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  • His favourite word is debate.

Conservative MP for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston (Ontario)

Won his last election, in 2021, with 49% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Question No. 166 March 19th, 2003

With regard to the language of menus and other services to the public at restaurants located at premises that are rented from the National Capital Commission in the ByWard Market and other locations: ( a ) since what date have standard leases required that restaurateurs and other service providers provide services to the public in both official languages; ( b ) which types of services are covered by the requirement to provide services in both official languages and at which locations; ( c ) are there any service providers who are not covered by such a provision in their leases and, if so, at what locations are these service providers located; and ( d ) what means, if any, have been used to enforce this leasehold condition with regard to the specific leases where it does apply?

Official Languages March 17th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, if someone sat down and tried to design as an experiment the most exclusionary system of public service hiring and promotion imaginable, it might look something like this.

First, select some skill that most Canadians do not have and declare it essential for many jobs where it serves no work related function. Second, keep tight limits on job training in this skill. Third, demote or transfer any public servant who does not meet the arbitrary and ever-changing goals. Quite frankly, that is exactly what the government is doing with the tough new bilingualism requirements announced last week.

Under these rules 24 million Canadians would be frozen out from all top public service jobs. Which Canadians are excluded? There would be the 57% of francophones who do not speak English, the 91% of anglophones who do not speak French, over 80% of immigrants, and 95% of aboriginal Canadians.

The new rules are unworthy of a country that cares about all of its citizens, including the ones who are not bilingual.

Falun Gong February 28th, 2003

moved:

Motion No. 236

That, in the opinion of this House, the Prime Minister should take advantage of his upcoming meeting with President Jiang Zemin of China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Conference to privately raise the issue of the continued imprisonment in China of thirteen Falun Gong practitioners who have close family ties to Canada, and to emphasize that Canadians would be more willing to strengthen existing trade and aid ties between Canada and China if these individuals (namely, Lizhi He; Xiuzhen Lu; Tianxiong Peng; Zhanzhong Wu; Xiuchao Huang; Bo Qiu; Yueli Yang; Yangtao Jin; Jiangang Huang; Guangshou Huang; Mingli Lin; Zhou Zheng; and Changzheng Sun) were re-united with their families in Canada.

Madam Speaker, I assure you that I have made many pronunciation mistakes of the same sort, but the people of Falun Gong are very tolerant of those of us who are not perfect in our Chinese pronunciation.

The motion that was just read was unanimously passed, with a slight change in wording, by the House on October 24. The motion that we are debating today is identical in all practical purposes to that motion.

It is very unusual, to say the least, to debate a motion in the House of Commons that has been adopted, for all intents and purposes, four months after the fact of its adoption. This provides us with the unique opportunity to review the unanimous action of the House on October 24, and to see what results it has borne.

At that time, as the wording of the motion indicates, the Prime Minister was departing for Mexico to meet with leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Conference, including the president of China. I drafted and introduced this motion in the belief that any clear signal from the Prime Minister to the president of China, whether delivered in public or in private conversation, as the motion anticipates, would result in an improvement in the treatment of the 13 prisoners of conscience who are named in the motion.

As I imagined it then, the process would have worked something like this: the Prime Minister would spend a moment during his private time with President Jiang Zemin, drawing the attention of the president toward the unanimous will of the House of Commons. The president would probably regard this as an annoyance, but probably he would nevertheless, following this conversation, pass on this information to some underling with the instruction to make this minor irritation go away, so that China's relations with its valued Canadian trading partners might not be impeded by the peculiarly Canadian habit of obsessing over the individual human rights of particular individuals. And in the bowels of the vast Chinese bureaucracy, through a sort of trickle down effect, the appropriate administrators would probably in turn, so I imagined, be advised at the least to improve the conditions and the treatment of the prisoners of conscience and perhaps even to cause the release of some of the individuals named in this motion, simply in order to make this irritation go away.

Other hon. members seem to have agreed with the logic of the scenario that I had imagined and so the motion was passed without the opposition of a single member of Parliament. This kind of unanimous consent is a very rare occurrence in the House. I must say that it makes me proud of all my 300 colleagues and proud to be a member of the same institution as all my 300 colleagues in the House of all parties.

I am happy to report that the unanimous adoption of the motion seems to have resulted in at least the partial achievement of its intended goal. Of the 13 prisoners of conscience named in the motion, 5 have been freed.

Bo Qiu, a 27 year old photographer whose mother lives in Canada, has been released from the Liuchangshan labour camp. Yueli Yang, a 62 year old aerospace engineer and the mother of Zhendong Yang of Toronto, is now out of prison. Tianxiong Peng, whose twin sister lives right here in Ontario, was freed and on Christmas eve was reunited with her two year old daughter.

I would like to quote, if I may, from her twin sister, Helen Peng, who lives in Canada and who writes as follows:

My wish (for my sister's release) [came true] on Christmas Eve. It is like a dream...I truly appreciate the Canadian [Parliament] and all the others for their kind help and I wish them the very best. I hope each government will help the Falun Gong practitioners persecuted in China and help end this persecution which should never have occurred.

Even more encouraging in the three names that I have mentioned is the news about Changzheng Sun and Guangshou Huang, both of whom have been freed, and allowed to leave the country. I am happy to report that both Mrs. Sun and Mr. Huang have been reunited with their families here in Canada.

Reports from China indicate that the treatment of some of the other prisoners mentioned in the motion appear to have improved since October, and the evidence suggests that this is the direct result of the fact that the motion was passed in the House on October 24.

Looking back at a distance of four months, it seems to me pretty clear that from a technical or mechanical point of view what actually transpired to cause these positive developments, after the motion was passed in the House of Commons, was something very different from what I had imagined would take place.

Based on reports that I have received from contacts here in Canada, who are themselves in contact with friends and family in China and who have been monitoring the situation of loved ones within the Chinese penal system, it seems that the most important factor was not so much the internal pressure trickling down from on high, but rather the external pressure that the Canadian embassy in Beijing was able to bring to bear with regard to these 13 specific cases.

Canadian embassy officials, acting with impressive energy and efficiency, made it clear to the relevant Chinese authorities, that is to say the governors of the prisons and the administrators of the labour camps in which the 13 practitioners have been imprisoned, that Canada's Parliament and Canada's diplomatic corps was watching. In one particularly colourful and effective gesture, the embassy mailed Chinese New Year cards last month to each of the prisoners of conscience which made a dramatic impression, as members can imagine, upon the administrators who intercepted this mail. It made the point that they were not forgotten, that people were watching and that people in positions of authority cared very much about what happened to them. In the words of one Chinese Canadian with whom I recently talked, “It was as if the people at the Canadian embassy had been given a green light to do all the things they needed to do”. It is that which has been the most effective in getting the results that we see today.

To illustrate this point, I would like to read from a letter that I recently received from a Canadian living in Toronto whose 63 year old mother was freed from prison three weeks ago, probably as a result of this motion. He writes:

At one point, [my mother] was incarcerated in [a] notorious.... Forced Labour Camp... where lots of [Falun Gong] practitioners [have been] killed. I was really worried about her, but there was no way to know if she was still alive...

The strong reaction of the international community made those in China that started the crackdown very nervous and afraid. It was from then on, that I started to hear about my mother's situation in the labour camp.

The labour camp where my mom was imprisoned started to make a list of all those who have overseas connections...

Because of the efforts of our government, our parliament, as well as the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, my mother was finally released.

...She asked me to pass on her gratitude to all those who have helped with her release. She told me that the rescue efforts overseas have had a great impact in China. Whenever there is any sign of support from outside of China, those in charge of the labour camp became very nervous... and they would go and talk to her about it.

There was one other remarkable action taken as a result of alert Canadian diplomatic officials in the wake of the October 24 resolution, which we are discussing here today. This involved Ms. Yuzmi Wang, who today resides safely in Toronto following a remarkable rescue.

As seems so often to be the case with Falun Gong practitioners, Mrs. Wang had led a quiet and productive life prior to her arrest. She owned a small computer store in Harbin, the capital of Manchuria. When she was arrested and imprisoned several years ago, Mrs. Wang was tortured and force fed.

When she came to Ottawa following her release, I had the opportunity to talk with Mrs. Wang and she described a bit of what was involved in some of the torture that she experienced. Force feeding is really a way of imposing a form of torture on someone. Whether they are on a starvation diet, it is done to torture them without officially being engaged in torture. Their mouths are forced open, a rubber hose is forced down their throat and cold water mixed with wheat flour is poured down their throat. This results in gagging, retching, severe cramps and in some cases vomiting and nausea. Its actual benefits in terms of delivering nutrition to the person in question is highly questionable.

As I said, Mrs. Wang was imprisoned and tortured. She was released from her first sentence in prison when her death as a result of her treatment seemed inevitable. To avoid taking responsibility for her death, the Chinese authorities shipped Mrs. Wang to the United Arab Emirates where she had family members who nursed her back to health. A new warrant for her arrest was issued after Mrs. Wang was sighted at the United Arab Emirates airport by Chinese authorities and it became clear that her health had recovered and that she would not remain meek and quiet about the conditions that she had suffered while in prison.

Local authorities in the United Arab Emirates were contacted by Chinese authorities and were preparing to deport Mrs. Wang back to China on the basis of this warrant for her arrest. Members of the Falun Gong Association of Canada rallied to support her and compiled the relevant documentation to present to the authorities in the United Arab Emirates to save her from deportation and from certain imprisonment, which Mrs. Wang does not believe she would have survived.

Included among the documents that were presented, both to United Arab Emirates authorities and also to Canadian consular authorities in the UAE, was a copy of the motion that had been adopted in the House on October 24. The package of materials seems to have been decisive in causing Canadian consular officials to arrange a ministerial permit for Mrs. Wang to come safely to this country where she now resides.

I would like to dwell for a moment on the question of ministerial permits and the good that they could do in the case of individuals named in this motion who remain in China, whether still in prison or in that curious state of quasi freedom that exists for someone who, like Mrs. Wang following her release, is in perpetual danger of renewed incarceration.

The importance of getting these people out of China whenever possible and to the safety of Canada where they all have family members, husbands, wives, sons or daughters, parents in some cases, waiting to greet them, cannot be overemphasized.

I would like to quote again from Helen Peng, whose twin sister is in China, out of prison but under close observation. She says, “I am sad for the tribulations my sister has endured and I hope she can come soon to the safe environment in Canada”. I hope she can too.

The only way to ensure that the treatment of these individuals and other individuals in similar circumstances, including others not mentioned in the motion who also have close family ties to Canada, and to ensure that their rights are respected is to continue to have vigilance, to continue to draw attention to them and to be prepared to issue ministerial permits to allow them to come to this country where they can become productive citizens, as have many other individuals who have been persecuted in China for their spiritual beliefs.

I want to conclude with one individual whose story came to my attention after the motion had already been placed before the House and whose story is particularly sad.

Yunhe Zhang, whose sister lives in Vancouver, is currently in prison. She has a three year old child who never got to see her father. Her father was also in prison and died there a couple of years ago. Yunhe Zhang remains in prison, separated from her child who is being raised by relatives. Her mother-in-law died, a death that members of their family believe was premature, due to the conditions that her son and her daughter-in-law were suffering in prison in China and the stress that was involved in it.

This individual has done no harm to anybody. She believes, as do all members of the Falun Gong movement, in the values that are central to the Chinese culture and to all civilized society. The principles of Falun Gong, an apolitical movement, are a belief in tolerance, compassion and truth.

These individuals have always been productive members of the Chinese society. I am confident that those who would be allowed to come here to Canada on ministerial permits would also be productive members of our society.

I want to take this moment to thank all members of the House who voted in favour of the motion when it was before the House on October 24, 2002 and made it possible for several of these individuals to find their freedom again.

Agriculture February 28th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, in recent years Canadian farmers have been plagued by floods, drought, grasshoppers, the U.S. congress, and a Liberal government that just does not care.

Now the minister, with his new APF program, is expecting farmers to provide an initial deposit of $3 billion to ensure adequate coverage.

My question is simple this, where does the minister expect that cash strapped Canadian farmers will get this money?

Trade February 21st, 2003

Mr. Speaker, $1.9 billion a day in commercial trade with the United States will soon be subject to a requirement for 24 hours advance notice before crossing the border. This is going to harm time dependent industries such as the auto industry, which is the heart of my province's economy. The auto sector says quite reasonably that this will be a huge problem and is seeking an exemption, but we do not seem to see any interest in searching for exemptions by the government.

When can we expect to see an exemption for the auto sector?

Vimy Ridge Day Act February 20th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the parliamentary secretary means by bilingual guidance. The fact is that the tickets being issued by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Quebec part of the national capital region are still being issued in one language only. They are being issued in violation of the Official Languages Act. Everybody acknowledges it. The quotation that I gave from committee was given when the Solicitor General appeared and it was given by an expert appearing with the Solicitor General.

We all know this violation of the law is happening. On this occasion it is not possible to comply with federal law and to comply with an agreement that was signed with the government of Quebec. The federal government has a choice. Either it is in favour of the Official Languages Act, the law of the land in Canada, and will follow that law or it will follow the agreement it signed with the Quebec government, a decision that was taken in violation of the Official Languages Act. It has that choice.

Given the choice, does the parliamentary secretary support the federal government and the RCMP following the dictates of the Official Languages Act in the Quebec part of the national capital region or does she favour it illegally following this agreement, which is of no legal force and effect? Which of those two does she and her government favour? So far it has been in favour of breaking the federal law. What is it going to do now?

Vimy Ridge Day Act February 20th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, it has been four long months since I first rose in the House last October to draw attention to the fact that the RCMP was engaged in the blatantly illegal practice of issuing unilingual, French only parking tickets within the boundaries of the national capital region.

This practice was then, and still is today, a violation of section 22 of the Official Languages Act which requires that:

Every federal institution has the duty to ensure that any member of the public can communicate with and obtain available services from its head or central office in either official language, and has the same duty with respect to any of its other offices or facilities

(a) within the National Capital Region.

Since that time I have had the chance to confirm the accuracy of my interpretation of the law with the Commissioner of Official Languages. She stated in committee hearings of the House of Commons that the issuing of unilingual traffic tickets within the Quebec part of the national capital region was as illegal as it would be on the Ontario side.

As well, on December 2 the Standing Committee on Official Languages heard confirmation that the decision on the part of the government to break Canada's language laws in order to enforce the mandatory unilingualism of the Quebec government, was imposed on Canada by the current Liberal government.

Mr. Marc Tremblay, the director of the official languages law group at the Department of Justice, informed the committee that, under previous governments, infractions had been issued in the Quebec part of the national capital region in a bilingual format, as they have been and continue to be on the Ontario side of the national capital region.

Specifically, an agreement was signed in 1996 between the federal government and the Parti Québécois government under the authority of section 65 of the Contraventions Act. It was this agreement that substituted the unilingual tickets required by bill 101 for the bilingual tickets required by the Official Languages Act.

It is that agreement that the Solicitor General of Canada hides behind when time after time he responds to my questions on this issue, as he did on November 1 when he said:

The RCMP complies with provincial legislation regarding the issuance of tickets.

However the fact is that such agreements are of no force and effect when they violate federal law, and this particular agreement is an egregious violation of the Official Languages Act.

Therefore, when the Solicitor General insists, as he repeatedly does in the House, that his government's agreement with the Parti Québécois supercedes its obligations under the Official Languages Act, he is incorrect. That just is not so.

Section 82 of the Official Languages Act makes this clear. It states:

In the event of any inconsistency between the following Parts and any other Act of Parliament or regulation thereunder, the following Parts prevail to the extent of the inconsistency.

That cannot be overcome unless the federal government wants to pass a separate law saying that it will change the rules so that it would no longer require federal services to be provided in a bilingual format in the national capital region.

Tickets still are being issued in one language only in part of the national capital region. This is against the law and it continues to be against the law. Will this practice stop or does the Solicitor General plan to introduce legislation to allow for unilingual infractions in the national capital region?

The Budget February 20th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, if the minister respected the provinces, he would give them the trust they deserve.

The Liberals' funding promises are packaged in a way that could be taken back in the next budget, or after the next election.

Why does the minister refuse to allocate funds in the form of additional tax points, which is the only way to guarantee stable and long-term funding for social programs?

The Budget February 20th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's political forces have expressed their opposition to the federal budget. The PQ's minister of finance, the leader of the ADQ and even the finance critic of Quebec's Liberal Party all expressed their total disapproval of the federal government's interference in provincial jurisdiction.

Why does the minister not trust the provinces to administer programs for health, families, social housing and education?

Referendum Act February 17th, 2003

Mr. Speaker, it is always good to start the day with a laugh. I enjoyed that last element of humour when the parliamentary secretary suggested that the Liberal Party cared about cross-partisan approaches after having launched a very partisan attack upon the excellent proposals of my friend from the New Democratic Party.

Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said, the primary focus of the bill is very clearly electoral reform. Questions like whether to use the funding formula, as the finance committee has suggested under the Referendum Act, in a situation of a referendum on a non-constitutional item is perhaps the most irrelevant consideration I can imagine. I have no idea why the speech writer who wrote for the parliamentary secretary put it into his speech. It truly is an absolutely irrelevant point.

The bill is a revised version of a bill that the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle introduced about a year and a half ago in this place. We debated it once before. Due to the intransigent attitude of the government on the subject of private members' business, it was not votable then and it is not votable now. That is a most regrettable fact because it is a very good piece of legislation which deals with a very important issue.

The fact is our current electoral system benefits nobody except the Liberal Party of Canada, a party which has received three majority governments in a row based upon mandates of 40%, 38% and 40% respectively. That is to say, that at no point in the past decade has the federal Liberal majority government, with its absolute dictatorial powers, ever had the support or indeed a mandate from the majority of Canadians. Nevertheless it proceeds to hold more than 50% of the seats due to the vagaries of our electoral system and because of our system and the ironclad party discipline in the Liberal Party, it holds 100% of the power. That is not the way things should be.

Therefore when we hear the parliamentary secretary attack my hon. colleague from the New Democratic Party on the basis that his proposals serve the partisan advantage of the New Democratic Party, I can only say that my hon. friend from the Liberal Party should avoid perhaps casting aspersions.

There are changes that can be made to the electoral system that would improve it. There are changes that can be made to the electoral system that could make it worse than the status quo. The first past the post system is not the worst imaginable system.

I chatted with another member earlier. We discussed the system that exists in Israel for example. There are no constituencies and everybody is elected from a single party list submitted by each party. The result is that Israel has no form of local representation. For example, it has parties with very small percentages of the total vote holding the balance of power in the Knesset with a result that they are able to have a disproportionate influence on policy. I submit that is worse than the status quo.

One can imagine other systems. We can see other systems, including the French run-off system, which I think is atrocious and would be a step backwards from the status quo.

I have my own preferred system that I would like to see in place instead of the system we have now. However rather than going on about what that system might be, I will simply observe that there are many systems in the world, for example, the multi-member proportional system, the MMP system that is used in Germany and New Zealand. Some members elected at large, as in Israel, and some elected in single member districts as in Canada.

The system in Australia in its lower house has members elected by preferential ballot, a single transferable ballot in which voters cast a ballot and list off their candidates and preference. If their preferred candidate does not win, some other candidate can be elected as their ballot is passed on indicating their second preference. Also, Australia uses the system in the senate where each Australian state has 12 separate representatives and voters are able to choose their top 12 candidates.

One can go on and on. The Irish have their own system. There are various systems in place in Canada at the municipal level.

Rather than advocate any of those policies in particular, I want to suggest something that I think would overcome the kind of allegation the parliamentary secretary made. He suggested that there was partisan preference going on and that my hon. colleague from the NDP was somehow choosing a system that best suited the NDP and would best achieve the NDP's overall goals or that I might do the same thing with regard to the kind of electoral system that would produce the largest number of Canadian Alliance members.

The problem is that it is very easy to take current election results and start fiddling with them to produce numbers that would produce, for example, more Canadian Alliance members in Ontario, or more Liberal members in Saskatchewan, or more New Democrats or whatever. That is not really the point. The point is to design a system that would allow us to begin discussion and would allow Canadians to choose a system that favours the kind of outcome which would produce the best representation, without regard to which party will benefit.

My hon. colleague's bill starts the process. Whatever system we are talking about, it suggests it should be submitted to a referendum so at least Canadians can vote for or against it based upon whether in their minds it is better or worse than the status quo. That is a very good starting point.

I would like to take it one step further and suggest that my hon. colleague's bill would be improved if he were to have some form of a two step process. This was a proposal that was executed in New Zealand when it moved from a first past the post system to the system it currently has. If I am not mistaken, the system currently in place in New Zealand is one that my hon. colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle looks upon very favourably, an MMP system.

New Zealand held a first referendum in which this question was asked. Should there be a change to the electoral system? When that was agreed upon, there was then the promise of a second referendum in which the actual choice would be made.

The particular form of this policy which the Canadian Alliance has adopted is that we would have a first referendum which would set up a commission. The commission would review and come up with several proposals on different electoral systems. Then, in a second referendum Canadians would vote by means of a preferential ballot and indicate which of those systems seemed to be the best. One item on that ballot would be a status quo, the first past the post system. If all options put forward by the commission were inferior in the minds of Canadians to the status quo, we would simply revert to the status quo.

However we have the possibility of moving forward and in a way that could not have been predetermined by the existing parties, because one thing we all can define is that all of us here have a certain stake in one system or another coming out.

We must all be behind what the philosopher John Rawls called a veil of ignorance. As we move forward and look toward the electoral system that replaces the status quo, none of us can go in knowing what the outcome would be or else we would wind up debating the outcome and the partisan benefits for one party or another of that outcome as opposed to the status quo.

However if we have that veil of ignorance through a two referendum process in which the second referendum is a choice between a number of options that have not yet been made at the time of the first referendum, then we have made the system largely free from the interference of those who are currently members of the House of Commons and who have an interest in one side or another coming out.

This is not a votable item. If it were, I would suggest the amendments I have described. Nonetheless, the measure as proposed by my hon. colleague for the New Democratic Party is a good one. I hope at some point in the future it will be possible to make this item votable. I believe that it could be made votable if the unanimous consent of the House were found. Therefore I will now ask that unanimous consent be given to making this a votable bill to demonstrate the goodwill that my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party spoke of earlier in his speech.