as far as we are concerned, all indications are that the Province of New Brunswick is in compliance with the terms of the agreement.

[Copyright Act, April 16th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Acadie--Bathurst and I have had many discussions on this. I would just like to clarify the regulations on this, for there are such regulations. I will explain.

This is an employment insurance program to encourage early retirement. It allows workers to draw benefits when they leave their jobs as part of an approved workforce reduction plan implemented by their employer. This is covered by section 51 of the regulations.

Continuing my explanations, all public and private sector employers who plan to downsize can take advantage of this program to encourage early retirement. In early 2000, the province of New Brunswick announced that it would be undertaking workforce reduction and was authorized to take part in this program. The agreement covered eligible employees who left between April 1, 2000 and March 31, 2002.

The employees may therefore apply for EI benefits without penalty when they voluntary leave their job, because they are thus preserving another's job. Those applying for benefits under this provision are subject to the usual eligibility criteria, and the department examines their employment records in order to ensure that they are indeed participants designated for this approved program .

All employees—I repeat for the benefit of the member—from the public and private sectors who work for an employer with a workforce reduction plan that was approved by HRDC are treated the same way.

I would like to inform the member that the government of New Brunswick's workforce reduction plan meets the criteria set out in the EI voluntary early retirement window program. The agreement reached with the government of New Brunswick covered some 1,700 employees who left their jobs in the specified timeframe.

HRDC obtained the necessary information from the government of New Brunswick to determine that its workforce reduction plan met the criteria set out in section 51 of the regulations. Everything seems to indicate that the province of New Brunswick is respecting the terms and conditions of the agreement.

As regards the second part of the member's question, I would like to provide examples of other private companies that decided to take advantage of this program.

For example, in the member's province, there is Alliant Telecom-New Brunswick. For the period from November 2001 to June 2002, HRDC reached an agreement which covers 353 management and non-unionized workers, as well as 337 unionized workers.

Canadian National, across the country, is also eligible. We signed an agreement effective June 2001 to June 2002. It covers 353 management and non-unionized workers, as well as 337 unionized workers.

There is also Noranda Inc. and Brunswick Smelter, where there is an agreement in place for the period from May 2001 to May 2002. This agreement benefited 59 employees in 2001 and will benefit some 35 more in 2002. There are other examples, but I believe that is enough.

[Employment Insurance, April 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, here again, the member opposite is talking about errors. This has nothing to do with errors, as I have so often said. Let me add that, unlike what the hon. member seems to think, Canadians asked us, as a government, to take a careful and balanced approach in dealing with the EI issue. After all, these are tax dollars.

The EI system works well. It is reliable and it does help Canadians when they need it. Moreover, we keep increasing benefits while constantly reducing premiums. This is the eighth consecutive year that we have reduced them since 1994. This year, the new 2002 rates of 2.2% for workers and 3.08% for employers will save contributors some $6.8 billion compared to what they would have paid if the 1994 rate had been in effect.

In conclusion, I hope that the member opposite will clearly understand that we do not wish to penalize those who make errors—and I repeat his own words—but only those who illegally apply for benefits.

[Employment Insurance, April 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, before I start answering, I would like to say that I fully understand the concerns raised by the member who just spoke.

However, we must keep in mind that most Canadians who apply for employment insurance are honest and hard working people who need temporary income support while they are unemployed. However, we must not be naive.

We know unfortunately that there are always some people--and they are a minority--who apply for employment insurance benefits although they are not entitled to them, and who are trying to take advantage of the system. There are not that many who do so, but let us not be naive, they do exist.

This is why the Department of Human Resources Development of Canada has as a mandate to protect the integrity of the employment insurance program by conducting an investigation every time there is an allegation of abuse. We are talking about abuse, not mistakes.

The Government of Canada has a responsibility towards Canadian taxpayers as well as employment insurance claimants. When a debt is outstanding, the government must ask for payment while ensuring that employment insurance claimants are treated fairly.

In our report on planning and priorities, it was mentioned that the Department of Human Resources Development might charge interest on outstanding debt related to employment insurance. However, I would like to point out once again, as the minister has done on numerous occasions, that the proposed regulation would concern interest strictly on debts due to fraud--this is what the member across the way seems to find difficult to understand--and not due to errors. Is this clear?

In this file, we are also responsible for discouraging people from fraudulently using this program, which is so important to Canadian workers and their family.

As far as the amount of the outstanding debt is concerned, it will be dependent on the date the regulation is approved, if it is. However I want to stress that the amount of money outstanding due to fraud is on average about 1% of the total unemployment insurance benefits paid out every year.

Once again, and I hope this is the last time, I repeat that the planned penalty will not be charged to people who make a mistake in good faith. The administrative penalties will only apply to fraud.

[The Middle East, April 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie.

Let me be clear about the difficult situation in the Middle East. The war which is going on today between Israel and the Palestinians is not about the occupation of the territories, problematic as that reality may be. It is about the legitimacy of Israel's existence.

In 1948 Israel was attacked by five Arab armies in an unprovoked attack in contravention of the two-thirds majority vote of the United Nations creating the state of Israel. It was in that defensive war that Israel came into possession of the land demarcated by the so-called green line. Despite this resolution well over 50 years ago Israel remains unrecognized today by any Arab states with the exception of Jordan and Egypt.

The PLO was founded in 1964. That is three years before the 1967 war during which in a defensive action Israel came into possession what today we call the territories. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah have made it graphically clear that their unrelenting hostility to Israel is not linked to any peace agreements, but rather to the very fact of Israel's existence. Moreover, they have been equally clear in indicating that they consider terrorism, specifically and explicitly targeted at civilians, as their weapon of choice.

Donald Rumsfeld, the American secretary of defense, has stated:

Murderers are not martyrs. Targeting civilians is immoral, whatever the excuse. Terrorists have declared war on civilization, and states like Iran, Iraq and Syria are inspiring and financing a culture of political murder and suicide bombing.

At the height of the Oslo peace talks, with security co-operation apparently solidly in place and with one of the accord's key architects, Shimon Peres running for prime minister, terrorist attacks intensified.

Israel has amply demonstrated its commitment to the principle of land for peace and its willingness to relinquish occupied territory. It did so with Egypt with regard to land taken in another defensive war, the Sinai, and later with Jordan. It demonstrated an unprecedented and historic willingness to relinquish territory at the Camp David 2 negotiations. This offer was met, not with a counter offer, but rather with intifada and increased terrorism.

It is clear that this conflict pre-dates the occupation that followed the 1967 war and that the core of this issue is not the occupation of the territories but rather the fact of the existence of the state of Israel in the first place.

While the list of facts and arguments supporting this view are long and compelling, it is important to note the context. George P. Fletcher wrote in the New York Times and other legal experts have long affirmed that:

...it is not illegal for victorious powers to occupy hostile territory seized in the course of war until they are able to negotiate a successful peace treaty with their former enemies.

This is what Israel has done. Israel has consistently shown a willingness to engage in precisely such negotiations, but whatever the course of these negotiations, successful or otherwise, the terror has continued.

I bring to the attention of the House a recent interview conducted by the BBC's HARDtalk on April 1 with the person identified as the Hamas representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan. Tim Sebastian is the person who conducted the interview.

Tim Sebastian: So you don't say whether you will listen to them (leaders of Arab states) if they said “stop the intifada”, and you (Hamas) certainly don't listen to Yasser Arafat when he says “stop the suicide bombing”.

Osama Hamdan: Yasser Arafat didn't say that.

Tim Sebastian: He didn't say “stop the bombing?”

Osama Hamdan: No, he didn't say it.

Tim Sebastian: That's what he says he said.

Osama Hamdan: He said it the day after the operation.

Tim Sebastian: So he is saying one thing to the outside world, and a different thing to you.

Osama Hamdan: Yes. Maybe.

Tim Sebastian: That's quite an admission...That's quite an admission.

Let me repeat that Osama Hamdan is the Hamas representative in Lebanon.

This is not news. This is a reiteration of an old story. The point is that the current Palestinian leadership has made it clear that the terrorism will continue no matter what stance Israel stakes out, no matter what the status of the conflict is, no matter what concessions Israel may make in the context of peace negotiations. No civilized country mired in the context I have just laid out can be expected to passively submit to such a clear, premeditated, strategic assault on its survival as a state.

There is a second level to this conflict that strikes still closer to home. Israel, no more or less so than any other democracy, has no pretensions to perfection. Moreover, it is legitimate to engage in constructive debate with regard to her policies or that of any other country.

What is not acceptable is to allow such debate to deteriorate into raw anti-Semitism. I am referring here to the poisonous Zionism is racism resolution of the United Nations and the more local incidents of anti-Semitism, as manifested in France, dating back to the infamous cemetery desecration at Carpentras, or as occurred last week in Canada with the firebombing of a synagogue in Saskatoon.

In France in the past few months, the growing anti-Semitic trend includes attacks on and desecration of synagogues, documented reports of chants of “vive bin Laden” and “death to the Jews” in street demonstrations and the shockingly disparaging slurs expressed privately against the state of Israel by the French ambassador Daniel Bernard. The echoes of the experience of French Jews during the infamous Vichy regime are stark.

The organized Jewish community of Canada has a proven track record of coming to the defence of any group subjected to such attacks. I would like to quote a few examples if I may.

On September 17, 2001, Mr. Keith Landy, national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, wrote to Mr. Singh, president of the National Association of Indo-Canadians, and stated:

...I write to condemn unequivocally the heinous attack that gutted the Hindu Temple in Hamilton...We share your pain and anguish now at the loss of your spiritual home and communal gathering place and your sense of outrage that there would be those who could have their hearts filled with such venom and anger as to lash out in this contemptible way.

Further, Mr. Moshe Ronen, national president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, stated on October 10, 2000:

We strongly condemn the defacement of a Palestinian centre in Toronto and Jewish synagogues and other institutions in Toronto and Ottawa, carried out by perpetrators unknown. Such acts of vandalism have no place anywhere in Canada.

Further, the chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, wrote to Mr. Sikandar Khan, president of the B.C. Muslim Association, on November 27, 2000, and stated:

Please accept the support of Canadian Jewish Congress, Pacific Region, for the Muslim community of B.C., over the fire that desecrated the Masjid Mosque in Surrey on Friday...we unequivocally condemn such a grotesque act as an assault on all Canadians.

Last is a letter from February 27, 2002. Mr. Ed Morgan, chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Ontario Region, wrote to Pandit Ganesh Persaud and stated:

We were deeply shocked to learn of the attack on your temple that took place on February 8. The desecration of a holy temple is a despicable act of hatred and cowardice.

In sum, our Canadian democracy is our sacred trust. It is rooted in a set of values that is predicated on resolving conflict in non-violent ways. It is for this reason that we defend each other against violence irrespective of our different political, religious or cultural perspectives.

Can there be any conceivable basis for disagreement on this issue in the wake of the events of last September? It is why rabbis, Jewish community leaders and Jewish community groups spoke out on behalf of the Muslims, the Hindus and the Palestinians, as I have just quoted, after the tragedy of September 11 when they suffered vandalism to their institutions. Recent attacks on Canadian synagogues are profoundly disturbing and simply cannot be tolerated. They must be condemned by all parties irrespective of individual views held on conflicts in the Middle East or elsewhere.

I urge all members of Canada's parliament to have the courage to understand and identify the actual roots of the history of the conflict in the Middle East. Let us not allow the hatred that distorts that history to take root in our own country.