36th Parliament, 2nd Session
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 2
CONTENTS
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
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| STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
|
| GASOLINE PRICING
|
| Mr. Guy St-Julien |
| MENNONITES
|
| Mr. Maurice Vellacott |
| SAFE COMMUNITIES COALITION
|
| Mr. Joe Jordan |
| HOCKEY
|
| Mr. Carmen Provenzano |
| WORLD POPULATION
|
| Ms. Jean Augustine |
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| GULF WAR VETERANS
|
| Mr. Art Hanger |
| DR. ROBERT MUNDELL
|
| Mr. Ted McWhinney |
| GENEVIÈVE JEANSON
|
| Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire |
| JEAN-LOUIS MILLETTE
|
| Mr. Nick Discepola |
| PAKISTAN
|
| Mr. Bob Mills |
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| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Ms. Raymonde Folco |
| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Ms. Libby Davies |
| SOCIAL UNION
|
| Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay |
| PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES
|
| Mr. Bill Casey |
| NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
|
| Mr. John Nunziata |
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| CANADA
|
| Ms. Sophia Leung |
| ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
|
| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Mr. Preston Manning |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Mr. Preston Manning |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
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| Mr. Preston Manning |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Mr. Monte Solberg |
| Hon. Paul Martin |
| Mr. Monte Solberg |
| Hon. Paul Martin |
| Mr. Gilles Duceppe |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
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| Mr. Gilles Duceppe |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Mr. Michel Gauthier |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Mr. Michel Gauthier |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| AGRICULTURE
|
| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
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| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| FISHERIES
|
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Miss Deborah Grey |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Miss Deborah Grey |
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| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| AIR TRANSPORTATION
|
| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| FISHERIES
|
| Mr. John Cummins |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Mr. John Cummins |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
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| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Mr. Daniel Turp |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| Mr. Daniel Turp |
| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
| AIRLINE INDUSTRY
|
| Ms. Val Meredith |
| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| Ms. Val Meredith |
| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
|
| Mr. Paul Crête |
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| Hon. Jane Stewart |
| PEACEKEEPING
|
| Mr. Sarkis Assadourian |
| Hon. Maria Minna |
| AGRICULTURE
|
| Mr. Howard Hilstrom |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
| Mr. Howard Hilstrom |
| Hon. Lyle Vanclief |
| AIRLINE INDUSTRY
|
| Ms. Bev Desjarlais |
| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| Ms. Bev Desjarlais |
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| Hon. David M. Collenette |
| FISHERIES
|
| Mr. Mark Muise |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| NATIONAL DEFENCE
|
| Mr. George Proud |
| Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton |
| IMMIGRATION
|
| Mr. Leon E. Benoit |
| Ms. Elinor Caplan |
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| ORGANIZED CRIME
|
| Mr. Michel Bellehumeur |
| Hon. Lawrence MacAulay |
| FISHERIES
|
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Mr. Mark Muise |
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| LABOUR
|
| Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi |
| Hon. Claudette Bradshaw |
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| IMMIGRATION
|
| Mr. Leon E. Benoit |
| Ms. Elinor Caplan |
| PAKISTAN
|
| Mrs. Francine Lalonde |
| Hon. Lloyd Axworthy |
| POINTS OF ORDER
|
| Special Debate—Fisheries
|
| Mr. Derek Lee |
| Motion
|
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| ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
|
| COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
|
| Procedure and House Affairs
|
| Motion for concurrence
|
| Mr. Derek Lee |
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| REQUESTS FOR EMERGENCY DEBATES
|
| Agriculture
|
| Mr. Dick Proctor |
| Mr. Howard Hilstrom |
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| The Speaker |
| Child Pornography
|
| Mr. John Reynolds |
| The Speaker |
| GOVERNMENT ORDERS
|
| SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
|
| Resumption of debate on Address in Reply
|
| Mr. Preston Manning |
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| Amendment
|
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| Right Hon. Jean Chrétien |
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| Mr. Gilles Duceppe |
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| Amendment to the amendment
|
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| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
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| Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis |
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| Mr. Jim Hart |
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| Mr. Peter MacKay |
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1900
| Mrs. Elsie Wayne |
| SPECIAL DEBATE
|
| Fisheries
|
| Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal |
| Motion
|
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| Mr. John Cummins |
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
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| Hon. Robert D. Nault |
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| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
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| Mr. Mike Scott |
| Mr. John Cummins |
1935
1940
1945
1950
| Mr. Scott Brison |
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| Mr. Gordon Earle |
2000
| Mr. Mike Scott |
| Mr. Claude Bachand |
2005
2010
2015
2020
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| Ms. Angela Vautour |
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
| Ms. Alexa McDonough |
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| Mr. Charlie Power |
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| Mr. Derrek Konrad |
| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
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| Mr. Mark Muise |
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| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
| Mr. John Cummins |
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| Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew |
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| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
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| Mr. Charles Hubbard |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
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| Mr. Yvon Godin |
| Ms. Angela Vautour |
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| Mr. Mike Scott |
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| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
| Mr. Derrek Konrad |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
| Mr. Ted McWhinney |
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| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
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| Mr. Wayne Easter |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. Peter MacKay |
| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
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| Mr. Daniel Turp |
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| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
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| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
| Mr. Yvon Godin |
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| Mr. Yvan Bernier |
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| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
| Mr. Peter Stoffer |
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| Mr. John Cummins |
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| Mr. Gerald Keddy |
| Mr. Peter MacKay |
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(Official Version)
EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 2
HOUSE OF COMMONS
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
The House met at 2 p.m.
Prayers
1400
[Translation]
The Speaker: It is Wednesday and since
it is also our first full sitting day, we will now begin by
singing O Canada under the direction of the member for
Wentworth—Burlington.
[Editor's note: Members sang the national anthem]
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
[Translation]
GASOLINE PRICING
Mr. Guy St-Julien (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
in recent months, the people of Abitibi—Témiscamingue and I find
the price of gasoline too high in Abitibi compared with other
regions of Quebec.
Except in a national emergency, the federal government does not
have jurisdiction to directly regulate the price of gasoline.
The Canadian Constitution gives the provinces the authority to
regulate prices.
Only Prince Edward Island and Quebec have taken any action in
this regard, although Newfoundland announced recently that it
would look at the statute provisions that would permit it to
regulate the price of gas.
Other provinces preferred to rely on market forces as the most
effective means of determining the appropriate prices, while
retaining the incentives that contribute to innovation and cost
reduction.
The Government of Quebec has no choice: it will have to rely on
the market forces and provide incentives for the people of
Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
The time for study is past. It is time to get down to business,
Mr. Bouchard.
* * *
[English]
MENNONITES
Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Wanuskewin, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it
gives me great pleasure to recognize the 125th anniversary of
Mennonites coming to Canada from Russia. One would be hard
pressed to imagine what the province of Saskatchewan would be
like if not for the hardworking, God-fearing Mennonites who chose
to come to our country so many years ago.
Mennonites moved to the Saskatchewan River Valley from the east
and west reserves of Manitoba in the 1890s. These pioneers have
left us a rich heritage of faith and strong family values. The
positive influence of these men and women remains with us today.
The contribution of the Mennonites to our present way of life is
almost too difficult to enumerate. Agriculture, cuisine,
churches, enterprise and innovation are all areas that were
influenced as this group settled and took root in the valley area
north of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
It is a testimony to God's enduring goodness that these
Mennonite farmers, teachers, preachers and entrepreneurs
flourished in this new land with harsh climate extremes and
political uncertainties.
I am pleased to be a descendant of the Neufeld clan and wish to
extend my congratulations to all my constituents of Mennonite
heritage on the occasion of this special anniversary.
* * *
SAFE COMMUNITIES COALITION
Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
rise today to recognize the achievements of the Safe Communities
Coalition of Brockville and District.
In the past three years they have worked with community partners
to spread the message to local businesses and throughout the
community that 100% of accidents are preventable. In fact, last
Tuesday I attended a luncheon where over 100 local businesses
divided up $76,000 in rebates from the Worker Safety and
Insurance Board under their Safe Communities Incentive Program.
Thanks to the coalition, Brockville is fast becoming one of the
safest communities in Canada to live, work and play.
The program is currently operating in 12 other communities in
Ontario and Alberta and I would like to challenge other areas to
get involved in this extremely worthwhile endeavour.
* * *
HOCKEY
Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, hockey is our game and we play it best.
As we close the century it is fitting to acknowledge the game of
the century, which took place 27 years ago on September 28, 1972.
On that date the Canada-U.S.S.R. series, 480 minutes of
nail-biting, heart-stopping hockey, was decided by only one goal
with 30 seconds left in the game.
Everyone in my hometown of Sault Ste. Marie was riveted to their
television sets to watch Team Canada and two of its favourite
sons, Phil and Tony Esposito, who were instrumental in Team
Canada's victory. In fact, it was Phil Esposito who set
Henderson up for the winning goal.
Much has changed since that afternoon in 1972 but the people
from my hometown will never forget this exciting series. There
has not been one like it since.
These hockey legends live on. Both Esposito brothers are now
hall of famers and I am proud to say that they were featured on
CBC's Life and Times last evening.
The Sault is very proud of Phil and Tony Esposito.
* * *
WORLD POPULATION
Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, on October 12 the Canadian Association of
Parliamentarians on Population and Development celebrated its
second anniversary with a forum in commemoration of the six
billion mark of world population.
The day of six billion is a significant milestone in the history
of population growth. In only 12 short years the world has
realized an addition of one billion people, nearly half of whom
are under 25 years of age.
Every year 78 million people are added to the planet and over
95% of this growth is in developing countries. This growing
population of young people has yet to have the right and access
to reproductive health services and information.
They are without primary education and immunization. They are
suffering from malnutrition and are afflicted with HIV-AIDS.
1405
The international community can address these problems which
seriously impair their quality of life.
I call upon Canada and all nations who are signatories to the
Cairo Programme of Action to honour their commitment to put basic
human needs of girls, men and women—
The Speaker: The hon. member for Calgary Northeast.
* * *
GULF WAR VETERANS
Mr. Art Hanger (Calgary Northeast, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it
is time for the government to acknowledge the existence of gulf
war syndrome. Watching from the visitors' gallery today are gulf
war veterans Louise Richard, Maurice Binard and Susan Roirdon,
wife of Terry Roirdon, whose death this April was officially
caused by gulf war syndrome. Captain Roirdon died in the prime
of his life.
They represent over 2,000 more infected soldiers. These
veterans came to the Hill today to ask the government for
answers. They deserve that much. They also deserve treatment.
The Liberal government has been unwilling to acknowledge or
treat gulf war illness. Veterans are frustrated, sick and dying.
They are tired of getting no response from the government.
Canadian forces personnel are misdiagnosed, undiagnosed,
untreated, then released from the service.
It is the minister's moral responsibility and his obligation to
determine the following: Was the anthrax vaccine involved? Was
exposure to depleted uranium to blame? Was it some other toxin?
These veterans have waged—
The Speaker: The hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.
* * *
DR. ROBERT MUNDELL
Mr. Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
Canadian economist Robert Mundell has won the Nobel Prize for
economic sciences for his analysis of exchange rates and their
effect on monetary policies.
Professor Mundell graduated from the University of British
Columbia in 1953 and received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1956. He has taught at Stanford,
Johns Hopkins, McGill and Waterloo. In the 1960s he published a
pioneering study on the short term effects of monetary and fiscal
policy in an open economy. His theoretical constructs were
studied by the European Union's leaders and were influential in
developing plans for a single Eurocurrency. They should also be
influential in future discussions on currency relations under the
North American—Canada-U.S.-Mexico—Free Trade Agreement.
* * *
[Translation]
GENEVIÈVE JEANSON
Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil, BQ): Mr. Speaker, never
before have the Espoirs de Laval so lived up to the hope
expressed in their name.
Last week, one of the club members, Geneviève Jeanson, made the
news with a marvelous accomplishment: two junior cycling
championships within the same week. This is a first in road
cycling in Quebec and in Canada. Geneviève's exceptional success
is already being lauded as the sporting event of the year.
Geneviève has already set her sights high for the future.
Starting next year, she will move up to the senior ranks and she
has hopes of earning a spot on the Canadian team.
This 18-year old athlete's maturity, tenacity and discipline have
made her a model for an entire generation of young people. Her
comment on this was “If I can serve as an example to other young
people, that's fine, but they need to know there are no
shortcuts. It takes a huge amount of determination and hard
work”.
Geneviève, has every right to those high hopes. The Sydney
Olympics await her. We of the Bloc Quebecois tip our hats to
her, and it is with the greatest of pride that we offer our
congratulations and best wishes for continued success.
* * *
JEAN-LOUIS MILLETTE
Mr. Nick Discepola (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, to
quote Edgar Fruitier, Jean-Louis Millette, man of the theatre,
relentless perfectionist and actor extraordinaire, let his
audience down for the first time in his career when he made his
final exit on September 29.
Jean-Louis Millette the actor also left his mark on the culture
of Quebec, through Quebec television. He also enjoyed a career
in film where he often played seedy, disturbed or downright
fiendish characters.
When interviewed last year, Millette himself said the best way
to keep death at bay was to work passionately for as long as
one's strength and time permitted.
We offer him this richly deserved tribute, along with our
sincere condolences to his family members. Thanks so much
for all the memories, Jean-Louis Millette.
* * *
[English]
PAKISTAN
Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday
the democratic government of Pakistan was overthrown by a
military coup. There have been months of internal strife in that
country, with complaints of corruption, repression and growing
Islamic fundamentalism. In this context we must remember that
Pakistan has had several military governments in the past and
that its political culture is complex.
The official opposition supports the restoration of the
democratic government in Pakistan. The stability of Pakistan, a
nuclear power since last year, is crucial to this region.
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We understand the concerns of Canadians of Pakistani descent.
That said, Canada should not make any rash decision to impose
sanctions or talk about suspending anyone from the Commonwealth.
The blustering we heard from the foreign affairs ministers
yesterday was a typical overreaction.
We oppose sanctions and threats. Instead, why does the
government not encourage Pakistan's Asian neighbours, the IMF and
the World Bank to put pressure on this military regime?
* * *
[Translation]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the
opposition apparently did not appreciate the throne speech,
which sets out the broad priorities of our government, nor did
it take kindly to the government's interest in the quality of
life of the Canadian public.
The opposition did not like it that our government wants to give
priority to maintaining a strong Canadian economy that will
create jobs.
And it was not at all pleased that our government is interested
in our children.
No matter. Let the opposition go on with its search for
identity and its in-fighting. In the meantime, the Liberal
government will pursue its objective of improving the quality of
life of all Canadians.
* * *
[English]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the
empty promises, hollow rhetoric and vague commitments in
yesterday's throne speech were sweet nothings that Canadians have
come to expect from the Liberals. What really cried out in this
throne speech were the appalling gaps.
We heard about a children's agenda that does not include
children or child care.
We heard a passing reference to homelessness, but nothing about
providing affordable housing.
We heard about the knowledge based economy, but nothing about
ensuring that all Canadians have access to high quality
education.
I would like to say that we at least heard the words “family
farm”, but the biggest crisis to hit the prairies since the
1930s was not even mentioned.
If the Liberal government would for one moment stop the din and
clatter of vague, meaningless pronouncements about nothing, what
would it hear? In the deafening silence that remains it might
hear the real priorities of Canadians.
* * *
[Translation]
SOCIAL UNION
Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
yesterday, the Liberal government announced how it was going to
go about implementing the social union framework agreement:
absolute spending authority in just about every sector, from
early childhood to education, health, culture, and a host of
other jurisdictions exclusive to Quebec.
From now on, two instruments will underpin this increasingly
unitary Canada: the Constitution, 1982, and the social union
agreement, neither of which has been approved by the National
Assembly and both of which have been denounced by every premier
of Quebec.
Yesterday's throne speech mentioned Quebec only once and then
only to give it a clear warning. The provinces are being
reduced to the level of municipalities and community groups.
There is the federal government, which was referred to as
national yesterday, and the rest.
What part of this vision is still federal? What has become of
flexibility? In the eyes of this government, Quebec no longer
exists. Will things be taken to their logical conclusion and
the abolition, pure and simple, of the provinces proposed?
* * *
[English]
PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES
Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester, PC): Mr. Speaker,
although parliamentary Standing Order 106(2) states that the
chair of all parliamentary committees will be selected by the
members of that committee, the Globe and Mail reports that
the transport minister has already chosen the MP from Hamilton
West to chair the new transport committee.
As well, the transport minister has established the agenda,
which will include presentations by himself and Mr. Gerald
Schwartz.
The minister has instructed his Liberal MPs on the committee on
how to vote for the chair before the committee has even met.
This violates the spirit and the process described in Standing
Order 106(2).
Will the minister stop interfering and just allow the transport
committee to function as defined in the standing orders?
* * *
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Mr. John Nunziata (York South—Weston, Ind.): Mr.
Speaker, last Saturday I was watching the Leaf game with my seven
year old son, Patrick, who plays tyke hockey in Toronto. When a
fight broke out on the ice my reaction was to change the channel.
This is not behaviour my son nor his teammates are being taught.
How do I explain to my children that violence and in particular
fighting, both on and off the ice, is wrong when they see
professional hockey players fighting on the ice?
Fighting is illegal in Canada. It is a criminal offence whether
it is taking place on a street corner or on an NHL rink.
Why is it then that we seem to have two standards of justice? Why
is the NHL above the law? The NHL has an obligation to put a
stop to fighting. What kind of role models are we putting
forward to the millions of Canadian boys and girls who watch and
play hockey? If the NHL does not step in, then the government
should insist that the police and prosecutors lay criminal
charges.
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Fighting in the NHL is disgraceful and it has to stop for the
sake of our children.
* * *
CANADA
Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
Canada is one of the great success stories of the 20th century
and British Columbia is a very important part of that success.
Our government has restored the nation's finances and modernized
programs paving the way for sustained economic growth and job
creation to build the future for Canadians.
It is through this government's vision of working together that
has made Canada the best place to live in the world and will
continue to be in the 21st century.
ORAL QUESTION PERIOD
[English]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back for the fall session after a
rather unusual summer. We had Tories joining the Liberals. We
had NDP joining the Tories. We had Joe Clark united with Joe
Clark, and Reformers were fighting each other.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. Leader of the
Opposition.
Mr. Preston Manning: Mr. Speaker, Reformers were fighting
each other, so maybe it was not that unusual after all.
In any event, we are back and the throne speech has been been
presented. Lo and behold, it contains some vague expressions of
tax relief.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Why should Canadians
believe any of the promises of tax relief in the throne speech
after six straight years of Liberal tax grabs?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, we are very happy to be back too.
There was some movement. We are sorry that the Reform Party
might disappear or end up as some type of not very united
alternative.
Canadians are very happy with the performance of the government.
All Liberal members who have been in their ridings have reported
to the caucus this morning that the people are extremely happy
that we have no more deficit and that we have already started to
reduce taxes.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear.
The Speaker: I am giving a little bit of room
today but not lots and lots of room. The hon. Leader of the
Opposition.
Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, we got sharper responses when we were handling the
question period by ourselves.
This summer I visited a lot of Canadians at their places of
work: at factories, plants, offices and so forth. What these
people are interested in is take home pay. They will not believe
any promise of tax relief unless the federal government takes a
smaller bite from their paycheques.
Why should Canadian workers believe any of these promises on tax
relief when the federal deduction from their paycheques week
after week and month after month keeps increasing rather than
decreasing?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, when we started, the EI premium was at $3.07. It is at
$2.55 at this moment.
There was a surtax of 3% imposed by the Tories some years ago
because of the deficit. That is no longer there. There are
600,000 Canadians who are not paying any more taxes because my
Minister of Finance brought in some good budgets. We will keep
doing that in a rational, reasonable and sensible way.
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Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, once before the Prime Minister promised tax relief. He
was going to abolish, get rid of, in other words obliterate the
GST. Everyone knows what happened with that.
When the Reform Party started pressing the government on tax
relief this was the Prime Minister's initial response: “I don't
think it is the right thing to do in a society like Canada”, as
if giving tax relief was un-Canadian in some way.
With a record like that and with statements like that on the
record why should Canadians believe they are going to get real
tax relief out of the Prime Minister?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, when we came here we said we were going to reduce the
deficit to zero. They did not believe us but we did it. For
three years in a row we have had surpluses in Canada. We have
not seen that in 50 years. Since we have a surplus, in a very
humble way the Minister of Finance reduced taxes in the last
two budgets. He will continue to do that in the next one. We
have an agreement on that.
Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, when
we clear all the rhetoric away from yesterday's throne speech
what are we left with? No tax cuts, just a commitment to spend a
whole lot more. The stark reality is that on January 1 the first
act of the government in the new millennium will be to raise
payroll taxes and personal income taxes through bracket creep.
Why does the finance minister not simply admit that after all
the smoke has cleared from yesterday's throne speech what we are
left with is a big tax hike on January 1?
Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that on January 1, as indeed
on January 1 of every year since we have taken office, there will
be a reduction in payroll taxes.
I would also like to remind the hon. member that yesterday's
throne speech was not a budget in which we deal with taxes but it
did provide a profound vista on the government's plan for the
future, one that has been universally well received right across
the country. It is a perspective that says we will invest in
education, we will invest in social programs, and that—
The Speaker: The hon. member for Medicine Hat.
Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker,
maybe the finance minister should invest in a watch. He has
taken up a lot of time.
We are looking at a finance minister who has a great future
behind him. He had a chance to cut taxes but he blew it.
Instead, he raised taxes 60 times. His whole record is a record
of tax hikes. We are now paying the highest taxes in Canadian
history.
Why does the finance minister not just give it up? Why does he
not admit that his real agenda is to raise taxes in the next
budget?
Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I have told the member a million times not to
exaggerate.
This is a question of credibility. The fact is that the Reform
Party has no credibility. Its tax plan in the third year would
require a surplus of $52 billion. That is smoke and mirrors.
Until such time as the Reform Party gives the Canadian people a
plan that is based on solid facts it will have no credibility in
this debate.
[Translation]
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the
government is invoking the social union agreement to justify its
forays into provincial jurisdictions.
It has announced that it will establish a national children's
agenda, evaluate the effectiveness of social programs, and
eliminate unjustified barriers to the mobility of citizens and
students. Let us not forget, however, that this agreement was
never signed by Quebec.
Are we to understand that the government intends to impose these
new programs without Quebec's consent, once again demonstrating
the one-sided nature of its flexible federalism?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
the member is forgetting something, because the Government of
Quebec went along with the national child benefit.
1425
It agreed to take the resulting surpluses and reinvest them,
because we were investing in families. That is what it did and
we had its consent.
We are working with the provinces, although I am well aware that
this does not serve the interests of the Bloc Quebecois. But
since what we are doing is good, as was the case with the
national child benefit, the Government of Quebec has had to
continue working with us.
We are going to keep on tackling real problems, particularly
those having to do with children.
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, we
have the leader of this government to thank for the two
instruments driving federal policy: unilateral patriation, in
1982, and the social union agreement, both opposed by
federalists and sovereignists alike in the Quebec National
Assembly.
In the same vein, the government announced that it planned to
establish a pharmacare plan. But Quebec already has such a
plan.
Are we to understand that the only choice open to Quebec will be
either to amend its plan, or to forgo the money from the federal
program, some of which also belongs to Quebec taxpayers?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
we did not announce a new program; we merely said that was
a problem and that there should be talks with the provinces,
including Quebec.
This is how a federation operates. It is still the best form of
government in the world. As President Clinton said last
Friday, federalism is always the best solution in a modern
society.
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in the Speech
from the Throne the government has committed to eliminating the
barriers it claims impede the mobility of citizens within
Canada. We are aware of the tensions that exist between Ontario
and Quebec in the area of construction.
Can the Prime Minister tell us whether this desire of the
government to eliminate barriers to mobility means that it
wishes to interfere in the discussions currently under way
between Quebec and Ontario relating to construction?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
there is a dialogue at the present time between the Government of
Quebec and the Government of Ontario relating to protectionism
in the field of construction.
I believe there should be an agreement to enable people
to work anywhere in Canada that there is work, and to prevent
excessive protectionism, which is detrimental to economic growth
in any part of Canada.
Mr. Michel Gauthier (Roberval, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Prime
Minister is getting into a particularly hot issue as far as
Quebec construction workers are concerned. Perhaps he should
think twice about doing so.
In another area of concern to us, again in connection with
barriers to mobility, does the Prime Minister consider that the
provisions of Law 101 relating to the language of work in Quebec
constitute an obstacle to mobility?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
that is the problem.
I deal with federal problems. Living here in Ottawa, I have had
the opportunity to see that there are far more Quebecers working
in Ontario than there are Ontarians working in Quebec.
* * *
[English]
AGRICULTURE
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, there is
a crisis on the farm and the government does not care.
Forty-six per cent of prairie grain and oilseed producers could
be out of business this time next year if the government does not
act. Our farmers are as efficient as any in the world, but the
government has destroyed crucial agricultural support.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Why was the throne
speech silent on the greatest, most serious farm crisis since the
Great Depression?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, the government has been working on the problem for a
long time. We put $900 million aside in the last budget for
resolving this problem. This was long before the summer.
At this time the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food is
communicating with his counterparts in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The solution to this problem will come from both levels of
government working together.
1430
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, being
in communication is not exactly a solution.
Yesterday the Speech from the Throne was supposed to be about
children, yet today children on the prairies are watching their
farm families and farm communities fall apart. There was not
even a mention in the throne speech.
Can the Prime Minister explain to these children why they do not
count?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, we had a Speech from the Throne where the main item was
the future of children in Canada. It is a very big preoccupation
for the government.
Probably she did not read the same Speech from the Throne as the
minister of finance of British Columbia who said “I would give
it seven or eight out of ten; I think the spirit is right in most
areas”. Thank you for the compliment we received from the NDP.
* * *
FISHERIES
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, the 1990 Sparrow decision giving natives the right
to conduct a food fishery should have sent warning bells when
Donald Marshall Jr. appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada
to fight his conviction for illegal fishing.
Given the Marshall decision and the ample time the government
has had to study all possible scenarios coming out of the supreme
court ruling, can the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans explain
why his department was so ill prepared to respond to the supreme
court ruling?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we have acted in
a very expeditious manner. This has been a priority for me. We
have been working around the clock to make sure we respond. Three
days after September 17 we responded. We set up a short term
plan and a long term plan.
We believe in dialogue and co-operation. That is what works. It
has paid off. It is working.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, the reason that the native fishing issue has
escalated so dramatically is that the minister's department had
no plan regarding the court ruling, no ideas, and exercised none
of the leadership that the minister should have been exercising.
Can the minister now explain why DFO was caught so off guard? As
minister, does he accept responsibility for the violence that has
occurred thus far in the wake of his inaction? Will he take
responsibility for the future risks?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, let me take the opportunity to
thank members on both sides of the House who provided excellent
input. One of the things I did was a lot of consultation.
Following those consultations I said that we have to sit down,
have a dialogue and co-operation.
Today we should applaud those aboriginal leaders, 33 out of the
35, who on a voluntary basis decided to have a moratorium and not
fish for 30 days. That is co-operation and that is dialogue.
Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Mr. Speaker,
the throne speech yesterday did not even address the serious
racial conflict which has erupted in the New Brunswick lobster
fishery. Ethnic tensions have escalated and that is inexcusable
for the government.
Here is a revealing quote from a former Indian affairs minister:
“Special treatment has made the Indians a community
disadvantaged and apart. Obviously the course of history must be
changed”. Who was that? It was the current Prime Minister
speaking in 1969. Why, 30 years later, is he still ranking
Canadians according to their bloodlines? Why would that be?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, let us be clear. We have a
different position from the Reform Party.
The Reform Party believes that if everybody is treated the same,
it means everybody is treated equally. I have three children. I
treat them equally but I do not treat them the same. As a
country we were built taking into consideration the regional
differences across the country. We want to make sure we include
Canadians and take into consideration the needs of Canadians
right across the country.
Miss Deborah Grey (Edmonton North, Ref.): Mr. Speaker,
what part of equal might the minister not understand?
Let us take a quote from the great guru of Liberal wisdom, and
that would be Pierre Trudeau where in 1969 he said:
We can go on treating the Indians as having a special status—
Or we can say you're at a crossroads, the time is now to decide
whether the Indians will be a race apart in Canada or whether
they will be Canadians of full status.
1435
That was a Liberal. I would like to ask the Prime Minister what
has changed his mind since then?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I was there and there is some—
Miss Deborah Grey: Mr. Speaker, he said it in 1969.
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, yes. In 1760
there was a royal proclamation that gave the national government
an obligation to respect the treaties with the people who were
here before the white people came. This is a treaty. This is a
contract. A government has to respect obligations that were
signed either yesterday or 300 years ago.
* * *
[Translation]
AIR TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Michel Guimond
(Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
since the minister suspended the Competition Act, the airline
industry has been in crisis.
Yet nowhere in the throne speech is there any mention of the
serious problem facing the industry, particularly in Quebec,
where thousands of jobs are at stake.
Will the government tell us why it has absolutely nothing to say
in the throne speech on this topic, when this is something that
actually comes under its jurisdiction?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, obviously, there were problems with Canada's airline
industry, particularly with the weak opposition from Canadian
Airlines.
As a government, we have three options: first, we can provide
financial assistance for Canadian; second, the company can
declare bankruptcy; third, we can seek another solution.
We have chosen the third option, which is to find a private
sector solution, and that is why we resorted to section 47 of
the National Transportation Act.
Mr. Michel Guimond
(Beauport—Montmorency—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île-d'Orléans, BQ): Mr. Speaker,
everyone is waiting to hear something about the strategic issue
of the airline industry in Canada.
Why has the government
chosen to remain silent about this in the throne speech, when it
has found something to say about all sorts of matters that are
none of its business?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, in our view, the situation is very serious and I am
therefore prepared to answer questions in the House of Commons.
However, if there is a private sector solution, the Canadian
government will insist on five principles: consumer protection,
service to small communities, employee rights and concerns,
competition, and effective Canadian control. And that is very
important in this debate.
* * *
[English]
FISHERIES
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the government had months to develop a response to the
Marshall decision and it did not. It had years to develop a
fisheries management policy for this country and it has not.
Under this Liberal government Canada now has a race based
fisheries policy from coast to coast. A fisherman's livelihood
is contingent upon his parent's bloodlines.
I would like to ask the minister why he has allowed race to
become a cornerstone of fisheries policy in this country.
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, clearly we
have a different point of view on this side. Our view on
aboriginals is that we have to include all Canadians to make sure
they can participate. We have to make sure that we respect the
treaties that we have signed. That is exactly what we are doing
and that is exactly what we are going to do.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the fisheries minister is of no comfort to lobster
fishermen who are afraid of losing their livelihoods. He is of
no comfort to native families who are now facing unfair
recriminations from their neighbours. He is certainly of no
comfort to those who are concerned about the pillaging of lobster
stocks.
I went to the east coast. I saw the problem developing and I
suggested a solution to the minister which was a way out of the
mess we are in now. I would like to ask the minister why he
failed to ask the supreme court to stay the decision and take a
rehearing of this judgment.
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, let us examine the position of
the Reform Party. The Mi'kmaq people, after 240 years, a quarter
of a millennium, were given a treaty right.
What the Reform Party wanted to do right away was to take that
right away from the aboriginal people. We will not do that.
* * *
1440
[Translation]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Speaker, without
even once using the word education, yesterday's Speech from the
Throne made reference to learning, skills development,
knowledge, and internship programs.
Can the Prime Minister now admit that his government wants to
implement a national education policy, when this is not an area
within its jurisdiction?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
the answer is not a very long one. It is no.
We have responsibilities toward all Canadians. We must ensure
that Canada is in a position to move into the 21st century
equipped to face the challenges that we will have to confront
and, within areas under federal jurisdiction, to step up our
contributions in order to ensure that Canadians are very well
prepared to enter the 21st century.
Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Speaker, if
they do not want to get into areas of provincial jurisdiction,
the throne speech states that they want to “eliminate barriers
to the mobility of citizens” —I am quoting from page 21, to be
exact—particularly those barriers “that deny some students use
of their student loans when they study out-of-province”.
Are we to understand that the government in Ottawa, after having
inaugurated its millennium scholarship program, now wants to
attack the award criteria for loans and bursaries that are in
place in Quebec?
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
what we are seeking is equality for everyone, for everyone to be
able to go anywhere in Canada to further their education.
I believe it would be very good for Canada if people
from the English speaking provinces could go to Quebec to study,
and if
people from Quebec could go to study in the rest of Canada under
the same conditions.
I feel that this is ideal, because everyone would gain from it.
* * *
[English]
AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey—White Rock—Langley,
Ref.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the throne speech failed to
mention the massive restructuring that Canada's airlines are
about to face. Air Canada and Canadian Airlines were in merger
discussions six months prior to section 47 being invoked. Could
the minister please explain to Canadians why he invoked section
47 when he did?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, it is true it now appears that the two airline
companies were having discussions earlier this year. In the
month of March, Air Canada was the first to raise with my
officials the use of section 47. We now know that it was in
connection with those discussions, but no action was taken and
there was no formal request because the talks fell apart.
In June of this year, first Air Canada, with its proposal for
the Canadian Airlines international routes, and then Canadian
Airlines came to us and talked about a need to restructure the
industry. That is why we used section 47.
Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey—White Rock—Langley,
Ref.): Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government failed to
provide Canadians with its vision of our airline industry in the
new millennium. One can only assume that it does not have one.
Why has the government failed to provide Canadians with some
indication of its vision of Canada's airline industry in the 21st
century?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, the government is committed to a viable, strong and
stable airline industry, but it is undergoing some very difficult
problems, problems that will necessitate some very difficult
choices on the part of Canadians and especially members in this
House. We want a full debate in the House to elicit the views of
hon. members on both sides of the House so we can develop an
airline policy that will deal with the difficult matters we have
to overcome in order to have a very strong and viable airline
system in the 21st century.
* * *
[Translation]
EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE
Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques,
BQ): Mr. Speaker, the disastrous consequences of EI reform are
well known.
Nearly 60% of unemployed workers, youth and women in particular,
do not qualify. This reform is creating poverty in Canada.
Setting aside the parental leave plan, will the minister explain
why she has been unable to convince her Cabinet colleagues that
the best way of fighting poverty is to restore access by the
unemployed to the EI system, which is their ultimate safety net?
1445
[English]
Hon. Jane Stewart (Minister of Human Resources Development,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member speaks about employment
insurance. That is one part of the government's strategy to help
Canadians get jobs. That program is working for those citizens
who have had a job, are temporarily without work and are going
back to work.
There are other programs. There is the youth employment
strategy. There is the opportunities fund for Canadians with
disabilities. There is the Canada jobs fund. All these are our
government's approach to helping Canadians find and keep jobs.
* * *
PEACEKEEPING
Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, my question is for the Minister for International
Co-operation. She is a brand new minister and I congratulate her.
Will the minister inform the House of Canada's response to a
call for humanitarian assistance as we commit resources and
expertise to the UN peacekeeping efforts in East Timor?
Hon. Maria Minna (Minister for International Cooperation,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I must say that as soon as the East
Timorese situation broke Canada offered $420,000 immediately. We
were the first country on the ground with CARE Canada to provide
assistance to the East Timorese who were being held in West
Timor. It was rather risky but we did that.
In addition we had $300,000 from the Canada fund on the ground
which was redirected. We also had $300,000 from another program
which was redirected, for a little over $1 million.
We are monitoring the situation and in a few days I will be in a
position to announce in the House some additional assistance as
the situation in East Timor becomes such that we can go in and
actually do our job in there as well.
* * *
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk—Interlake, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, today the Prime Minister verbally proved he does not
understand the farm income crisis, let alone able to devise a
solution. Let us try the agriculture minister.
There is a 98% drop in realized net income and not a whisper of
concern in yesterday's throne speech. There was no any mention
of children going hungry or parents wondering if they could stay
on the farm. Farmers never knew how far away Ottawa was until
yesterday.
My question is for the minister of agriculture. Why is the
plight of thousands of farm families not a priority for the
agriculture minister and the government?
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I remind the opposition and all Canadians
that even prior to last year's budget in February the government
announced $900 million and, along with the provincial
contribution, $1.5 billion to assist producers who are under
stress and need that help across Canada.
Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk—Interlake, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the government cannot in good conscience allow farmers
to head into winter with no hope. The government likes to throw
around compassionate sounding buzzwords such as the children's
agenda. There are thousands and thousands of farm children whose
parents are trying desperately to make ends meet. Real children
need real help and the government is turning its back.
If the agriculture minister and government are truly interested
in helping children, what do they plan to do for them to get them
through this winter?
Hon. Lyle Vanclief (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I remind Canadian farmers again that they
are very fortunate the Reform Party did not form the government,
the party that was going to cut $600 million in support to the
agriculture industry in Canada, mostly at the primary production
level.
We have a safety net program in place. We are working with it.
We have made changes to it. We are not done making changes to
it. We will continue to do all we can to find all the resources
we can in co-operation with the provinces and the industry to
assist all those that we can assist.
* * *
AIRLINE INDUSTRY
Ms. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the
Prime Minister has said that the Onex takeover of Air Canada is
strictly a private sector issue. The Minister of Transport has
said that there might be some public interest at stake.
Has the Liberal government made up its mind? Will it listen to
Canadians or let only shareholders decide the fate of our
Canadian airline industry?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we have chosen a market driven
solution as the option for us to follow at this stage. It is up
to the parties in the private sector to determine any
arrangements in reorganizing the companies.
Once the private sector determines that, and once a conditional
offer comes to the government, the government will be fully
engaged in making sure that the five principles I enunciated a
couple of weeks ago are adhered to and that the protection for
Canadians on prices and other issues in the public interest is
rigorously adhered to.
Ms. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the
minister's market driven solution and his five principles just
will not cut it.
1450
Canadians were promised a healthy competition within the airline
industry when it was deregulated. Instead we have seen fewer
flights, wages driven down, jobs threatened, reduced service,
more American influence and less Canadian influence, and now a
weakened major airline.
Will the government now admit that its policy on deregulation
has been an utter failure?
Hon. David M. Collenette (Minister of Transport, Lib.):
Mr. Speaker, to make the assertion the hon. member does about
deregulation is a very facile way to approach the debate.
Deregulation had many successes but there is no question that
severe problems have occurred in the last few years especially
with one company, Canadian Airlines. Those issues have to be
addressed and addressed in a way that protects the public
interest to ensure that as we go into the next century we have a
very viable air industry.
* * *
FISHERIES
Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): Mr. Speaker, if
conservation of lobster stocks is of primary importance, will the
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans insist that native fishers abide
by the same seasons as non-native fishers?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I assure the member and the House
that conservation is a priority. We shall ensure that we protect
the resource.
However we do have a judgment of the supreme court. I took
great honour in recognizing that treaty right and will ensure
that we live in the spirit of the judgment.
We need to focus on the long term and make sure that we bring
everybody around the table to work on a long term arrangement to
fulfil and ensure that the Mi'kmaq and the Maliseet can exercise
their treaty rights.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, I have
another question for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
In the short term the lobster fishery is regulated by licences,
trap limits, size restrictions, seasons and lobster fishing
areas. Regulations ensure conservation and conservation ensures
a viable fishery.
How could the minister allow any fishery not to based on
conservation? Will the minister answer that question?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, all fisheries are based on
conservation. There is no fishery that is not based on
conservation.
As I said in my statement last week, if there is a fishery it
will be a regulated fishery. I assure the hon. member that the
fisheries out there now are regulated. We are enforcing
conservation practice and conservation rules.
* * *
NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. George Proud (Hillsborough, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my
question is for the Minister of National Defence.
In light of its embarrassing performance and inability to get to
East Timor in time, could the minister tell the House when the
government will replace the old and unreliable Hercules aircraft?
Hon. Arthur C. Eggleton (Minister of National Defence,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that one aircraft took
a number of attempts to get off to the mission in East Timor. I
must say that it was the high maintenance standards of our crew
that ensured that the safety of our personnel was of paramount
importance.
When the plane was fixed it did get off. It was one of the
earliest to arrive in East Timor and it has provided terrific
service to the allied troops that are there.
In addition, it is going through an upgrade. The avionics and
navigation systems are going through an upgrade in the last
couple of years and over the next couple of years so that they
will continue to provide excellent service.
* * *
IMMIGRATION
Mr. Leon E. Benoit (Lakeland, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, people
smuggling is rampant in Canada. Boatloads of human cargo land on
our shores. Our airports are increasingly becoming sieves for
illegal migrants and the government does not even care enough to
prosecute the captains involved in people smuggling.
Canadians, especially new immigrants, have called on the
government to make this issue a priority, yet there is no mention
of it whatsoever in the throne speech.
Why is the smuggling of human cargo, the enslavement of
thousands of people and the infiltration of organized crime not
important to the government?
Ms. Elinor Caplan (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the throne speech identified that people
smuggling as a great concern to the government. We will not
tolerate trafficking in human lives.
The concerns we have when it comes human smuggling is that not
only does it endanger the lives of the people who are in the
hands of transnational organized crime but it diverts our
attention from genuine refugees.
Nine people have been charged and they are presently before the
courts. We have the toughest laws and we are looking at making
them even tougher to ensure that smugglers know they will not
succeed in Canada.
* * *
1455
[Translation]
ORGANIZED CRIME
Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier—Montcalm, BQ): Mr. Speaker, in
light of the threats made by organized crime against Quebec
farmers, their families, and even my colleague, the member for
Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, regarding the illegal growing of marijuana,
would the Minister of Justice not have been better advised to
table effective legislation in the House in order to finally do
something about organized crime, instead of drafting legislation
that Quebec does not want, legislation that would brand young
offenders for life?
[English]
Hon. Lawrence MacAulay (Solicitor General of Canada,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the fact is that organized crime does
exist. That is why fighting organized crime is the number one
law enforcement priority of the government.
I assure my hon. colleague that the RCMP has supported the SQ in
fighting organized crime in Quebec against the farmers.
* * *
FISHERIES
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, in light of the Marshall decision
the severe lack of leadership has caused a devastating effect
among the lobster fishermen in my home province of Nova Scotia.
Let us note the date. Tomorrow area 35 of the Bay of Fundy
opens up to commercial fishery and Bay of Fundy inshore fishermen
and the aboriginal people are working together toward a
co-operative solution. Unfortunately they are doing it on their
own.
Will the minister commit the necessary resources to help the Bay
of Fundy inshore fishermen reach a co-operative settlement with
aboriginal people for the future of the lobster fishery?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in fact I went to Moncton and met
with the commercial people. I also spent a whole day with the
aboriginal people.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
The Speaker: I would ask hon. members to try to contain
their exuberance.
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal: Mr. Speaker, the Reform
Party which makes the most noise spends the least amount of time
with the aboriginal community hearing about aboriginal concerns.
I went to Atlantic Canada and in fact encouraged dialogue and
discussion. I was very happy to see that in Nova Scotia native
and non-native fishing communities working together. We have
said that we needed community based solutions and we have been
there encouraging that.
I am very happy. I think we should applaud what is happening
there. This is the way to resolve the problem. We have been
working on a long term solution to get all the groups together to
have a long term arrangement.
[Translation]
Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): Mr. Speaker, will the Minister
of Fisheries and Oceans confirm here and now that non-native
fishers will be included in negotiations on an equal footing
with native fishers and the federal government?
[English]
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have said all along that to
resolve these issues we must get all the parties working together
toward a common solution.
I met with the commercial fishermen and the processors. I spent
two days out there to ensure that I had the benefit of all views.
I also consulted with all my colleagues on both sides of the
House, as well as my counterparts in fisheries.
We have a solution in place. It is working because dialogue and
co-operation are working.
* * *
LABOUR
Mr. Gurbax Singh Malhi (Bramalea—Gore—Malton—Springdale,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of
Labour. Construction workers at federal work sites deserve to
receive not only a fair wage but also fair treatment.
Could the minister tell me what she will do to ensure fair
treatment?
Hon. Claudette Bradshaw (Minister of Labour, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, as of September 29, 1999, fair wages in our labour act
has been in place in the country. That will mean for our workers
that any workers who work on a federal contract will be paid fair
wages. The schedule will be posted and the workers will know
what their wages should be.
I would like to thank the unions and the construction workers
across the country for helping us to put this in place. I am
very happy that it has been done.
* * *
1500
IMMIGRATION
Mr. Leon E. Benoit (Lakeland, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the
taxpayers of Canada's largest cities and the provinces bear the
brunt of the government's bungling on immigration. Yesterday
Toronto's mayor, Mel Lastman, said he is tired of the
government's excuses and his city can no longer afford the
Liberal's broken immigration system. The mayor of Toronto is
simply expressing the frustration on immigration felt across this
country.
How does the minister respond to Toronto's mayor and Canadians
who share his concerns?
Ms. Elinor Caplan (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,
Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my department is working co-operatively
with the city of Toronto. We are trying to gather the data and
the information. We know that this requires a response from
three levels of government: the federal government, the
provincial government and the municipal government. I want to
point out that the refugee population that the mayor is concerned
about represents about 10% of the concerns that he has and we are
working with him to resolve those issues.
I want to make one point very clear. As we do this, the
government remains committed, as opposed to the opposition party,
to upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; not
just for some, but for all.
* * *
[Translation]
PAKISTAN
Mrs. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is
for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Subsequent to the military coup d'etat in Pakistan, serious
warnings were issued by the United States, most of the countries
of Europe, the European Community, the secretary-general of the
Commonwealth, and the head of the IMF. All of these called for
a return to democracy as quickly as possible, and respect of the
Pakistani constitution.
Can the Minister of Foreign Affairs tells us what Canada's
position is?
Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, we have done the same as the other countries.
[English]
In addition, we have also arranged to have a meeting of the
Commonwealth ministers on Monday which will apply the Harare
principles to Pakistan concerning this military takeover. In
fact, I think we are ahead of all these other countries.
* * *
POINTS OF ORDER
SPECIAL DEBATE—FISHERIES
Mr. Derek Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the
Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
think you would find unanimous consent to withdraw any existing
motions for emergency debates on the fishery issue and to adopt
the following:
That on October 13, 1999 the House shall continue to sit after
6.30 p.m. and, commencing at 6.30 p.m. or when the House leader
of the Progressive Conservative Party completes his remarks in
the debate on the proposed Address in Reply to the Speech from
the Throne, whichever is later, the House shall consider a motion
“That this House take note of the difficulties in Canadian
fisheries, especially as complicated by the Queen and Marshall
case and its implications for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal
peoples and for the future management of natural resources”;
provided
That during the said debate: (1) no member shall speak for more
than 20 minutes, with a 10 minute question and comment period
being permitted, and provided that time may be divided pursuant
to Standing Order 43(2); and (2) the Chair shall not receive any
quorum calls, dilatory motions or requests for unanimous consent
to propose any motion; and
That, when no member rises to speak or at 12:00 a.m., whichever
is earlier, the motion shall be deemed to have been withdrawn and
the House shall adjourn to the next sitting day.
1505
The Speaker: Does the
member have the unanimous consent of the House to put the motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the
motion?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to)
ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS
[English]
COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS
Mr. Derek Lee (Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the
Government in the House of Commons, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I
have the honour to present the first report of the Standing
Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership
and associate membership of the Standing Committee on Transport.
There is a procedural motion contained within the report to
enable that committee to begin business immediately, and I should
like to move concurrence in the first report.
(Motion agreed to)
* * *
1510
REQUESTS FOR EMERGENCY DEBATES
The Speaker: I received six applications for emergency
debates for this evening. Two of them have been withdrawn by the
unanimous consent of the House, namely the applications made by
the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough and the member for
Delta—South Richmond.
That leaves me to deal with four others. I would ask the hon.
members, as I call upon them, to state their case for an
emergency debate in a very concise fashion. I would first call
on the hon. member for Palliser.
AGRICULTURE
Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I rise
under Standing Order 52(2) to seek leave to propose an emergency
debate to address the deepening financial crisis that is
affecting far too many Canadian farm families.
I remind the House that we had an emergency debate on this
crisis on November 30, 1998. However, since then the crisis has
only deepened in its intensity. Last November the agriculture
minister predicted that as bad as 1998 was for farmers, in
particular those in western Canada, particularly Manitoba and
Saskatchewan, the forecast for 1999 was even worse.
Unfortunately, that prediction has been realized.
Spring flooding has compounded the situation. Those that
escaped the devastation of rising waters continue to be battered
by record low commodity prices and highly subsidized competition
from producers in the U.S. and Europe.
Without immediate and effective help, up to half of the farmers
in western Canada could be out of business by next year.
Bankruptcies on the prairies are already up 24%. Statistics
Canada reports of the situation in Saskatchewan this year
indicate that take-home farm incomes are forecast to be the worst
in more than 70 years.
I believe that an emergency debate is required in order to urge
the government to address this crisis. Parliament has the
responsibility to find long term solutions. Mr. Speaker, I would
urge you, respectfully, to consider an emergency debate in an
immediate and timely fashion.
The Speaker: I will hear the member for
Selkirk—Interlake because his request deals with farming. I
believe from the letter I received that it is in the same genre.
Mr. Howard Hilstrom (Selkirk—Interlake, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the crisis situation I referred to in my letter to you
asking for an emergency debate absolutely involves the
statistical analysis of Statistics Canada, which has clearly
indicated that farm incomes will be flat and will be dropping as
a result of low commodity prices and the actions of our
competitors.
This emergency arises now because last fall the standing
committee on agriculture held hearings on the problem. As a
result of those hearings and the report that was put forward it
was determined by the government that the only problem was a
sharp drop in income for farmers for 1998-99. According to
Statistics Canada, the truth of the matter is that during the
past five or six years incomes have been dropping to very low
levels and they are projected to remain flat.
The fact is, the federal government has addressed a short, two
year program that is not providing money to the majority of
farmers. That is the reason we must have an emergency debate.
The government has not addressed the issue. Farmers are going
bankrupt. Calls to the Brandon, Manitoba stress line for farmers
are up three times over what they were a year ago.
We are dealing with a true crisis. The number of farm groups
coming to Ottawa to stress their point to the minister requires
that we in the House debate the issue to bring forward what the
real problem is and what the solutions are.
1515
The Speaker: My colleagues from Palliser and
Selkirk—Interlake, not diminishing in any way the importance of
such a topic, I feel that at this time it does not meet the
criteria for an emergency debate.
I will now hear from the hon. member for West
Vancouver—Sunshine Coast.
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast, Ref.):
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 52, I request leave to
make a motion for the adjournment of the House for the purpose of
discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent
consideration.
Following a January 1999 British Columbia supreme court decision
concerning the possession of child pornography, the British
Columbia Court of Appeal did, on June 30, 1999, dismiss the
appeal to reinstate subsection (4) of section 163.1 of the
Criminal Code.
The supreme court has scheduled a hearing on this matter for
mid-January 2000. Given the normal time required for the supreme
court judgments, this issue will not be disposed of until perhaps
2001.
The legality of the possession of child pornography is not
limited to the province of British Columbia. In fact, defence
counsel in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta are arguing cases now
based on the British Columbia decision to make child pornography
legal in those provinces.
The government did not find reason in the Speech from the Throne
to discuss this issue. That is why I served notice after the
speech yesterday.
On February 2 the minister said in the House that the government
was acting immediately on the issue and would not wait for the
case to reach the Supreme Court of Canada. Sixty-three Liberal
MPs and six senators signed a notice to the Prime Minister asking
him to use the notwithstanding clause in this child pornography
issue because it was so important last February.
The children of this country cannot wait until 2001 to find out
that child pornography is illegal to possess in Canada.
This is an issue of children. Children were mentioned in the
throne speech yesterday but this issue was not mentioned.
I think all members of the House agree that the law we have is a
good one; it is only some judges who do not. We have to debate
that issue in the House and come up with a solution to protect
our children a lot quicker than the judges of this land want to
protect our children.
The Speaker: I do confirm that the hon. member did
write to me explaining this particular case, but I do not feel at
this time that it meets the criteria for an emergency debate.
With reference to the member for Lakeland, if there was some
confusion and if I did misread the information I had, I will
entertain a letter to be sent to me again today so that the hon.
member can address his subject tomorrow.
We will now go to Orders of the Day.
GOVERNMENT ORDERS
[English]
SPEECH FROM THE THRONE
RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY
The House resumed from October 12 consideration of the motion
for an address to Her Excellency the Governor General in reply to
her speech at the opening of the session.
Mr. Preston Manning (Leader of the Opposition, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, I rise to reply to the Speech from the Throne presented
yesterday by Her Excellency the Governor General. In doing so I
want to take the opportunity on behalf of the official opposition
to extend our best wishes to the former Governor General on his
retirement as well as our congratulations to the new Governor
General on her appointment.
[Translation]
This summer, my wife and I had the pleasure of visiting the
region of New Brunswick in which Mr. LeBlanc will be enjoying
his retirement, and we can readily understand his desire to live
in that magnificent part of the country.
[English]
Along with other members of the House, we also had the
opportunity to listen to another speech by Her Excellency the
Governor General at her swearing in ceremony a week ago.
I might say it was an excellent speech. It was much better than
the speech prepared for her by the Prime Minister. We wish Her
Excellency well in all her future communications.
1520
I also want to extend on behalf of the official opposition our
best wishes to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces both at
home and abroad. Their contributions to maintaining peace in the
world are even more significant in light of the hardships and
resource limitations that they must endure, not the least of
which are those imposed upon them by their own government.
In the next few days my colleagues will be dissecting the Speech
from the Throne in considerable detail, pointing out its
deficiencies, which are many, and presenting constructive
alternatives. My task today is to deal with the big picture
which I will now proceed to do.
We stand on the threshold of a new century. Canadians have a
right to expect that the legislative program presented by their
government would put forward bold solutions to old problems and
chart new directions for a new century, solutions and directions
inspired by principles and vision. We see none of that in the
Speech from the Throne. What we have here is essentially more of
the same, perpetuation of the status quo.
For example, over the summer the country faced specific problems
demanding government action. We heard of some of them today,
from people smuggling on the west coast, to violence in the east
coast fishery, to an agricultural crisis on the prairies, to the
need to completely reorganize the airline industry. The Speech
from the Throne does not even acknowledge the existence of these
problems, let alone offer solutions that are based on some kind
of vision of the future for those sectors or some kind of
fundamental principles.
The greatest defect is the deficiency in principle and vision, a
deficiency for which the government attempts to compensate with
bland rhetoric. For example, the government refers in the speech
to the principle of clarity as essential to national unity. It
talks about the importance of principles to the national
children's agenda. It talks about the need for principles to
govern co-operative approaches to infrastructure development. But
in none of the sections where it mentions the word principle does
it spell out what these governing principles are. In most of the
other sections of the speech there is no attempt to specify at
all the principles that will guide the government's actions.
Since the government has chosen to exit the 20th century not
with a bang but with a whimper, it is my intention to present an
alternative set of principles for directing the legislative
program of the government and an alternative vision for Canada in
the 21st century, alternatives which I believe are in keeping
with the deepest convictions and hopes of Canadians.
Let me start with the principles of fiscal responsibility. When
Reformers were first elected to parliament, we won support on the
basis of a commitment to certain clear-cut principles of fiscal
responsibility. Today we are even more committed to those
principles because we are even more convinced they are right for
Canada and Canadians.
As our chief finance critic, the member for Medicine Hat, has
repeatedly argued, we want a federal government that is committed
to controlling and prioritizing its spending, to balancing its
books, and having a legal commitment to balance its books not
just a policy decision, to lowering its debt and reducing federal
taxes, and doing so at a pace that is far faster than that being
followed by this timid and tired administration.
One of the things that bothers me profoundly is that it can be
demonstrated from polling data and research data that there was
majority public support in this country as early as 1984 for
balancing the federal budget. There was majority public support
for balancing the federal budget as early as 1984 and yet it took
two administrations and 15 years to achieve what for most of us
is a self-evident objective that should have been achieved far
sooner.
This Speech from the Throne is rife with government references,
bowing and scraping toward the recognition of the global economy
and high tech knowledge and computerization. The essence of all
of that is speed in decision, yet when it comes to meeting the
fiscal obligations of this country and implementing fiscal
policies, the government moves at the pace of a snail dragging a
chain through the mud.
1525
It should be understood that the official opposition wants real
tax relief and debt reduction, not as an end in themselves but
because of the benefits that will flow to Canadians. We do not
have just an academic interest in this principle. It is the
benefits that will flow.
I have a dream. It is a simple one and it gets reinforced every
time I go to a factory or a plant and talk to workers. It is a
dream of getting a pay increase, just a pay increase for every
Canadian worker and family. That is reasonable. It is a pay
increase that does not come from their employer but from a
reduction in the high taxes collected every day and every month
by a tax crazed government.
We are talking about real, substantive tax relief. It is quite
evident that the Canadian public, and particularly workers, are
simply not going to believe promises of tax relief from anyone
unless they can see it in a tangible form. They are going to
look at their paycheques at the end of the day and they will
believe they have tax relief when the federal deductions have
been reduced. They will not believe any other promise or
commitment to tax relief unless it shows up on the bottom line.
This is our vision of tax relief. Its impact on families could
deliver up to $4,600 of tax relief per year per family for them
to use on whatever they choose, such as education, shelter and
clothing. We think the people themselves are the best ones to
direct those expenditures whether they are socially directed or
economically directed.
But what do we see in the Liberal administration's
implementation of these principles of fiscal responsibility? We
see a government whose main financial priority has been to
collect and spend as many taxpayers' dollars as it can, from $107
billion, or almost $14,000 in federal tax revenues per family in
1993, to $148 billion, or $18,150 in federal tax revenues per
family in 1999, and still growing.
We read in the Speech from the Throne on page 9 that the
government will follow a multi-year plan for tax reduction. Why
would anyone take this at face value when we consider what the
government has said and done on this subject in the past?
On one occasion the finance minister said that the ultimate goal
was to lower taxes but—and unfortunately there is always a
but—lowering taxes and reducing the fiscal load would not be
possible. He then promptly raised federal tax revenues to
$14,835 per family. The next year the finance minister said that
we could not have a massive tax cut across the board, and
promptly raised federal tax revenues per family to $15,614.
The next year, speaking about across the board tax cuts, the
Prime Minister said “I do not think it is the right thing to do
in a society like Canada”. Somehow it is un-Canadian to give
them back some of their money. That year, as if to reinforce the
point, the finance minister raised federal revenues per family up
to $16,550.
The next year, along with the budget close to being actually
balanced, the finance minister said that to put in place a
broadly based tax cut now would be irresponsible. That year he
raised federal tax revenues per family to $18,000.
Is it any wonder that Canadians will regard tax relief promises
from the throne speech with extreme, justifiable scepticism. The
government's taxation record is in precisely the opposite
direction to the direction it promises in the throne speech.
The most deceptive half truth in the entire throne speech is on
page 9. I could hardly believe the statement, when I heard it
standing in the other place. If it had been in the prospectus of
a company filed with the Ontario Securities Commission, this half
truth which fails to disclose the other half of the truth,
whoever put it together would be liable to spend up to five years
in a provincial institution.
This is the statement: The government says it has begun to
deliver broad based tax relief totalling $16.5 billion over three
years. It gets this figure by adding up projected tax reductions
for the financial years 1999-2000, 2000-01 and 2001-02, for a
total of $16.5 billion.
What it fails to mention is that during those same three years it
also projects tax increases, namely through increases in CPP
premiums and bracket creep, amounting to $18.4 billion for a net
increase in the tax burden on Canadians of $2 billion.
1530
The first great deficiency in principle and vision that we see
in the Speech from the Throne is the lack of principle and
substantive commitment to the great principles of fiscal
responsibility, in particular tax relief that is the key to both
sound government and a prosperous economy for the 21st century.
In our judgment, this is a deficiency which cannot be remedied
by trying to change tax and spend Liberals into tax cutters. It
is a deficiency which will only be remedied by the election of
150-plus members to the House who on a certain night in a certain
month—probably February or March—are prepared to stand up in
the House and vote for real, genuine, substantive tax relief.
Let me turn to economic policy in general. The official
opposition's vision of an economically prosperous and secure
Canada for the 21st century includes much more than just a
fiscally responsible federal government and lower taxes. It
includes a Canada where jobs with good incomes are plentiful
rather than scarce because the job creation engine is fueled, not
by patronage-tainted and politically motivated grants, contracts,
handouts and subsidies from the government but because it is
fueled by dollars left in the pockets of consumers to spend and
businesses to invest. It is private enterprise. It is an old
concept but it happens to work.
We envision a Canada where the younger generation is valued and
encouraged by economic opportunity to make their future in Canada
rather than being told by the Prime Minister to go to the U.S. if
they are not prepared to pay exorbitant taxes. Talk about a
children's agenda. He is telling our children, “If you don't
like the tax system here, if you think the levels are too high,
go somewhere else”.
We envision a Canada where economically disadvantaged regions
and people, including aboriginal people, are given the tools to
direct and create their own economic future by participating in a
free enterprise, market based economy, not a country where
aboriginal people are given the obsolete, dependency creating
instruments of government planning and socialist economics.
One of the big reasons we object to the Nisga'a treaty is that
it is straight out of the 19th century. There is no other group
in the country that the government would have the nerve to say,
“Your economic development is going to be achieved through
collective rights and collective ownership of property and
resources”. There is no other group that the government would
have the nerve to say that to. It then hands off those types of
tools to aboriginal people. Exactly the same mistake the country
made in the 19th century we are making as we enter the 21st
century.
We envision a Canada where challenges faced by agriculture, the
infrastructure sector, the airline industry or professional
hockey are met by policies that give them tools and frameworks to
solve their own problems rather than increasing dependency on the
government.
Time does not permit me to deal with all the points in the
Speech from the Throne where the Liberal government's approach to
economic problems or the problems of particular sectors violate
these principles, but let me touch on just three examples.
The first example is the brain drain. The official opposition
has some of the youngest members in the House. Many of them
spend a lot of time on university campuses and they hear about
this problem all the time. I hear it every time I go to a
campus. What is the question that we are asked by younger people
at the universities? Some person will go to the microphone and
say, “I'm graduating next year with such and such a degree and
my wife is graduating with such and such a degree. Here's my tax
position in Toronto. Here's my tax position in Chicago. You
tell me why I should stay here one day after I graduate”.
When I see the new pages in the Chamber I do not just think of
the pages as servants of the House. I know many of them have
ambitions and are studying far beyond spending time here in the
House. I think of them as representatives of the younger
generation who are looking for incentive, opportunity and things
like that from government, not punitive taxes that create the
opportunities for them somewhere else.
1535
The government fails to see that high taxes drive youth,
capital, jobs and companies out of the country. Its response to
the brain drain is to deny it. It does not bring to the problem
of the brain drain what free enterprise, market based principles
and fiscal responsibility in government can offer those people.
That is a huge mistake. It is a deficiency in principle, not
approaching the problem from a principled basis, and a deficiency
in vision.
Let us look for a minute at the agriculture situation. This
summer the member for Selkirk—Interlake and the member for
Souris—Moose Mountain arranged for me to spend a little time
talking to farmers and producers from southwestern Manitoba and
southeastern Saskatchewan. I do not have to tell the members in
the House who have a background in agriculture about the depth of
the dilemma. We have thousands of farmers who have suffered two
disasters beyond their control. In that particular region, the
disaster was an enormous amount of flooded acreage, an inability
to seed after the flooding and late seeding leading to frozen
crops in the fall. We now have the bigger problem of foreign
subsidies driving commodity prices down to the point where a
large number of our farmers cannot make a living.
It is worth looking at some of the statistics that the hon.
member referred to a minute ago. Statistics Canada confirmed
that 1998 was a disastrous year for Canada's farmers. Realized
net income was down 21% over the year before. Agriculture Canada
forecasts even worse for 1999. National realized net income of
$2.2 billion and that figure includes payments from the
government's AIDA program. The hardest hit will be Saskatchewan
where Agriculture Canada predicts a net loss of $48 million.
Manitoba will fare only slightly better earning $64 million, a
little less than the net realized farm income of Prince Edward
Island. This is one of the great agricultural provinces of the
prairies yet that is what its net income is.
I ask the Prime Minister to listen to this. Put another way,
the realized net income for all farmers in Manitoba and
Saskatchewan taken together will be down 98% from the previous
four year average. I cannot imagine that if any other group had
statistics show that its net realized income had fallen 98%
because of something beyond its control the government would not
respond. However, in the Speech from the Throne there is no
visionary response to this problem.
I do not want to labour this but I will read the statistics. The
statistics do not tell the real story. Behind the statistics are
incredible amounts of heartbreak. I have been going to farm
meetings ever since I belonged to a 4-H club in the Horse Hill
area of Alberta in the 1950s. I have gone to all kinds of
agricultural meetings with different commodity groups, et cetera.
At some of the meetings we went to this summer we talked to
people in this dilemma. I cannot recall ever having seen people
who could not even talk about the problem. These are stoical,
independent western farmers who would go out behind the barn and
shoot themselves rather than acknowledge that they have a
problem. They tend to be that way.
At these meetings we saw grown men breaking down and crying. It
was not because of their bottom lines but because they were
losing the farm that their grandfather had. It was because of
what it was doing to their families, the stress lines that the
hon. member mentioned. People are calling for help from
psychiatrists, ministers and everybody else and the government
does not respond.
The government has to do three things. It must first recognize
that its AIDA program is a joke and is not working. The
agriculture minister goes around saying that the government has
promised farmers $25 or $50 an acre to put together with the
provinces. I defy the government to find one farmer who has
actually received $25 an acre. Some farmers pay $500 to
accountants to fill out the forms to get $40 back while others
pay $500 only to be told that they do not qualify for anything.
Nobody gets what is in the press releases because there are a
whole lot of strings attached: what was their last three years'
average; what is their deductible, et cetera. There are 100
reasons for not getting the money. They want to know where the
replacement for AIDA is and they want it fast.
Secondly, where is the expanded crop insurance program that
includes disaster relief? This business of inventing a new ad
hoc program every time there is a natural disaster is crazy. It
politicizes the thing. It causes all kinds of problems for the
minister.
Why do we not extend crop insurance to include broad based
disaster insurance?
1540
Thirdly—and this is one for the prime minister—where is the
team Canada mission to Europe that is not just a glad-handing
exercise but includes the prime minister, the minister of trade,
the foreign minister and the agriculture minister and which makes
a powerful argument with the Europeans that their subsidies are
killing our farmers?
If we are committed to free trade, and the government professes
to be committed to free trade, this is not just knocking down
trade barriers and subsidies at home. Yes, it does include that
and we have supported that, but it also means being even more
vigorous at knocking down the other guy's trade barriers.
If the prime minister has great influence with President
Clinton, why does he not use it on behalf of the farmers? If
Canada and the U.S. teamed up to fight European subsidies rather
than the U.S. just outbidding them, we could have an impact on
those subsidies which are killing our farmers. I suspect the
reason the government does not take this approach is because it
really is not committed to market based, free enterprise ways of
solving this problem. It will cut our subsidies but it does not
go after the other guys.
There is one other sector where I see a deficiency in the
government's approach which is again a backward looking approach.
The Speech from the Throne has a little section on physical
infrastructure. It makes only token references to the demands
for new highways, new roads, new bridges, new airports, new ports
and all types of physical infrastructure development. The speech
states nothing at all about the need for north-south trade
corridors, the need to build the transportation networks and
rebuild the transportation networks that are moving a billion
dollars of trade a day across the American borders.
If the government looked at that it would soon come to the
conclusion that there are not enough dollars in the public works
budget of the Government of Canada and the highways departments
of all the provinces to even meet the physical infrastructure
investment requirements of the west. If we add them all up,
there is not enough to even meet the requirements for building
infrastructure in the west over the next 20 years.
What does that mean? It means we are going to have to find
massive amounts of capital for investment and infrastructure from
other sources. I say that the only place we are going to find
that is in the private sector. We are going to have to look to
these public-private partnerships in order to build that type of
infrastructure. Guidelines will be needed from the federal
government to make sure that these projects are not screwed up
the way the federal government did it in Atlantic Canada where it
picked public-private projects which did not meet the
requirements or the priorities of the provinces and where the
project got tainted with patronage right at the beginning which
discredited the whole approach.
My conclusion is that the second great deficiency of principle
and vision that we see in the Speech from the Throne is the lack
of a principled substantive commitment to encouraging and
facilitating individual and corporate enterprise and better
operations of free markets to solve the actual practical problems
in many of these particular sectors.
I have already spoken of Reform's vision of fiscal
responsibility and the need for governments to constrain their
natural appetites for excessive taxation and misdirected
involvement in the economy. However, fiscal and economic ideals
are not ends in themselves. They are but means to more important
ends. Those more important ends for us are social and moral in
nature.
I now want to turn to the social and moral dimensions of the
Speech from the Throne. In the judgment of Reformers, the
highest moral responsibility of government is the passage of just
laws and the maintenance of law and order. The most important
social responsibility is the protection and nurturing of the
family. Let us look at what this throne speech does in those two
areas.
When it comes to criminal justice, we have a vision of Canada as
a safe society where people can live their lives, walk on the
streets, drive on the highways, go to school, go to work, shop in
the stores, visit the parks and live in their homes without fear
of harm to themselves or their property or, even worse, fear of
harm to their loved ones.
1545
I think of the many seniors we run into when we are
door-knocking as all of us do. They live in fear in Canada
inside their own homes. They are afraid of theft. They are
afraid of assault. They are afraid to go out at night. They are
afraid of a knock at the door. Some of them are men who risked
their lives for the country when they were young, and they have
to live their older years in fear. Some of them are women who
pioneered in the workforce while raising families. Many of them
are people who built our homes, our towns and our cities.
Do we not owe our seniors more than a pension? Do we not have a
moral and social obligation to protect their physical safety and
to lift the federal government's constitutional obligation to
create peace and order off the dry pages of the constitution and
give people peace and order in the place where they live?
It seems to us the only people who are really sticking their
necks out to protect citizens from crime are police officers,
particularly the ones who work on the streets. These are the men
and women who literally put their lives at risk every day to make
public safety a reality. How does the government treat them? It
slashes their budgets and it turns their work and their risks
into a mockery through a revolving door parole system and an
unbalanced justice system.
To achieve the idea of genuine public safety for Canadians we
believe the federal government must embrace the principle that
the protection of the lives and property of the citizens must be
the highest ideal of the criminal justice system. The right of
Canadians to this protection and consideration must take
precedence over the rights of the perpetrators of crime.
When we examine the policies and actions of the government we
find them lacking in commitment to this principle. Let me take
the classic illustration of this point from the events of this
summer. Federal law, as everyone in the House knows, provides
for the legal entrance into the country of immigrants and genuine
refugees. However those laws were repeatedly violated this
summer by international gangsters smuggling illegal entrants into
Canada on our west coast.
This people smuggling is not only illegal but is a gross affront
to the hundreds of thousands of legitimate immigrants and
legitimate refugees who have waited patiently in line and
fulfilled everything we have asked of them—all the hoops, all
the paperwork, all the time delays—in order to have legitimate
legal standing in the country.
The points I am making have been pointed out by official
opposition critics for immigration and justice, but I want to
repeat them again. The official opposition has called for
expedited procedures to detect, detain and assess illegal
immigrants and to immediately deport those who are not genuine
refugees. In doing so we are not calling for something unusual
or draconian. This is what the 1987 amendments to the 1976
Immigration Act were supposed to accomplish.
However there is a problem which those and subsequent amendments
to the Immigration Act have not remedied. Many members in the
House know what it is. Why do we not do something about it? The
problem is that in 1985 the Singh decision by the supreme court
ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to everyone
who is physically present in Canada, even if they got here
illegally and even if they have no legal standing whatsoever. So
we hand to those engaged in people smuggling and to illegal
entrants, regardless of their status, all the legal tools
required to fight deportation hearings, deportation procedures
and deportation orders. They can fight it for years to the point
where the whole process of dealing with illegal immigrants and
refugees becomes a farce.
This is an issue of law and order. It is an issue of criminal
justice. We look to the federal government for a solution to
make its laws enforceable so that rights granted to persons
without legal standing in our country and violating its laws, are
not allowed to tarnish or diminish the rights and privileges of
those who fully comply with our laws.
When we look at the Speech from the Throne, what do we see? Sad
to say, we see nothing in the Speech from the Throne to correct
this deficiency in principle and vision with respect to the
Canadian criminal justice system.
What is the third great deficiency in principle and vision that
we see in the speech? It is a lack of principled and substantive
commitment to criminal justice reform, in particular reforms
which ensure that when the rights of law abiding citizens and
victims of crime conflict with the rights of the perpetrators of
crime it is the former that prevail over the latter.
1550
As I said earlier, the social vision of Reformers attaches the
highest priority to the protection and nurturing of the family.
Our vision of Canada regards the family as the most important
organizational unit of society. This is a statement of principle
to which I believe many members of the House subscribe. Surely
for each of us it has some real and substantive meaning.
Last weekend was Thanksgiving. Mr. Speaker, what are you
thankful for? What am I thankful for? Well, many things. I am
thankful for being a Canadian. I am thankful for growing up
within driving distance of the Rocky Mountains. I am thankful
for a Christian heritage and for the religious liberty which
allows each of us to turn toward God or away from God and to
accept the consequences of our own moral decisions. I am
thankful for political freedoms. Reformers complain a lot about
the political system of the country, but I am thankful for the
freedom that allows my friends and me to start a political party
and to try to change the government.
I am most thankful in my life for my family, and I think a lot
of members share this. What was the most important thing Sandra
and I did on Thanksgiving? We spent time with our family, as
many other members did.
I am thankful for the kindness and nurturing of my mother and
for the wisdom and example of my late father. He was my hero. I
am thankful for my wife, Sandra, and for the spiritual
foundations of our marriage which have enabled us to withstand
all the stresses and strains that everybody here knows politics
puts on a marriage.
I am thankful for the effort Sandra makes to keep our family
healthy and strong and the way so many of our spouses sacrifice
their own interests for us to be playing in this game.
I am thankful for my own boys who have grown up to be strong and
sensible with the help of a lot of other people besides myself,
and who can do so many things from fishing to making music to
operating computers far better than I can do.
I am thankful for my daughters; for their relentless pursuit of
excellence in sport and education; for making life and faith
commitments of their own; for their choices in husbands, the two
who are married; and for the strength that these men bring to our
family. I am thankful for three precious little grandchildren,
with another one on the way, who find love and acceptance and
roots in the family while at the same time becoming its brightest
promise and prospects for the future.
I am thankful that such a family allows us to support and care
for each other: children, parents, grandparents, great
grandparents and siblings, and turn to one another in times of
need instead of having no one to turn to other than a stranger on
the end of some government telephone line.
In expressing this thankfulness for family I am not denying for
a moment the importance of government services, whether it is
health, education or social assistance, that help the well-being
of families. I am not denying for a moment the harsh realities
of all those who because of economic, social or personal
circumstances have lost or been denied the benefits of family, or
those for whom family has been transformed into a place of
violence and insecurity.
My heart aches for such people, especially for the children in
such circumstances, to do something to preserve the health of
more families in the face of economic, social and personal
hardships and adversity to give today's young people, regardless
of the family circumstances in which they started out, at least a
fighting chance to avoid some of the mistakes of our generation
and to provide the benefits of healthy family relationships at
least for the next generation, for their children and their
grandchildren.
May I suggest that if the Liberal government really wants to do
something for children there are a number of other practical
things it could do that are not in the Speech from the Throne.
For example, it could focus first and foremost on doing something
for families. It should not focus on government programs that
attempt to substitute for families. It should focus first and
foremost on supporting the family directly. It might start at
the beginning, if it had the moral nerve, by defining the rights
of the unborn. This it will have to do if it intends to
reintroduce its bill on reproductive technologies. It will have
to get into that subject and it would be better to do it sooner
rather than later.
Second, if the Liberal government really wants to do something
for children, it should state clearly the definitions of marriage
and family which it believes are most conducive to the well-being
of children.
1555
On June 8, 1999, for example, the House passed by a vote of 216
for and 55 against a resolution moved by the hon. member for
Calgary Centre which read as follows:
That, in the opinion of this House, it is necessary, in light of
public debate around recent court decisions, to state that
marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman
to the exclusion of all others, and that Parliament will take all
necessary steps—
Where are the steps? We did not see any in the Speech from the
Throne.
The government's support of this motion was a good step but it
should be followed by another. If the Liberal government really
wants to do something for children, it should also clarify the
definition of family as the primary biological and social context
into which our children are born.
It is the Reform Party's conviction that a family should be
defined as individuals related by blood, marriage or adoption.
Members should note that this definition is broad. It is not a
narrow definition of family. It is broad enough to embrace a
so-called traditional family, common law relationships, the
single parent family and the extended family which is so
important to many new Canadians.
Affirming these definitions of marriage and the family is not to
say that parliament cannot recognize in law other relationships
of dependency, but in our judgment these should not be confused
in law or public policy with marriage defined as the union of a
man and a woman or the familial relations based on that union.
Some might argue on the basis of the supreme court's
recent M. v H. decision that the court is headed, whether we
like it or not, in the direction of saying that in Canadian law
a couple is a couple is a couple, regardless of the basis of the
relationship. However I believe I speak for the majority of
parliamentarians, not just Reformers, when I say that it is
parliament's intention, that it was parliament's intention and
that it is still parliament's intention that the union of a man
and a woman, which is unique in its potential for the natural
procreation and nurturing of children, should be in a category by
itself as should be the familial relations based upon it.
On page 22 the throne speech states that Canada will champion
efforts at the United Nations to eliminate the exploitation of
children. If this is the case, the government should then direct
the courts here at home to stop protecting the consumers of child
pornography. When parliament passed that section of the criminal
code, and that debate has gone before the B.C. court, it intended
that the possession of child pornography should be treated as a
crime. Why? Because possession represents the demand side of the
pornography industry. If one wants to shut down the pornography
industry one has to go after the demand side and not just the
supply side.
If the criminal code does not make it crystal clear that is what
parliament intended, the government should introduce legislation
that makes that crystal clear to the courts. If the courts still
insist that section of the criminal code is not charter
compatible, the government should not hesitate to use the
notwithstanding clause now to enforce such a provision. Surely if
the government values children it will put their right to
protection from the evils of pornography ahead of any adult's
right to possess child pornography.
The throne speech also expresses particular concern about child
poverty while often ignoring the family context in which much of
that poverty occurs. Again if the Liberal government wished to
do something about child poverty, it could do two practical
things which do not require the invention of some new program. It
could stop overtaxing the parents and stop taking up to $6
billion a year from people making $20,000 a year or less.
The government takes in $6 billion and tries to figure out how
some complicated program, which will cost a lot administratively,
will give them back a couple of hundred dollars for this or that.
Am I missing something, or would it not be simpler to leave the
dollars in their pockets, stop the unfair taxation of single
income families and see just how many new child care spaces that
creates?
1600
What is the fourth great deficiency in principle and vision that
we see in the Speech from the Throne? It is the lack of a
principled priority commitment to the protection and nurturing
directly of the Canadian family, the human context, the primary
biological, economic, social, cultural and spiritual context into
which our children are born.
It is a deficiency which in our judgment cannot be remedied
until there are 150-plus members in the House who are convinced
in their hearts as well as their heads that the number one social
priority of government should be the protection and nurturing of
the family.
There is another set of principles nowhere alluded to in the
Speech from the Throne and yet absolutely essential to the
implementation of any legislative program approved by parliament.
They are those principles that define the proper line between the
executive, parliament and the courts. In recent years we have
seen these lines increasingly blurred by this administration. We
have seen the courts increasingly encroach on the prerogatives of
parliament to the point where one might argue that one cannot
fully interpret the Speech from the Throne until after hearing
the speech from the bench. I have three examples.
There is the impact of the Singh decision on the government's
ability to halt people smuggling. What difference does it make if
this parliament sets up the ideal system for handling immigrants
and refugees? As long as the Singh decision stands, there are
legal ways around it. It can be fought every step of the way for
seven years.
There is the impact of the B.C. court decision in the Sharpe
case which legitimates demand for child pornography. It is
already having a secondary impact in other parts of the country
while we wait and wait for a court decision that may not come.
There is the impact of the Marshall decision on the management
of the east coast fishery. I understand we will have a debate
tonight during which we can get into this in detail. The member
for Delta—South Richmond will be saying a lot on this a little
later. In the Marshall case the court affirmed an aboriginal
fishing right from a treaty that does not contain the word fish.
Talk about writing things in, that is a good example.
Apparently no one, and this is the responsibility of the
government and not the court, made a convincing case for the
dangers of having one law for aboriginals and another law for
non-aboriginal fishermen. No one made the case apparently of the
threat that unlimited fishing rights create for destroying the
biological basis of the fishery. And apparently no one made the
case that the government, through its constitutional right under
section 91 of the Constitution and its responsibility for
fisheries, also granted rights to fish under certain licences and
if the court was going to deal with this problem at all, it was a
matter of balancing two sets of rights, one against the other,
not simply affirming one set of rights.
The court made a fishery policy as distinct from parliament
making a fishery policy leading to, in this case, violence and
chaos on the east coast fishery.
Switching to the positive, the official opposition has a vision
of the proper relationship between parliament, the court and the
executive. It is a vision that is rooted in our own Constitution
and several hundred years of British constitutional convention
and precedents. It is based on a simple principle, that
parliament makes the law, the administration administers the law
and the court interprets the law. In our judgment any delegation
of law making by the executive to the courts by default, which is
what this government does, or any proactive assumption of law
making functions by the courts is a violation of this basic
constitutional principle and it needs to be corrected.
Maybe the following explains why the government is not
enthusiastic about correcting it. The root of the problem is
that the BNA Act of 1867 founded Canada on a constitution
“similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom”. One of
the founding principles is that parliament makes the law, the
executive implements the law and the courts interpret it.
But in 1981-82 the Liberal administration of Pierre Trudeau, an
administration in which the current Prime Minister was the
justice minister, initiated and secured the passage of the
Constitution Act, at the heart of which was a constitutional
device similar in principle not to the constitution of the
United Kingdom but to that of the United States.
I refer of course to the charter of rights and freedoms. This
law included for the first time in Canada a constitutionally
entrenched guarantee of civil rights. It served the same function
in Canada as the U.S. bill of rights but without any of the
checks and balances on the three branches of government which are
found in the American Constitution.
1605
That is what happens when you transplant an idea from one
constitutional system to another. You do not necessarily bring
along with it the checks and balances that made it work in the
original situation.
With the introduction of the charter to the Canadian
Constitution a great departure began from the historic division
of responsibilities between parliament and the courts which
continues to this very day. The consequences of that departure
include replacement of the supremacy of parliament with the
supremacy of the Constitution as interpreted by judges. They
include a transfer of power from parliament and the legislatures
to the courts, including a transfer of the ultimate right of
interpretation. The other consequence is the thrusting, whether
they want it or not, of unelected judges with no direct
accountability to the people into the realm of decision making
and political activism.
The consequences of this great departure and the political
activism of the courts are enormous. I suggest to members that
they go far beyond simple legal and academic questions concerning
the appropriate balance between the courts and parliament. Look
at the list of things into which this great departure has taken
the courts whether or not they wanted to go there.
The Mahé decision of 1990 took the courts into the operation of
school boards. The Eldridge decision of 1993 took the court into
affecting provincial government budgetary decisions. The Singh
case of 1985, as already pointed out, took the court into the
administration of immigration and refugee procedures. The
Therens case of 1985 created an enhanced role for lawyers in
criminal proceedings that went far too far and which has had
negative effects. We saw further evidence of political and
social activism by the courts when they created the defence of
self-induced intoxication, something parliament never ever
dreamed about in any of its wildest moments. That was via the
Daviault case in 1994.
There was court direction of public policy with respect to
vagrancy via the Heywood case of 1994. There was the extension
of the requirement for the use of warrants to unreasonable
lengths via the Feeney case of 1997. It took the courts into the
elevation of the protection of language rights ahead of the
protection of citizens from criminal activity via the Beaulac
case of 1999, and into the establishment of procedural delays as
grounds for abandoning thousands of criminal prosecutions via the
Askov case of 1990.
We saw further evidence of the great departure when the courts
extended the democratic franchise to prisoners via the Sauvé
decision of 1993. It legitimated the rights of adults to possess
child pornography via the Sharpe decision of 1999. It imposed a
limit on the sanctity of life by striking down provisions for the
regulation of abortion via the Morgentaler decision of 1998. It
interjected a court ruling on spousal benefits into the politics
of a provincial election, which I find utterly inexcusable, via
the M and H decision of 1999. It has triggered violent
confrontations over diminishing fishery resources on the east
coast via the Marshall decision of 1999.
I could keep the House here all night reading court cases, but
on some future occasion I am hoping the Prime Minister will
ensure this parliament addresses this issue explicitly. At such
time it would be my intention to lay before parliament a number
of measures for clearly delineating a line between ourselves and
the courts. These measures include a number of things, of which
I will mention three.
First would be measures to ensure that parliament specifies in
each statute it passes the intent of that statute and that it
obtains independent legal advice, because we cannot get it from
the justice department, on the charter compatibility of bills
before they leave this place rather than after. It is a process
of pre-legislative review.
We would also recommend that these remedial measures include the
establishment of a judicial review committee of parliament to
prepare an appropriate parliamentary response to those court
decisions that misconstrue parliament's intent, and include
recommendations of the appropriate use of the notwithstanding
clause which I remind hon. members is just as much a part of our
Constitution as is the charter of rights and freedoms.
1610
When we look at the Speech from the Throne we do not see any
recognition of this even though it affects everything we pass
here. Why is that? I suspect it is because on many of the
issues affected by the political activism of the courts,
especially in moral and social areas, the Liberal administration
would prefer to have the hard decisions made by Liberal appointed
judges rather than by the elected members.
If that is the case, we will not see a remedy to this problem
until there are 150-plus members elected to this Chamber with a
commitment to change and to draw the line crystal clear between
parliament and the courts.
I turn now to the state of our federal union, a subject on which
the Speech from the Throne devoted about four specific paragraphs
and yet is one which is central to everything we do.
As all members here know, Canada is the second largest nation in
terms of territory on the face of the earth. It consists of ten
provinces and three territories encompassing an enormous breadth
of cultural and regional diversity. In order to unify this great
diversity into one nation from sea to sea to sea, our forefathers
rightly chose to apply the principles of federalism. Canada is
therefore a federal state, but because of its size and diversity
it is a federal state that cannot take its internal unity for
granted even for a month.
This parliament has the right to expect that every Speech from
the Throne would contain at least two things. One is substantive
measures to address the particular concerns and aspirations of
the great regions that make up this country. The other is
something substantive with respect to the application,
preservation and advancement of the principles of federalism on
which our continued unity depends. Let us look at the present
state of our federal union and the Speech from the Throne from
this perspective.
This summer my wife and I spent several weeks in the west, two
weeks in Quebec, two weeks in Ontario, and almost three weeks in
Atlantic Canada. We attended some 80 different functions, many
of them informal social functions which gave us a good
opportunity to interact with people. We listened to the
predictable concerns of people about taxes, jobs and health care.
But we also perceived something else, something less defined and
yet very real and something that is bigger than people's day to
day concerns.
There are four big regional concerns and aspirations which I
believe are abroad in our land and which this federal parliament
must recognize and address in order to maintain the unity and
progress of this country in the 21st century. Four strong winds
are starting to blow with increasing velocity; four strong winds
which, if we ignore or misread them, can put our federal ship on
the rocks; four strong winds which, if properly harnessed, can
propel this federal union forward with confidence and security
into the uncharted waters of the next century.
Let me begin in the west. I like beginning in the west. In
June, Sandra and I travelled to the Milk River country of
southern Alberta. There we borrowed two horses and a tent from a
longtime rancher in the Milk River area, Tom Gilchrist. For three
days we joined the anniversary trail ride commemorating the 1874
march west of the original North West Mounted Police contingent;
a great adventure which originally took 275 officers and men from
Fort Dufferin south of Winnipeg all through the southern part of
Saskatchewan and southern Alberta to Fort Whoop-Up 125 years
before.
That original group of North West Mounted Police included
Colonel James MacLeod who would lay the foundation for a treaty
with the great Blackfoot confederacy on the basis of a simple
principle: equality under the law. I wish James MacLeod had been
around when they were putting together the Nisga'a treaty. That
is how he made peace with the fiercest group of aboriginals left
on the prairies. It was the last group to have a confrontation
with the Europeans. He made it on a simple basis. A couple of
RCMP walked into a huge camp. There was one law, the same law,
for whites and Indians. He did a few things to back it up and
that was the basis of that peace.
The fort he established on the Old Man River became home to
F.W.G. Haultain a few years later. Haultain was a lawyer from
eastern Canada who came out west. He became the greatest premier
the old North-West Territories ever had.
He was the one who negotiated the provincial terms of entry of
Alberta and Saskatchewan in the federal union as provinces. What
was the principle he insisted on, even though he did not get it?
Equality for provinces. Equality between the new provinces and
the old provinces.
1615
Members of that same old Northwest Mounted Police contingent
would soon establish another fort at the confluence of the Bow
and Elbow Rivers, Fort Calgary, the place where over a century
later nine premiers and two territorial leaders would meet and
produce a declaration asserting the principle of equality of all
Canadians and provinces under the law and that any power given to
one province to protect and develop its uniqueness would be given
to the others. Equality for individuals and provinces was as
much a founding principle of the old west as accommodation to the
French-English fact was a founding principle of central Canada.
That old west, including British Columbia, was wild and vast
with enormous potential. It attracted people of enterprise and
initiative who overcame all sorts of obstacles and hardships.
Members should read the story of the original march west by the
RCMP if they want a story of overcoming hardship.
That old west had all sorts of new ideas and convictions on how
the west itself should be governed. But politically the old west
had one huge problem. It was politically impotent. At the turn
of the last century the west produced less than 10% of the GNP,
had less than 10% of the population and had less than 10% of the
seats in this parliament.
The old west lacked political clout to impress its concerns on
the federal government, let alone impress its ideas. It quickly
and unfortunately developed an underdog attitude that if it
participated in negotiations with the national government or if
it participated in political dialogue with people in other parts
of the country it would rarely win the debate and would always be
outvoted and outnumbered.
What struck me as I rode through that country commemorating the
opening up of the old west was how far the west has come in a
century and how different the position of the new west entering
the 21st century is in comparison to what the old west was at the
turn of the century.
In that Milk River country, if one stands at the right place,
the Cypress Hills can be seen to the east, the Sweet Grass Hills
of Montana to the south and Chief Mountain to the west. These
were all sacred places to the Blackfoot. They were high places
from which the Blackfoot believed they could see forever and from
which they believed they could see the future. It was a place
where the young saw visions and the old dreamed dreams. Could
any of the people who mounted those heights at the turn of the
last century, aboriginal or non-aboriginal, possibly have
envisioned the new west of the 21st century?
The new west is no longer politically impotent. In the 21st
century it will produce over one-third of the wealth of this
country. It will have over one-third of the population of this
country. British Columbia will become the second largest
province in the country and the west will control over one-third
of the seats in this parliament.
In the 21st century it will be impossible to implement any truly
national policy without the west's concurrence or to form any
truly national government without western participation. The
great challenge for westerners is how to use this newfound
influence.
There will be some, “little westerners” Haultain would have
called them, who will advocate that the new west should use its
growing influence simply to settle old scores and that the west
should confine itself to addressing its own immediate regional
interests. These people will prefer regional parties over
national parties. There will even be some who will say,
regrettably, that the new west should use its influence to
separate from Canada. Fortunately there will be others, “big
westerners” Haultain would call them, who will advocate a much
more positive and inclusive course.
Reform is the principle and Reform is the voice of the new west.
We say yes, the new west should use its influence to protect and
advance regional interests, to raise the agricultural concerns of
the prairies higher on the national agenda, to protect the oil
and gas producing regions from another raid by the federal
government, to prevent the west coast fishery from suffering the
same abuse as the east coast fishery and to make B.C. Canada's
gateway to the Asia-Pacific.
We also say that the new west should use its new influence in
the federation to address and resolve the problems of the
federation as a whole, to get the federal financial house in
order by insisting that tax and debt levels be lowered for all
Canadians, by advocating that national health care—medicare,
after all, was born in the west—be reformed for the benefit of
all Canadians, by insisting that federal institutions be made
more representative and democratically accountable for all
Canadians, and by insisting that the equality of all Canadians
and all provinces under the law become a governing constitutional
principle throughout the entire country and be pounded into the
heads of members of parliament.
1620
When we look at the Speech from the Throne from this
perspective, what do we see? We see no evidence at all that the
federal government even recognizes the existence or emergence of
the new west, let alone a preparedness to accommodate its
aspirations.
The federal government is at odds, in particular with British
Columbia, on everything from the mismanagement of immigration and
refugees to the mismanagement of the fishery to the mismanagement
of aboriginal relations. It has negotiated a treaty with the
Nisga'a which is based not on the principle of equality of all
under the law, but on the divisive principle of one law for
aboriginals and another for non-aboriginals.
Rather than offering tax incentives to reduce greenhouse
emissions, the government has mused about imposing a green tax
which would discriminate against the petroleum producing regions
without proposing any compensatory measures or equivalent
environmental taxes on competing energy sources.
By failing to propose or mount a concerted international attack
on European agricultural subsidies, it refuses to get at the root
of the low commodity prices that are doing enormous damage to our
farmers.
The Prime Minister has never followed up on that resolution we
passed in the House one night, which members voted for, calling
on the federal government to help communicate the real
significance of the Calgary declaration to Quebec.
The Speech from the Throne and the Liberal government are
completely oblivious to the spirit and the aspirations of the new
west. This is a deficiency which is inexcusable in a federal
system where the federal government must recognize regional
aspirations and respond to them for the sake and well-being of
Canadians living in those regions, as well as national unity.
I said there were four strong winds. The wind coming out of the
new west is only one. In Ontario, the federal government must
recognize and accommodate the aspirations of the common sense
revolution. It has not done so and there is little in the Speech
from the Throne that indicates it is prepared to do so.
In 1993 the people of Ontario elected the tax cutting, common
sense government of Premier Harris to get that province's
financial house in order. Premier Harris proceeded to do so by
cutting taxes 30%, introducing programs like workfare as
preferable to welfare, while still spending 50% more dollars on
health care in that one province than this government spends on
health care in the entire country.
In 1997 Mr. Harris asked the people of Ontario whether they
wanted his government to continue on this common sense course
and, in particular, whether they wanted him to continue to cut
taxes. Despite the fierce opposition of both federal and
provincial Liberals, the Harris government was returned by the
people of Ontario with a solid majority. We offer them our
heartiest congratulations.
There is a strong wind blowing across Ontario. It is the wind
of the common sense revolution. It is completely
counterproductive for the largest government in the country, the
federal government, to pursue tax policies that are at cross
purposes with the tax policies of the largest provincial
government. People in Ontario are concerned, like people in
Alberta, that tax and spend federal Liberals will move into the
hard earned vacated tax room created by the provincial
government. They want the principles of the common sense
revolution to be respected and implemented in Ottawa as well as
Queen's Park. Yet, there is not a flicker of recognition in the
Speech from the Throne of that political reality. It fails to
recognize, let alone respect, the principal fiscal interest of
the largest province in Canada.
I talked about four strong winds. I have two so far. There is
an easterly wind beginning to blow in this country. The Atlantic
provinces are bestirring themselves in a manner which is good for
them and good for the country.
1625
When I talk to business, labour and academic interests in
Atlantic Canada I hear a desire to pursue new paths to economic
growth; not the tired and discredited Liberal policies of trying
to stimulate growth through patronage tainted subsidies, grants
and handouts to the few, but new and more credible policies. I
will list them: tax relief for the many to put more dollars in
the pockets of consumers to spend and Atlantic business to
invest; a concerted effort to expand trade between Atlantic
Canada and the New England states, which was the basis of the old
Atlantic economy before it entered Confederation and in which
Atlantic Canada was stronger than it is now; a vigorous effort to
expand Atlantic rim trade to make Atlantic Canada the gateway for
European-North American trade; rebuilding the infrastructure of
the whole east coast through public-private partnerships, but
partnerships acceptable to the province and untainted by federal
Liberal patronage; creating a tax and investment environment
conducive to the growth of the knowledge industry in Atlantic
Canada to take advantage of the many excellent institutions of
higher learning and to create 21st century jobs for Atlantic
Canadian youth close to home.
Some of these policies, and they represent a departure from what
the federal government has done, were first proposed and pursued
by Premier McKenna of New Brunswick, who has just denounced the
federal Liberals' approach to regional economic development in
the strongest possible terms. According to a Globe and
Mail report, Mr. McKenna has unleashed a scorching indictment
of the federal government's treatment of Atlantic Canada. The
federal Liberals, he said, have nothing in the window for his
region. He speaks of “their total ignorance of the issues of
shipbuilding, their total ignorance of the very highly developed
information technology sector which is taking place here, their
disgraceful management of the fisheries issue and the resource
issue having to do with the natives”. All of these things, he
said, are just more nails in their coffin.
Premier McKenna's initiatives were largely abandoned by his
successor at the provincial level, who paid the price at the
polls. In both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia two tired and
discredited Liberal administrations have been turned out of
office and replaced by the Conservative ministries of Mr. Lord
and Dr. Hamm. In both elections the smell of patronage and
federal political interference in provincial highway projects was
a factor in the defeat of the provincial Liberal administrations,
and both of these administrations are seeking to pursue new
approaches to economic growth. We extend our heartiest
congratulations to both.
The winds of change are blowing in Atlantic Canada. Yet, when
we examine the Speech from the Throne, supposedly the speech
laying out the legislative program of the federal government
which claims it lies awake nights trying to figure out how to
make this federation work better, there is no recognition of this
regional fact at all, no new principles or visions that respond
to the new wind that is blowing out of Atlantic Canada.
That brings me to the fourth wind. The fourth wind that a
perceptive and sensitive federal government would be recognizing
and seeking to accommodate would be the new wind that is stirring
in Quebec. It is still a light breeze, but there are signs in
the polls and the political discussion in that province that
perhaps up to 15% of the Quebec electorate is open to a third
way, une troisième voie: not separation for Canada, not the
status quo federalism of the Liberals and the Prime Minister, but
reform of the federation with a rebalancing of the powers between
the federal and provincial governments for the 21st century, a
rebalancing that would strengthen the federal government in some
of its key areas of jurisdiction, strengthen the provinces in
some of their key areas of jurisdiction, particularly health,
education and social assistance, and include jurisdiction for the
provinces over language and culture.
Yet, when we examine the Speech from the Throne and the
application of the principles of federalism to the maintenance of
national unity, what do we see? As I have said, we see nothing
that truly recognizes the growing and diverse regional
aspirations of the west, Ontario or Atlantic Canada. When it
comes to addressing the concerns of Quebec we see nothing of the
principle or the vision of a reformed federalism, only a
continuation of the status quo plus a veiled reference to
defining a federal position on the secession process and
question.
I find it absolutely amazing that a government that prides
itself on always taking the balanced approach—how many times
have we heard it, always seeking the balanced approach between
spending and tax cuts, between debt reduction and taxation—when
it comes to national unity it takes a totally unbalanced
approach.
When it comes to national unity and adjusting federalism to
accommodate the strains of regional-provincial interests, the
government spends 90% of its time thinking about Quebec and 10%
of its time thinking about the rest of the country. When it
comes to Quebec, the government spends 90% of the time trying to
defend and perpetuate an unacceptable status quo. When it comes
to advocating something new to provide a way out of the
constitutional box for either discontented federalists or for
weary nationalists in Quebec, instead of presenting both plan A
and plan B in balance so Quebecers understand all their options
and the consequences of them, the Speech from the Throne contains
no plan A and only a veiled reference to a plan B proposal for
federal legislation on the secession referendum process and
question.
1630
The Prime Minister must come across in Quebec as the schoolyard
bully. When the sovereignists show strength, as in the last
referendum, he grovels and promises anything, like constitutional
recognition of distinct society which he had opposed for 36
years. However, when he thinks his opponents are weakening, he
plays the tough guy who is willing to go to court.
[Translation]
On the question of national unity, Quebecers are used to seeing
the Prime Minister playing the blow-hard. That has been his
style throughout his political career. The Prime Minister is
brave when his adversaries are disorganized, but he makes
himself scarce as soon as they begin to rally round.
[English]
If federalists are going to speak credibly to Quebecers we must
be consistent and balanced. We should recognize that status quo
federalism has little appeal in particular to the young. We
should not risk a revival of support for separation as a reaction
to clumsy miscalculations by status quo federalists. If plan A
and plan B are to be presented they must be presented in balance,
with plan A representing reform of the federation with the
priority being given to communicating it to those who are
searching for a third way.
Those are the four big winds that we see blowing across the
country. We see nothing in the Speech from the Throne that shows
any recognition of them whatsoever, that shows any preparedness
to harness them for the benefit of the country in the 21st
century and no adjustment of federalism beyond the status quo. In
our judgment, this deficiency will not be remedied until there
are 150-plus members of parliament from all parts of the country
committed to that vision of a reformed federation for the 21st
century.
One might ask why there is so much public interest and support
throughout the country for things like tax relief, criminal
justice reform, the strengthening of families, health care reform
and the reform of federal-provincial relations to make them more
co-operative and productive, and yet so little principled
commitment or action on these fronts in the legislative program
of the federal government. The answer lies in the fact that the
federal political institutions of the country, in particular this
parliament and this House of Commons, are defective in terms of
their capacity to accurately assess and represent the public will
and to respond democratically to public demands.
This is why Reformers want not simply to reform particular
fiscal, social, economic or justice policies of the government.
We want to reform the system itself whereby these policies are
developed and implemented in the first place. We have a vision
of a country and a system of government that is truly democratic,
not simply democratic in appearance, not an autocracy where
people get a chance to vote for the autocrat every four years,
but a genuine democracy where the institutions are truly
representative and accountable and where the first allegiance of
members of parliament is not to their party or to themselves but
to the people who elect them.
We envision a parliament where the upper house is a credit and a
complement to democracy, not the disgrace to democracy that it is
now. We envision a Senate that is democratically elected with
equal numbers per province and effective powers to safeguard and
represent regional interests.
If the country had a workable Senate, in particular the way the
Fathers of Confederation envisioned it to be, the first place
where these four regional winds that are blowing would register
in Parliament is the Senate. As it is, it is the last place.
They could have a hurricane over there and they would not even
recognize it as a wind.
1635
We envision a parliament where there is genuine free voting in
both the Houses, not just on private members' bills or on
exceptional occasions when the government does not want to touch
a moral issue with a 10-foot pole, but every day on issues of
substance and on government bills and opposition motions of every
description.
We envision a house of commons where a prime minister with
genuine democratic convictions has risen to his feet. The Prime
Minister might want to take some notes on this. We would like to
see a prime minister stand in the House and say, “It is not the
policy of my government to regard every vote as a vote of
confidence in the government. If a government motion is defeated
or an opposition motion is carried the government will not
resign. It will respect that vote and only resign in response to
the passage of an explicit vote of no confidence”.
Can hon. members imagine even for a moment what a difference
that one simple change would make to improve the democratic
nature of this place? The capacity of every single member to
more effectively represent constituents' interests would be
increased, in particular when the constituents' will conflicts
with the party line. The power of the leaders, in particular the
prime minister, to coerce votes would be restrained. Committees
would be more independent. They could initiate legislation.
Debates would no longer be meaningless, sequential soliloquies
because members would actually be free to change their mind or
their positions as a result of something that some other member
had said. Legislation would be enacted perhaps not in exactly
the same form that it was originally introduced by the
government, but enacted nevertheless by majority vote and in
accordance with a broader cross-section of public and national
opinion than would otherwise be the case.
We envision a parliament that regularly invites the public to
participate in making major national decisions; a democracy where
referendums on key issues are regularly held; where citizens can
initiate a referendum if enough of them feel strongly enough
about the need for a legislative measure; a democracy where
elected officials who abuse their public trust can be fired for
cause by an electorate itself through a recall mechanism; a
democracy where parliament is willing to give the public a chance
to vote in favour of reforms to the electoral system itself,
inviting Canadians to choose from among such options as
continuation of the first past the post system, adoption of some
form of preferential balloting, a system of proportional
representation or some combination of these measures.
In other words, we envision a democratic parliamentary system
where the principles of genuine democracy, of effective
representation, of true accountability, of free votes and of
public participation are actually practised and reflected in the
day to day operations of our institution.
This is the scale of the demand for democracy that is abroad in
the land. We see it in British Columbia where just the prospect
of a recall mechanism has the anti-democrats quaking in their
shoes, as they should. We see it in Alberta where hundreds of
thousands of people went out and participated in a Senate
election knowing that the Prime Minister, in all his
stubbornness, would not respect their wishes. They went out
anyway. They went to the meetings. They marked their ballots in
the spirit of democracy.
Perhaps the most encouraging thing for Canadian democrats this
summer was a conference held at Bird's Hill Provincial Park in
Manitoba by the First Nations Accountability Coalition, a group
now representing grassroots aboriginal people from more than 200
first nations communities across the country. What were they
talking about? They were talking about fiscal and democratic
accountability for on-reserve governments and the department of
Indian affairs.
The spirit of democracy is alive in the country. However, when
we look at the Speech from the Throne what do we see? Not a
flicker of enthusiasm for any of the great democratic principles
and reforms that would make the country a model democracy for the
21st century.
1640
People from emerging democracies, some from the former Soviet
Union, from Africa and from Asia, visit the House and the
Speaker's chambers. They sit in the balcony expecting to see a
model democracy. If we handed them the Speech from the Throne
they would not guess that there is a commitment to democracy, to
democratic reform or to making this democracy work better. It is
a shame.
I have devoted almost the entirety of my reply to the Speech
from the Throne to demonstrating its greatest flaws: its
deficiency in principle and vision. In order to be constructive,
I have also endeavoured to outline by contrast the principles and
vision to which the official opposition is firmly committed and
which we believe should animate and direct the legislative
program of the Government of Canada; principles of fiscal
responsibility; vigorous encouragement of private enterprise and
free markets; principles of social responsibility for law and
order and integrity of the family; respect of the line between
the courts and the parliament; principles of reformed federalism;
and, principles of genuine democracy.
This brings me to my final point. The official opposition is
deeply committed to these principles. We have left our homes and
our normal occupations to fight for them in elections and in
parliament. However, the official opposition is not naive enough
or egocentric enough to believe that we have some exclusive
monopoly on these principles.
For example, across the country there are hundreds and thousands
of supporters and voters for various political parties who
believe in the principle of fiscal responsibility, in particular
the need for national tax and debt reduction. However, because
so many of the people who hold these convictions are divided in
their political loyalties between various political parties,
between several federal parties, or between provincial parties
that espouse these principles and federal parties of the same
name that do not, it has not been possible to amass the political
support required to elect the 150-plus members needed in this
parliament to make real tax reduction and tax relief a reality.
Across the country there are millions of people who would agree
in principle that Canada needs to make a new commitment to law
and order, to preserving the family and to reforming
federal-provincial relations. However, again, because the
political loyalties of those people are divided among various
political groups, the country ends up being governed by a party
that is committed to none of these principles and elected with
only 38% of the vote.
It could be argued that if only we could secure some of these
democratic reforms I have enumerated, in particular free voting
in the House or some change in the electoral system, it would
then be much more possible to form temporary or permanent
coalitions of members of the House who are committed to the same
principles but find themselves currently divided by party lines
and loyalties.
There is a catch-22 to that argument. In order to implement
those democratic reforms, we need the 150-plus votes required to
carry a motion or a bill and no such free voting or committed
majority exists in this Chamber at the present time. What is
this telling us? What is this telling Canadians? It is telling
us that there is a need for a realignment of the party lines in
the country in order to implement policies based on widely shared
principles and values be they those that I have enumerated or
some other set of principles that others may define.
It is to advance the principle of political realignment, the
principle that party lines and party structures must be adjusted
from time to time to better unite rather than further divide all
those who share certain common principles essential to the
implementation of public policy conducive to good government,
that the official opposition has offered to work with others
like-minded, regardless of past party affiliation, to create a
principled united alternative to the current administration in
time for the next election.
In this partisan House, I am well aware that arguments in favour
of co-operation across party lines for the sake of the country
usually fall on deaf ears. However, out in the real world where
voters and taxpayers live this is not the case.
1645
I believe that increasing numbers of Canadians are watching us
with two questions in mind whether or not we as practising
politicians want to recognize it. They are watching first to see
whether any existing party is willing to make a sincere effort to
define new common ground on which large numbers of Canadians
could unite in new ways to lower taxes, to heal the health care,
to democratize their institutions and to unite our country, all
the things the status quo Liberal administration has been unable
to provide.
Second, they are watching to see if any existing party is so
committed to these principles that it is prepared to set aside
its own partisan goals, even if for a moment, and work with
others who are like minded, regardless of past party affiliation,
in order to implement those principles at the federal level.
Two weekends ago the once great Progressive Conservative Party
of Canada said no to both the idea of seeking new common ground
and setting aside its own narrow partisan goals to work with
others. It will have to live with the consequences of that
decision, the kind of inward looking thinking that reduced its
representation from 169 seats in the 34th Parliament to 2 seats
in the 35th Parliament, that has reduced its party membership
from 90,000 a year ago to 18,000 under the current leadership, at
least half of whom reject the traditional conservative principles
of both fiscal conservatism and free trade.
The Reform Party of Canada and the official opposition in this
Chamber has said yes to both those questions. Over the next few
months it will continue to explore whether it is possible to
build a new principled alternative to the unprincipled and
visionless administration in time for a new century.
The original Fathers of Confederation had a dream. We should
remember this because a similar challenge was faced by a
parliament long ago that created our country. The original
Fathers of Confederation had a dream that could not be realized
until there was a political realignment in the old parliament of
Canada.
I too have a dream of a new and better Canada that requires a
political realignment if it is to be fulfilled early in the new
millennium. It has sometimes been asked how was it that the
original Fathers of Confederation, a group which contained people
who wanted to conserve certain old things like the French
language and culture and the British connection and which
contained people with radical new ideas on federalism and
advanced democracy, were able or willing to work together to
bring into being the new confederation.
The short answer which has meaning for us today is that the
conservers of the old and the advocates of the new learned to
bear with one another and to recognize each in the other the
necessary complement of their one-sidedness. The defenders of
the old need the challenge of new ideas. If they do not have
that the old ossifies and eventually decays.
The advocates of change need the influence of the advocates of
old principles to constrain them from going too far. If the two
can ever bear with one another, one of the products of their
doing that at the turn of the last century was the country of
Canada itself.
I invite all Canadians who share in their hearts a vision of a
better Canada where taxes are lower and government less
intrusive; where law and order and the value of the family are
enhanced rather than undermined by federal policy; where federal
and provincial governments co-operate rather than bicker in a
better federal union to provide better health, education and
social services for our people; and where federal political
institutions like the Senate and the House command a new respect
because of their effectiveness and commitment to democratic
accountability to work together.
I invite all who share in this vision and the principles on
which it rests to work together to remedy the deficiencies in
principle and vision that characterize this last gasp throne
speech from a tired and visionless administration.
In the meantime I move that the following words be added to the
address:
And that this House regrets that your Government has failed
through a lack of vision and commitment to sound principles to
adequately address the allegations of corruption against it,
including the abuse of patronage; failed to bring integrity to
Canada's immigration system by allowing organized crime to take
advantage of Canadians' generosity and by undermining the
standing of legitimate immigrants and genuine refugees; failed to
seriously deal with the problems of drug trafficking, youth
crime, and child pornography; rejected the common sense policies
of other governments, most notably the Ontario and Alberta
Governments, of lowering taxes to create jobs and prevent
companies, young people, and capital from leaving the country;
failed to maintain the supremacy of Parliament in relation to the
court; failed to recognize the serious plight of Canadian
agriculture and to provide a framework for reorganizing the
airline industry; failed to provide for the democratic reform of
federal institutions and the reform of federal-provincial
relations through the rebalancing of powers; and therefore,
having failed to demonstrate the capacity, commitment, and vision
required to lead this country into the 21st century, has lost the
confidence of this House and the Canadian people.
1650
The Speaker: The amendment moved by the Leader of the
Opposition is in order.
Debate is on the amendment.
Right Hon. Jean Chrétien (Prime Minister, Lib.): Mr.
Speaker, I begin my remarks today by congratulating the hon.
member for Windsor—St. Clair on the excellent speech he made in
moving the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne.
[Translation]
I would also like to congratulate the member for Laval West, who
also made an excellent presentation in seconding the address
yesterday.
I was very impressed by their presentations and I am sure that
they will have a fine career here in the Parliament of Canada.
[English]
On behalf of all members of the House I congratulate Her
Excellency on assuming her functions as governor general. We all
wish her well.
1655
Today we are on the eve of what many predict will be the century
of the Pacific. How fitting it is that the remarkable woman who
now occupies the highest office in the land is an immigrant from
the Pacific, Chinese born, a refugee who came here as a young
child with her family, a woman who has made a major contribution
to the cultural life of her adopted country.
One hundred years ago who would have predicted that a woman
immigrant from China would one day become Governor General of
Canada? It is with great pride that I say we have come a long,
long way in this wonderful country.
We are now 75 days from the turn of a new century. As the
current century draws to a close, the century Laurier predicted
would be the century of Canada, it is appropriate to pause and
reflect on where we have come from, what we have achieved
together and why we enter the next century with such confidence,
such hope and such optimism.
It has been said that Canada is a triumph of will over geography
and economics, and what a triumph it has been. How easy it would
have been for a small population, spread over vast spaces across
the entire continent, to succumb to the forces of manifest
destiny. But succumb we did not. We grew and we flourished.
How easy it would have been for a small French speaking
population, concentrated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, to
succumb to the forces of the English speaking North American
melting pot. But succumb we did not. We grew and we flourished.
How easy it would have been for our first citizens, the
aboriginal people, to succumb to the forces of assimilation. But
succumb they did not, and a new relationship is growing and
flourishing.
In a century of tyranny Canadians gave their lives in the far
corners of the world so that others could live in freedom. Today
I would like to pay tribute to the troops who are all over the
world at this moment working for peace.
In a century of intolerance Canada became a beacon of freedom.
In a century of brutal dictatorships Canada became an advanced
pluralistic democracy. In a century of the worst excesses of
nationalism Canada became a multicultural post-national society.
In a century of human rights oppression Canada embraced a charter
of rights and freedoms. In a century of growing gaps between the
haves and have nots Canada developed an advanced system of social
security and a social safety net.
[Translation]
In a century of great economic progress, from the small agrarian
society that it was, Canada has become one of the seven great
industrialized countries. In a century of entrepreneurship and
innovation, Canada has been at the forefront.
In a century in which artistic creation has had unprecedented
growth, Canadians hold a place of honour: from Robertson Davies
and Morley Callahan to Gabrielle Roy and Antonine Maillet, from
Oscar Peterson to Gordon Lightfoot and Susan Aglukark, from
Céline Dion to Atom Egoyan and Denis Arcand and Margo Kane,
with new talent appearing every day.
1700
We Canadians have proven to be a very determined people. We
have established a distinct Canadian way, a distinct Canadian
model. Accommodation of cultures; recognition of diversity; a
partnership between citizens and state.
It is a balance that promotes
individual freedom and economic prosperity while, at the same
time, sharing risks and benefits. The world has sat up and
noticed.
President Chirac expressed it so well last month, in Moncton,
when he said, and I quote “This Canada, land of first nations,
Francophones, and Anglophones, which today stands as an example
of linguistic and cultural diversity, as an object of value and
everyday life”.
The world values what we have accomplished. It wants us to
succeed. And succeed we have, and succeed we will. We will
build on our strengths. We will take bold action for the
future. The Canadian way will be a model, setting standards for
the whole world.
[English]
We all know that there are some in Canada who will judge the
success of countries solely by how much money they can make.
Ironically, many of those who today judge us harshly on our
economic policy have actually made a great deal of money in
Canada.
That is certainly not the only criterion for judging success,
nor should it be the only criterion for governing. Life is about
more than just making money. There may be other countries that
are better for those who are already very well off. I am not
sure, but there may be. However, if I have to choose between
decisions that make life better for those in the middle and for
those who have less or decisions for those who already have a
great deal, I know how I choose. I know how this government
chooses and I know how Canadians choose. We choose the Canadian
way.
We have every reason to be very proud of what we have
accomplished. We have every reason to be full of hope, of
confidence and optimism for the future. That does not mean that
everything in Canada is as it should be for everyone. It is not.
That does not mean that everything is as it can be and must be
for everyone. It is not. There is no room for complacency.
There is no room for self-satisfaction. There is a lot of room
for rolling up our sleeves, looking forward and working harder
together.
We have much work left to do, not only for this parliament but
for the next parliament as well. With an appreciation for our
past, boldness of vision and the courage to act, we can take what
is clearly the best country in the world in which to live and
make it better for everyone.
1705
Our vision of the Canada of the 21st century is clear: a
society of excellence with a commitment to success, a strong and
united country, a dynamic economy, a creative and innovative
population, a diverse and cohesive society where prosperity is
not limited to the few, but is shared by many. It is a Canada
where every child gets the right start in life, where young
people have a chance to grow and be the best at whatever they
want to do, where citizens have access to the skills and
knowledge they need to excel. It is a Canada where citizens,
regardless of income, receive quality health services, where
families enjoy safe communities and a clean environment and where
we work together with other countries to promote peace, cultural
diversity and the human purpose and benefits of the new global
economy. It is a country, Canada, that is the place to be in the
21st century, the place where people want to come and stay, to
learn, to pursue opportunities, to raise children, to enjoy
natural beauty, to open new frontiers and to set the standard for
the world for a high quality of life. It is a Canada that is a
leader and an example to the world.
[Translation]
Today, I want to set out a comprehensive strategy that enables
Canadians and their governments, working together, to turn this
vision into reality, a comprehensive strategy for leadership in
the knowledge-based economy and for promoting our interests and
projecting our values in the world, a strategy that integrates
the economy, social policy and the environment, a strategy
faithful to the Canadian way.
We cannot do everything. But that which the national government
can do, we must do wisely and well.
We must set ambitious, concrete objectives, and work with
Canadians to achieve them. That is what leadership is really
about.
That is why the government is setting out both five-year
objectives and concrete steps over the next two years to achieve
them.
Above all, a strong economy is the indispensable foundation for
all we can do and all we want to do.
The government's economic strategy is clear and comprehensive;
it is to make Canada a world leader in the next century.
When we took office six years ago, we had a plan. We have
followed our plan. It is working. And we will continue to
follow it.
We are now in a position to build on it by setting ambitious new
goals and objectives for the next five years.
We have to build a common vision of how Canada will take on the
world, and win, in the 21st century.
We have to think globally.
We have to brand Canada, at home and abroad, as a dynamic and
skilled knowledge-based economy. And we must do these things
faster than our global competitors, because speed wins.
But to compete on an equal footing, we first had to restore the
country's fiscal health.
The era of growing debt and large deficits is now behind us once
and for all. The budget will be balanced in each and every year
through the life of this Parliament and beyond, something that
we have not seen for generations, for at least 50 years.
1710
In each and every year, instead of adding to the national debt,
we will pay it down. The debt to GDP ratio will decrease year
after year, after year.
[English]
The economy is growing strongly and sustainably. Canadians are
more optimistic about the economy and their individual prospects
today than they have been for a long, long time.
Unemployment is lower than it has been in almost a decade and
more Canadians are working today than ever before in our history.
The country is on the right track. We are very well positioned
to be a world leader in the new economy.
A lot of people deserve credit for the economic success of the
last six years, but no one more than the Minister of Finance. I
want to express to him my personal gratitude as Prime Minister,
the gratitude of his colleagues in caucus and cabinet, and that
of all Canadians.
With the fiscal house in order, with the strong and growing
economy, we can move forward boldly to implement our economic
strategy, to strengthen the economic and social fabric of Canada
and to seize the opportunities of a new century.
The government, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance and
the Liberal Party have been and are committed to reducing taxes
as the finance of the nation improves. We have already started
and we will carry on. But lower taxes are not an end in
themselves. They are an essential part of an economic strategy
to provide jobs, growth, rising incomes and a higher quality of
life.
We began targeted tax relief even before the budget was
balanced. As soon as the books were balanced the Minister of
Finance introduced broad based tax relief. The budgets of 1998
and 1999 have together cut taxes by $16.5 billion over a three
year period.
This is a good beginning, but it is only a beginning. Now we
will do more in a responsible and sustained way, year after year
after year. With continuing improvements in the financial health
of the nation we will do more to reduce taxes in the years ahead.
In the next budget the Minister of Finance will outline a
multi-year tax reduction strategy to ensure that Canadian
families have more income in their pockets than they had when we
started as government, and that Canadian businesses are better
able to compete in the global knowledge based economy.
Tax reduction is only one part of the equation. A
comprehensive, balanced economic strategy requires investment,
public and private, in children, knowledge, creativity,
innovation, health and the environment. It also requires
maintaining flexibility to meet urgent needs such as the problems
in agriculture today in western Canada.
Contrary to the Reform Party, this government is helping farmers
with programs. It is against that. I hope people will note
that.
1715
This government committed itself at the beginning of this
mandate to using 50% of any surplus for tax and debt reduction
and the other 50% for investment in economic and social needs
that will increase our quality of life over the long term.
There is a growing Canadian consensus that this is the right
approach, that this balanced approach is the Canadian way. In
August in Quebec City we saw agreement on that from Tory premiers
from the west and from Atlantic Canada. The NDP governments were
there as were Mike Harris and Lucien Bouchard. In fact, Premier
Harris read from the red book. He saw that as real common sense
and that is why he approved of it. I do not blame him. I
applaud him. He has to like it.
Our comprehensive strategy to make Canada the place to be in the
21st century means focusing on children, on knowledge, on youth,
on health and on the environment.
The best place to start is with Canada's children. If we want
the brightest future possible for our country, we must ensure
that all our children have the best possible start in life.
Our plan for the next two to five years is comprehensive: one,
increased maternity and parental leave benefits; two, a
federal-provincial agreement on more supports for early childhood
development; three, more after tax money in the hands of
families; four, more family friendly workplaces; five,
modernization of family law; six, a third significant investment
in the national child benefit; and seven, strengthened learning
opportunities through an expanded SchoolNet. Real support for
Canadian families in the Canadian way.
[Translation]
Let me elaborate on three aspects of our strategy.
There is now overwhelming scientific evidence that success in a
child's early years is the key to long term healthy development.
Nothing is more important than for parents to be able to spend
the maximum amount of time with newborn children in the critical
early months of a child's life.
Therefore, I am proud to announce today that the government will
introduce legislation in this parliament to extend employment
insurance maternity and parental benefits from the current
maximum of six months to one full year.
We will make these benefits more flexible to meet the different needs
of families. We will make them more accessible by increasing the
number of parents eligible for support. This will be in effect no
later than January 1, 2001.
Together with the provinces, we have begun to put in place the
national children's agenda to improve supports for families and
children.
I believe this work has to be accelerated.
1720
Provincial premiers think so as well and discussed this last
summer. We must move as quickly as possible from talk to
action.
Today I challenge all governments to have in place by December
2000 a federal-provincial agreement consistent with the social
union framework to strengthen community supports for early
childhood development, an agreement on principles and
objectives, on measuring outcomes and reporting to Canadians,
as well as an agreement on a five-year timetable for increased federal
and provincial funding to achieve our shared objectives.
We have demonstrated over the last three years that federal and
provincial governments can work together to help families with
children. The national child benefit is an outstanding example
of federal-provincial collaboration.
We must now continue toward our goal that parents will no
longer have to choose between a job and benefits for their
children. Too often, we have seen people turn down jobs because
they might lose their government benefits.
Under the system we have introduced, in collaboration with
provincial governments, people are motivated to keep their job
because they are not penalized for working, as they were in the
past.
We will therefore—and this is very important—make a third
significant investment in the national child benefit for low
income families with children, to be in place no later than July
1, 2001.
And we will seek a commitment from the provinces, who have all
asked for this further federal contribution, to build on our
investment by increasing their own investments in early
childhood development.
Many years ago, Canadians and their governments, Liberal
governments, I may add, of my predecessors, Mr. Pearson and Mr.
Trudeau, committed themselves to a bold and noble objective.
In a country as prosperous as ours, senior Canadians should not
be denied the security and dignity of an income.
We did not build our system of old age security and public
pensions overnight. But we focused on our goal and, by and
large, we succeeded.
Let us today make another ambitious commitment, this time a
commitment to take the action necessary as a country, all levels
of government working in partnership together with communities
and the voluntary sector, so that every Canadian child can have
the best possible start in life.
[English]
What kind of world will these children live in? Well, we can
see it already. And we can also see how they will succeed. We
enter a new century at a time of rapid change, the scope and
speed of which the world has never seen.
It was a Canadian, Marshall McCluhan, who coined the phrase
“global village”. Our researchers no longer compete with each
other; they are in competition every day with the whole world.
Our industries no longer compete locally; they compete globally.
Globalization and technology have redefined the concept of the
marketplace. This has a major implication for public policy.
To seize the opportunities of the new knowledge based economy
requires a comprehensive and ambitious strategy. We have begun
this in the last six years.
1725
Our goal is for Canada to be known around the world as the place
to be, the place of exciting opportunities.
If we set the right objectives, if we make the right
investments, if we create the right partnerships and if we work
together as a country, not only will we keep the best and the
brightest in Canada, but we will attract the best and the
brightest from around the world to Canada. And we will give more
people in Canada the chance to become the best and the brightest.
The knowledge based industries which will provide the jobs of
the future require access to a diverse range of skills close at
hand to support them.
This is much easier for a large country like the United States
to achieve than it is for a relatively small country like Canada.
If we want to attract the investment Canada needs, we have to
establish a type of critical mass and we can only do it through
collaboration between governments, our universities, research
institutions and the private sector.
Today our challenge as a country is to create a climate of
opportunity for our graduate students and our graduates and to
provide exciting opportunities for Canadian researchers and to
attract the best academic researchers in the world to Canadian
universities, and to do so at a time when worldwide competition
for them has never been so fierce. And particularly at a time
when United States universities benefit from both permanent
endowments and the generosity of private foundations out of all
proportion to those of our universities.
Over the years through the granting councils, the Medical
Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council, the Government of Canada has been far and away the
largest contributor to university research in our country.
In recent years the granting councils have contributed to the
pursuit of excellence by creating and supporting hundreds of
research chairs in our universities. They are now prepared to
build on what they have already begun.
The heads of the granting councils and the Canada Foundation for
Innovation, working with some university presidents, in
particular Dr. Robert Lacroix, the rector of the Université de
Montréal, and Dr. Martha Piper, the president of UBC, have come
to the government with an exciting and ambitious proposal.
They want to build on existing partnerships between our
universities, the granting councils and the Canada Foundation for
Innovation, to brand Canada around the world as the place to be
for knowledge creation as we enter the 21st century, to enable
Canadian universities to create outstanding research
opportunities for the best and brightest Canadians.
They want to make Canada a place where Canadian students and
graduates want to be, and to attract the global research stars of
today and the future research stars of tomorrow, to attract to
Canada some of the world's best minds from other countries and to
create an environment to produce Canadian Nobel prize winners in
the future. It is a plan for brain gain, not brain drain.
They have proposed a plan to establish over the next three years
1,200 new 21st century chairs for research excellence in
universities across Canada.
1730
They want to provide enough financial support for the total
costs of research for each new research chair to make them
internationally competitive and to set as an objective reaching a
total of 2,000 new chairs for research excellence across Canada
as soon as possible thereafter.
It is a plan I welcome and we welcome on this side of the House.
It is a plan for excellence and international competitiveness
which the government endorses enthusiastically. We will provide
the required funding to the granting councils and the Canada
Foundation for Innovation. This investment in our granting
councils to promote research and the quest for excellence will
truly make Canada a leader in the knowledge based economy and
will truly brand Canada as a country that values excellence and
is committed to success, a country that is the place to be in the
21st century.
This is not all. We will introduce legislation in the next few
weeks to create the Canadian institutes of health research to
ensure that Canada stays in the forefront of health research, to
create a more integrated system of health related research than
in any other country, to ensure the pursuit of excellence in
health research, to keep the best and brightest practitioners in
Canada, and to attract to Canada the best and brightest from
everywhere.
With the Canada millennium scholarship fund, the Canada
Foundation for Innovation, the 21st century chairs for research
excellence and the Canadian institutes of health research, the
government is putting in place a sweeping and comprehensive
strategy for putting Canada in the forefront of the knowledge
based economy of the 21st century.
[Translation]
Getting Canadians connected, to each other, to schools and
libraries, to our diverse stories and voices, to government, to
the marketplace and to the world, is one of the key elements in
establishing Canada as a world leading economy and as a country
of opportunity.
We must aim to be the most connected country in the world, a
country which uses these connections in a dynamic and original
way. Our goal is to make Canada a world leader in the smart use
of electronic ways of doing business and to encourage the rapid
use of e-commerce throughout the economy.
Today, I challenge all sectors of our country, private and
public, government and business, to work together toward the
goal of capturing 5% of the world share of e-commerce for Canada
by the year 2003, and to do over $200 billion of business in this
way.
By 2004, our goal is to be the most electronically connected
government in the world to its citizens, so that Canadians can
access all government information and services on-line at the
time and place of their choosing.
1735
Our success in the future will as never before depend on a
population committed to learning, adapting to change, at ease
with new technologies and the digital economy, and able to
master new media.
Our ability to continue to lead in the world demands a
commitment to ensuring that young Canadians have opportunities
to acquire direct experience in these areas.
By March 31, 2001, 6,000 new community access sites will be
established in urban and rural Canada, to ensure that all
Canadians, regardless of geographic location, have affordable
access to the Internet.
To ensure they have the skills required to use new information
technology, we will recruit up to 10,000 young Canadians to
train community members of all ages.
[English]
The quality of our lives and the future strength of our society
require a new generation of Canadians who have the skills of
citizenship and leadership, who understand themselves and their
country, and who are
open to the world.
Our government has committed to an accord with the voluntary
sector that will lay the foundation for a new, more effective
partnership in the service of Canadians. We will work together
to build a national volunteer initiative to mark the
International Year of the Volunteer in the year 2001.
In collaboration with the voluntary sector the government will
create a single window service called Exchanges Canada to give
100,000 young Canadians every year the chance to learn about
another part of Canada, to live and experience another culture
and language.
To develop projects in the arts, sports, science and community
development, the development and maintenance of a strong basic
infrastructure as well as a knowledge infrastructure are also key
components of a competitive economy for the 21st century.
The environment, water and air quality, public health, tourism,
transportation, telecommunications and cultural infrastructure
must be well planned to meet the needs of a modern economy in
urban Canada and in rural Canada. It will require partnership,
federal, provincial, municipal and the private sector. It will
require new resources from all the partners. It will require a
commitment over the years. Therefore we will seek to reach an
agreement with our provincial and municipal partners by no later
than the end of next year to begin in 2001, or before if
possible, a five year modern national infrastructure program for
Canada.
In the new global economy a healthy environment and high quality
of life go hand in hand. This is a matter of very high priority
for the government. The environment is of importance to all
Canadians and particularly to young Canadians. Our generation
will be judged on the environmental legacy we leave to our
children and grandchildren. Environmental quality is both a
local and a global challenge. It requires both national action
and international partnership.
Legislation will be introduced in this session of parliament to
protect species at risk and their critical habitat. We will
continue to extend Canada's national parks system. We will clean
up contaminated sites in the country and protect the health of
Canadians.
1740
Canada enters the next century with enormous advantages. In an
era of globalization we are a multicultural society whose people
have roots in almost every country of the world. We are an
Atlantic, a Pacific and an Arctic country. We belong both to the
Commonwealth and to the Francophonie. We speak to the world
through the values we have developed at home and we speak in two
international languages.
As such we are well placed to promote human security and
cultural diversity. We have earned a respected place in the
world community. Over the last six years we have taken
significant initiatives to help achieve shared international
objectives like the land mines treaty and the International
Criminal Court. We participated very actively at the beginning
in the former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia and in Kosovo. We took a
leadership role in Haiti and now we are in East Timor.
In the post-cold war world it is more and more possible for
foreign policy to focus not only on the relations between states
but on the needs of people, needs that transcend borders. We are
seeing the human side of globalization, human security, cultural
diversity and human rights. The more people are safe and secure
in their own countries, the more Canadians can live in safety and
security at home, and our quality of life will be higher.
Our objective is to make a difference by using our ingenuity,
the history of our international achievements and the respect
with which Canada is held in the world to make progress on the
human security agenda and to recognize that in a difficult world
there will always be more progress to be made.
We are a very fortunate country. We are an affluent country. We
have an obligation to do our part to help those who are very
poor. This is our obligation to our fellow human beings. This
too is the Canadian way. Therefore we will increase our
international development assistance.
The foreign policy through which we project our values, coupled
with the trade oriented economy and vigorous promotion of trade
and investment interests, will make Canada very well positioned
for the global economy of the 21st century.
[Translation]
This afternoon I have spoken about the country that we are so
proud of, the country that we have built so well in the 20th
century.
Today I have set out a comprehensive strategy for Canadian
leadership in the knowledge-based economy and for promoting our
interests and projecting our values in the world, a vision for
the Canada of the 21st century and a plan to achieve it, a
vision of the Canadian model, a modern project of a society, the
project of a forward-looking country.
These are not old solutions to the problems of today, but new
plans to meet new opportunities.
It is a strategy to ensure that the opportunities of all of Canada are
available to all Canadians; a strategy to ensure that Canadians
shape their future in the Canadian way;
a strategy for people, for opportunity, for excellence, for
success, for a high quality of life, for sharing, dignity and
mutual respect, for creativity and innovation.
1745
[English]
It is a realistic strategy for a realistic country, a caring
strategy for a caring country, a modern strategy for a modern
country, an ambitious strategy for an ambitious country and a
bold strategy for a bold country. It is a strategy for the
future for a country of the future, a country that is open to the
world and willing to lead.
Canadians are not a boastful people. We are not given to flag
waving or emotional excesses. In a century, indeed in a
millennium, that has seen so much bloodshed over differences of
faith, race and nationality, perhaps that is a good thing.
Instead, with quiet confidence we have adopted a Canadian way of
living together, resolving differences, reasoning together and
creating what is quite simply the best country in the world in
which to live.
I began today by referring to the famous remark of Sir Wilfrid
Laurier about the 20th century belonging to Canada. I do not
know if the 21st century will belong to Canada, but I do know
something even more important: Canada belongs to the 21st
century and Canada will be the place to be in the 21st century.
The world has seen the future and it is Canada.
[Translation]
Mr. Gilles Duceppe (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, BQ): Mr. Speaker, some
weeks ago, the throne speech was being touted as the opportunity
for the Prime Minister to demonstrate a vision of Canada for the
21st century, as we enter a new millennium.
It is a pretty unsubstantial vision: what it treats us to is
more of an invasion by the federal government into areas of
provincial jurisdiction. Instead of a vision, we have an
invasion. For Quebec this throne speech is fraught with meaning
and with consequences.
So much for Plan A, if ever there was such a thing as Plan A.
Bad news for the Quebec federalists, moreover. This prime
ministerial vision of the future is one of a Canada that
excludes Quebec, that thumbs its nose at Quebec's concerns and
traditional demands.
The Prime Minister is now putting into practice his famous
statement made just before the last election in Quebec “The
general store is now closed”. With this throne speech, the
federal government is slamming the door closed on all the
commitments toward Quebec that were made leading up to the 1995
referendum.
There is also a message for all Quebec federalists in this
speech: this is the end of renewed federalism, of Quebec's
traditional demands, this is the end of the concept of founding
people, of distinct character, all those formulas that were
found in an attempt to renew Canadian federalism.
1750
From now on everything is clear: one country, one people, one
government. All the rest is nothing but public administration,
nothing more than public administration and the implementation of
a social union, an agreement that once again excludes Quebec.
All political parties in the National Assembly have rejected the
social union framework agreement. Mr. Dumont and Mr. Charest
have made it clear that they would not have signed it either.
In the throne speech, the federal government indicated both its
intention to work in collaboration with its partners and its
intention to do without their approval. Where exactly does this
leave us?
The answer is blatantly obvious when we read the Speech from the
Throne. Let me quote an extract from it from page 5. The
speech talks of national will, of national strategies and of the
partnerships across the country that are required. That are
required—that is the word, the essence of the Speech from the
Throne.
How will federal government go about achieving this? It tells
us that it is going to establish standards of its choosing,
since it is omnipotent. The government talks about operating on
the basis of the social union agreement. What does this
agreement on social union say? There is discussion, but if no
agreement is reached, the federal government—Ottawa knows best—
announces three months in advance that it will intervene in
areas of provincial jurisdiction where direct services are
provided to the public, and the provinces are requested to take
note. This is what Ottawa calls partnerships.
In what areas will it impose its standards and set up its
programs? National defence or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
or air transportation come to mind. There is no shortage of
problems in these sectors, which are under federal jurisdiction.
The federal government could ensure pay equity in its own public
service or correct the huge injustices caused by the employment
insurance reform, which is nothing more than government robbery
on the backs of society's most disadvantaged.
Instead, it is in areas of provincial jurisdiction that it
intends to impose its standards. For example, in family law; in
family policy or in policy on childhood; in the area of culture;
in the area of language, especially language of work.
In fact, this afternoon the Prime Minister could not deny that,
under the social union and the unjustified barriers to mobility,
he could take action regarding Bill 101, regarding the language
of work in Quebec. This is serious stuff. It jeopardizes a vital
prerogative in Quebec.
The Prime Minister also talks about getting involved in Quebec's
environmental sector, as if his government had lived up to its
commitments in its own jurisdictions, including air pollution.
The government talks about justice. It claims that it will
reform family law. Does it intend to tamper with the Civil Code,
which is the foundation of the Quebec law and an exclusive
Quebec jurisdiction, as was the case even before the
Constitution, in 1867?
On page 23, the government reiterates its intention to impose a
repressive act on young offenders, an act that no one in Quebec
wants.
The government is prepared to sacrifice the future of hundreds
of young Quebecers to gain a few votes in western Canada. This
issue does not fall under its jurisdiction. The government could
have acted through the Criminal Code, it could have taken action
against organized crime, which is corrupting our young people
and our economic institutions, both in Quebec and across the
country, which is going after farmers, and which has even
targeted my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. It could have
tabled anti-gang legislation.
But there is not one word about the fight against criminals.
Yet, in order to get some votes in western Canada, the
government does not hesitate to jeopardize Quebec's
rehabilitation program for young offenders. This is an
unacceptable, shameful and cowardly attitude.
The government also talks about families and young children.
It now wants to help families and children after having
drastically cut employment insurance, health, education and
income support. The government wants to impose, and I am quoting
from page 7, “common principles, objectives and fiscal
parameters for all governments”.
1755
This government is so arrogant that it is trying to impose
policy by stating that the provinces, and Quebec is in the
forefront with its exemplary policies on daycare and early
childhood, will be able to provide additional services in their
own areas of jurisdiction.
It takes no little arrogance, indeed a lot of it, to say that
the provinces will nevertheless be entitled, in their fields of
jurisdiction, to propose policy that is complementary to that
decided here in Ottawa.
In the cultural sector, the federal government mentions Quebec
only once. We will see later on that it is in order to threaten
it. Otherwise, nothing.
As if Quebec and Quebec culture did not exist.
The government has announced a whole series of new
cultural programs, but it is also promising an approach that it
calls encompassing for national unity. We know what that
means. It means submitting cultural institutions and programs
to propaganda on national unity.
The government will, I imagine, ask book publishers receiving a
subsidy from the federal government to put the maple leaf on the
first page and the last page and why not on the theatre
curtains. The maple leaf could appear after the first act even.
That is totally crazy, but I know just how much that inspires
the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
The government talks about the environment as well. However,
this government's performance in this area is disastrous.
It has failed to achieve the very modest objectives it set for
itself in Kyoto. It refuses to sign the protocol on
biodiversity that 140 countries have already signed. So much
for the federal government's jurisdictions.
What is it doing? Well, once again in the provinces'
jurisdictions it will try to impose bills and programs on
endangered species and habitats, two areas under provincial
jurisdiction.
This government, from one end of the speech to the other, is
ignoring the existence of Quebec and making a mockery of its
powers. A head-on collision is in the works. Plan A is not just
being ended, it is being buried.
When I speak of head-on collision, I refer particularly to the
area of education. Naturally, nowhere in the text of the speech
does the word education appear. I am sure the thesaurus
was well used in the writing of this text.
It mentions knowledge, skills, learning, training, but this is
not education. Of course not. Everyone knows that. It probably
refers to agriculture when using those terms.
Ottawa is therefore announcing a national plan related to skills
and learning for the 21st century, with a one-stop entry point,
one marked “made in Ottawa”. This means that Ottawa
is announcing no more and no less than a national policy for
education, a provincial area of jurisdiction if ever there was
one, one that has been recognized as exclusive to them since
this country began back in 1867.
A vision of the future? More of a systematic invasion plan into
areas of provincial jurisdiction, with or without the provinces'
consent. This means the end of Plan A, but it gives a good idea
of what Plan B will or may be, thus leaving Quebec with the sword
of Damocles hanging over its head.
There is of course reference to the referendum process, to rules
of clarity.
As far as the rule of 50% plus one is concerned, which is a
democratic rule recognized even here in Canada, it seems to me
that this ought to be clear. There cannot be two rules, one for
Newfoundland, where it was 50% plus one, and where the outcome
was just a touch above 52% after two referendums, and another
rule for Quebec in a third referendum, whereas in the first two,
where the federal government was involved, it was 50% plus one.
It is a pretty strange game when one player wants to change the
rules partway through.
As for the matter of the referendum question itself, that is a
prerogative of the National Assembly. I would remind you that,
right before the last referendum, the Prime Minister himself
said “The question is clear. If you vote no, you stay in
Canada.
Vote yes, and you leave Canada.” I would submit that if the
Prime Minister understood it, then everybody understood it.
In conclusion, as far as plan B is concerned, although I am not
sure that is what it should be called since there is no longer a
Plan A, I would say that the government ought to start by
applying to itself the clarity it demands of others.
1800
It will have to tell us clearly whether it intends to honour a
majority that is democratic and recognized by the people of
Quebec in a referendum and whether it intends to negotiate with
Quebec, as the supreme court requires it to do, the terms of its
departure from the federation.
I challenged the government to state clearly what place Quebec
has in this country called Canada, where the government talks of
the quality of life of Canadians, as in the throne speech.
At a time when Canada is enjoying one of the largest surpluses
in a number of generations, according to the Prime Minister
himself, nothing has been announced to lighten the tax burden of
Canadians and Quebecers, particularly that of middle class
families, which represent 27% of the population and pay 50% of
what goes to Revenue Canada. There is a significant imbalance.
The Speech from the Throne should have served as the
government's opportunity to make a solemn commitment in this
regard. However, we got simply a vague promise that there may
be something in the upcoming budget without anything
specific being indicated. So it is very vague, wishful
thinking, general remarks.
We were promised vision, we got repetition, and especially no
specific action in order to ensure and develop Canadians'
quality of life.
This theme of the Canadians' quality of life appears as a
leitmotif throughout the throne speech, as if it only needed
repeating in order to convince Canadians and Quebecers that they
live in the best country in the world, as the Prime Minister
puts it.
Let us talk about the quality of life of Canadians. Quality of
life involves, first, direct services to the public, primarily in
health and education. It also includes income support. In this
area, the provinces provide the services to the public. And
herein lies the contradiction in this country of Canada in
which, on the one hand, those who provide direct services to the
public do not have the means to do so and, on the other, the
government that does not provide these direct services has all
the money in its pockets. Herein lies the contradiction.
One would expect the government, which will have cut $33 billion
between 1994 and 2004, to restore transfer payments to the
provinces, precisely to improve health and education services.
Yet, there is not a word about this in the throne speech. The
only thing one sees is the old Liberal habit of getting involved
in provincial jurisdictions as soon as they have money. The
government is now promising a pharmacare plan, something which
already exists in Quebec, homecare and help for families and
young children, instead of giving back the money to those who
provide the direct services to help them fulfil their
responsibilities.
The federal government is collecting too much money, given its
own jurisdictions. It is the provinces that are responsible for
the programs whose costs are skyrocketing, primarily because the
population is aging. The federal government does not provide
these direct services to the public.
It is more than an imbalance, it is a profound injustice, a
major dysfunction in the federal system. This imbalance leads
the federal government to establish new programs to gain greater
political visibility. This is the whole issue.
The Liberals see the federal government as the major league. To
them, the provinces are mere junior partners they consult when
they see fit to do so and on whom they impose their will, with
money taken from the citizens of those provinces, and often from
budgets that should have been given to these provinces.
As I said earlier, the federal government is not proposing
anything to correct the major flaws in employment insurance.
Indeed, 60% of those who contribute to the program are not
eligible for benefits if they become unemployed. This is highway
robbery.
An insurance agent who behaved like the Prime Minister and the
Minister of Human Resources Development would be taken to court
and at risk of being sent to jail. This is fraud, no more and
no less.
People were expecting tax cuts for middle income families.
Nothing, once again. Nothing about re-establishing transfer
payments. They talk of poor children. Tears are shed about the
fate of the poor children. Might people not realize that there
are far more poor children since this government has been in
power? Are people going to finally realize that, if there are
poor children, it is perhaps because they have poor parents, and
the parents are poor as a result of this government's policies?
That is why there are poor children. It seems to me this is
easy to understand. Perhaps there would be less visibility but
greater responsibility.
1805
Let us look at problems of immediate concern to the government,
for instance air transportation. At the present time, there are
between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs at stake, in Quebec in particular.
Does the buddy-buddy relationship between certain members of
government and the main stakeholders in this matter have
anything to do with this? According to the Minister of Transport
himself, this afternoon, this is a highly important question,
one he described as too important to be in a throne speech. I
imagine he took a page from the book of Kim Campbell, she who
did not want to discuss important issues during the 1993
election campaign. Too important to discuss—better to discuss
such things behind closed doors at fundraising dinners.
There is nothing about shipbuilding either, yet the Bloc
Quebecois had made some proposals, supported by the other three
opposition parties, for a serious and rigorous shipbuilding
policy. On the other side they are constantly boasting about
this country reaching from sea to sea to sea—three oceans but no
shipbuilding policy. They do not have much imagination.
All of the premiers who met together in Quebec City last August
supported the shipbuilding policy we proposed. Yet there is no
reference to it in this Speech from the Throne.
And what about the situation of aboriginal people and the
fisheries issue? There is a mess in both cases, and now the two
messes are combining into one big one. There is a major crisis
and even if one reads this speech from start to finish, there is
nothing to be found about this problem.
I am thinking of mobility, —because we heard about mobility for
citizens and students, —and because we are required to eliminate
unjustified barriers to that mobility. This afternoon the
Prime Minister was asked whether this meant that the federal
government could intervene—because Ottawa knows best—in disputes
such as the one between the construction industries of Ontario
and Quebec. He left the door open. Can we expect to see the
federal government blunder into this sector?
And can we expect it to meddle in the loans and scholarships
issue? We were told that someone should look into all the
people from Vancouver who go to Montreal, and all the people
from Montreal who go to Vancouver. Come on.
As for language of work, is Bill 101 a barrier to mobility?
Your guess is as good as ours. It is to weep.
I knew that the ambassadors have their little question and
answer books, but now the Prime Minister and his ministers will
be able to spread the good word throughout the country. It
could go something like this: Where is Ottawa? Ottawa is
everywhere. Why is Ottawa everywhere? Because it has money.
Why does Ottawa have money? Because it made extensive cuts.
What does Ottawa do with its money? It does wonderful things
and establishes new programs everywhere in order to enhance its
visibility. This sounds silly, but it gives the idea.
Obviously, this government has too much money for its areas of
jurisdiction, views the provinces as mere intendants, and denies
the existence of the Quebec culture and people.
Therefore, I move:
That the amendment be amended by adding, between the words
“powers” and “; and therefore”, the
following:
“, especially by failing to recognize the existence of the Quebec people;
failed to carry out its responsibilities in the
area of social welfare by not re-establishing transfer payments for
programs relating to healthcare, postsecondary
education and social assistance, while maintaining an inequitable and
unjust employment insurance scheme”.
1810
[English]
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Mr. Speaker, it
occurs to me that this afternoon's speech by the Prime Minister
is one of the more revealing deathbed repentances I have ever
witnessed in my 20 years in political life.
After so many years of the federal Liberal government tearing
down, backing away from commitments and creating crises for many
Canadians and many Canadian communities, what we heard from the
Prime Minister this afternoon was potentially very good news, and
I say that quite sincerely. It is also a reminder of why it
serves Canadians well to have sufficient numbers of New Democrats
back in parliament to be able to push back against that reform
dominance of the federal Liberal government's efforts over the
last six years.
On that very positive note I welcome the opportunity to enter
the debate this afternoon on the throne speech that we heard
yesterday.
The throne speech is an important opportunity for members of
parliament to speak about their own constituencies. I will say a
few words about my constituency of Halifax that I am privileged
to represent in parliament. A portion of that constituency has
been responsible for electing and re-electing me to public office
for almost 20 years.
I am immensely grateful for the privilege my constituents have
bestowed upon me and for the trust they have placed in me. I
take that trust very seriously. I believe that it is my
responsibility to gain and regain that trust each and every day I
have the privilege to remain in office and to serve as their
representative in the House of Commons.
The throne speech offers members an opportunity to note some of
the particular contributions one's constituents have made to
one's community and province. I will say a few words this
afternoon about the sadness I feel, and I know the great sadness
that many Canadians feel, about the recent deaths over the last
10 days of three very distinguished Canadians, Nova Scotians who
have contributed enormously to the life of my province.
One was the long serving conductor of the Atlantic Symphony and
more recently the Nova Scotia Symphony, Georg Tintner. He was a
marvellous man who came to Canada as a refugee. He created joy
and harmony in the community through the music that he
contributed and through a wonderful philosophy on life. He was
truly a leader who provided inspiration to all of us.
Second, I was very saddened to learn yesterday of the death of
Reverend Donald Skeir, a leader in Nova Scotia and particularly
on behalf of black Nova Scotians for over 40 years. He was
someone whom I had the privilege of knowing personally and of
observing his terrific commitment to creating harmonious race
relations and advancing the status of black Nova Scotians. He
will be sorely missed, but he has left a great legacy for all
Nova Scotians.
Third, I was very saddened this morning to open my newspaper and
find that Lee Creemo had passed away on the weekend as well.
He will be known certainly to Nova Scotians who serve with me
here in the House of Commons as a great Cape Bretoner, a
wonderful Mi'kmaw who also provided music that will long be
remembered. He was a fiddler, a champion in Canada and
internationally. He will be missed sorely. I want to express my
condolences to his family and to his community of Eskasoni.
1815
I also want to take a few moments to speak about what for me
have been several highlights in my past year. I will long
remember them as among the most inspirational in my 20 years of
political life.
We have many things that we are privileged to participate in as
members of parliament in our own communities and across the
country. For me it was a privilege that I will never forget to
have been present in Nunavut on April 1, 1999 for the official
launching of the newest member of the Canadian family, the
territory of Nunavut. I was accompanied by my colleague from
Churchill River who had many friendships and relationships over
the years with some of those I had the privilege to meet while in
Nunavut on that special occasion.
I think it was one of the happiest and most promising things
that happened in the past year. It really is a testament to the
many years of patient, persistent struggle by Inuit Canadians in
working toward a dream that would not only provide for some
reconciliation after literally centuries, of 400 years of
exploitation and hardship, but would serve as a model of what
people can achieve if they come together, if they work together
toward a dream that they share. It was indeed a privilege for me
to be in attendance at that very exciting event.
I want to make mention of an event that took place on Canada Day
in my riding of Halifax. That was the official opening of Pier
21. Pier 21 will be known to many members of the House and
certainly to millions of Canadians as the point of entry for over
one million immigrants, many of them refugees, to Canada between
the years of 1921 and 1973. My colleague from Sackville—Eastern
Shore is a member of one of the immigrant families that came
through Pier 21.
That occasion was a wonderful celebration of the contributions
immigrant Canadians have made to Canadian society over not just
that period of 52 years during which many immigrants and refugees
came through the Halifax harbour, but the past, present and
continuing contributions of the millions of immigrants and
refugees who have come to Canada throughout all of our history.
Pier 21 is a very important living, breathing memorial to the
contribution immigrants have made. It is a very timely reminder
of that important immigrant history and that reality in Canada at
a time when there have been some very unhappy sentiments aroused
and fears generated around the arrival of Chinese refugees on our
shores over the last several months. We have seen less than a
welcoming, compassionate response to the plight of many of those
people who in some cases are young children who have been
exploited by a criminal element for reasons of profiteering. We
need to be very much on guard against the kind of fearmongering
that has been generated toward many of those exploited and
desperate people.
Finally, I want to speak about a more recent event, the
installation of Canada's newest Governor General on October 7,
1999. If I am honest about it, I attended that event without any
terrific expectations. I attended it because that is one of the
things one does as a member of parliament.
I want to take this occasion to say that I found it to be a
tremendously inspirational event. I believe the speech delivered
by Canada's newest Governor General on that occasion was a great
moment for Canada.
1820
What we saw in the vision put forward by Canada's newest
Governor General was one that will be long remembered. We would
all do well to keep in mind the very powerful message she
delivered about how there are two kinds of societies in this
world, forgiving societies and punishing societies. She urged
that Canada always remain and continue to strive to be a
forgiving society in every sense of the word.
It brought to mind a similar image that I have always carried
with me. Stanley Knowles used to express it when he talked about
how one can accomplish much more with an open hand than with a
closed fist. I think it is the same concept. Sometimes we do
not build enough on those positive images as we try to go about
dealing with the major challenges we face in contemporary
political life.
It struck me that it was somewhat ironic, in a way a sad irony,
but also a telling disappointment that a woman who came to Canada
as a refugee, who has never held political office in this country
and who has never to my knowledge sought political office
nevertheless was able to put forward in her speech to Canadians
last week a more compelling vision for the future of Canada, a
more profound appreciation of Canadian history and Canadian
culture and a better grasp of the challenges that we face in this
country today than the current Prime Minister who has actually
held office for over 30 years, and the current government that by
my calculation has actually been in power in the country for 63
years during this century. One has to wonder what that says about
the current government and the lack of leadership we have seen
from the government over the six years since it was elected to
office in 1993.
When I spoke in the address in reply to the Speech from the
Throne on my first occasion in this House in 1997, I quoted from
one of my favourite passages and one of my favourite authors and
also a very accomplished actress, Anne-Marie MacDonald. She is
best known perhaps for her epic novel Fall on Your Knees.
Like all good literary references, I will again quote briefly
from that book because it bears repeating:
There is nothing so congenial to lucid thought as a clear view
of the sea: it airs the mind, tunes the nerves, scours the soul.
For a maritimer there is no question that references to the
ocean, to the seaside, to our marine heritage are always very
positive, particularly when one comes from a riding where so much
of the way of life depends on our proximity to the ocean. There
is shipbuilding, shipping, our naval history, marine related
industries and so on, and of course fishing.
It occurred to me that maybe part of the problem with the lack
of vision from the government and the Prime Minister is the fact
that he spends too much time on landlocked golf courses and not
enough time beside the sea where he could gain the kind of
inspiration that is very much needed today in public office.
1825
Nevertheless, the Prime Minister has made it clear that he
intends to remain at the helm. Some of his colleagues would say
it would appear to be forever. It is certainly creating some
difficulties and some manoeuvring below decks among his
colleagues. But he has made it clear that he wants to continue
to be at the helm. It is becoming something of a long running
soap opera, not to be outdone by the continuing national soap
opera between the Reform Party and the Conservative Party in
trying to decide whether they want to be a divided alternative, a
united alterative, or split off in three different directions.
[Translation]
The Prime Minister wants to remain at the helm, but he is a bad
captain. He has no vision and no idea of which direction to
take. Consequently, he relies on pollsters and uses taxpayers'
money to determine Canada's destinations for the 21st century.
Unfortunately, even with the range of destinations identified by
pollsters and hoped for by Canadians, the Prime Minister and his
Liberal crew are unable to safely take Canadians there, as they
have demonstrated in the past.
Seven years ago, the Liberals told Canadians “Put us at the helm
and we will set the course”, a course which was supposed to lead
to the abolition of the GST. Not only have we not arrived at our
destination, but Canadians continue to pay this charge, which is
particularly unfair to the poor.
[English]
In 1993 Canadians were told that if they put Liberals at the
helm, they would launch a national child care program. They said
that they would add new child care spaces, 50,000 new child care
spaces for every year in which economic growth exceeded 3%. In
three out of four of the subsequent years, economic growth has
attained or exceeded 3% yet we do not have one single solitary
additional child care space as a result of the initiatives of the
federal government. The result is that hundreds of thousands of
children and their families remain stranded when it comes to
access to affordable, safe and quality child care.
We were promised that we were on our way to home care so that
families could care for their loved ones. We were promised that
we were on our way to pharmacare so that families without drug
plans could cope with inflated prescription drug costs. That
ship has not even set sail. No wonder Canadians do not believe
that Liberals can be trusted to keep their promises that have
been set out in the throne speech.
Liberals pretend to care about our children. They talk in the
throne speech about the importance of the early years of a
child's life, to his or her own well-being. I want to say that
we welcome the Prime Minister's announcement this afternoon of
extending parental leave and maternity benefits. I congratulate
my colleagues from Bras d'Or—Cape Breton and Acadie—Bathurst
for having worked strenuously to achieve that kind of commitment
from the government.
The question is what has the government actually done about
children who are living in grinding poverty in this country?
There were close to one million children living in poverty
already when this Prime Minister came to office. What has the
government done? It has added 500,000 more children to the ranks
of poverty in Canada. When did the Liberal government decide
that 1.5 million poor kids do not count in this country?
[Translation]
The throne speech shows clearly that the Liberal government has
no intention of acting to help our young people gain access to
the higher education they need.
The Liberals' laissez-faire attitude means more debt for our
young people and more profits for the banks that finance their
education.
1830
Last year, the average debt of a graduate was $25,000. Yet,
there is no mention in the throne speech of reducing students'
indebtedness or of reducing tuition fees to make education more
accessible.
Could it be that the government does not care about young
people?
[English]
The government pretends that it wants to help Canadians flourish
in a dynamic economy. Yet there is not one single solitary
mention in the throne speech about the greatest crisis in farm
income, the worse agricultural crisis experienced in the country
since the Great Depression. When did the government decide that
farm children and farm communities did not count?
There was not a word in the throne speech about the upheaval in
families and communities in Cape Breton that are facing the
shutdown of the coal mining industry or those who are facing
uncertain futures in the steel industry. When did the government
decide that the families in those communities do not count?
The government pretends that it cares about Canada's physical
infrastructure. Yet we are experiencing a severe crisis with
respect to the future of our airline industry. The government
has decided to abandon any leadership. It has decided to allow
the shareholders to determine absolutely the future of our
airline industry. It has shown no leadership to bring together
the other stakeholders in our airline industry: the travelling
public, airline employees, and small and remote communities that
need the assurance of continued service.
The Speaker: I think we might have a solution to
continuing a bit longer. We have just a few more minutes and I
will go to questions and comments. A member came up and asked me
if she could ask a question so I will give her the floor to do
so.
Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Mr.
Speaker, I would like to pose a question to my leader, the member
for Halifax, pertaining to the very difficult economic situation
facing many families and communities everywhere in the country. I
would like to ask the member to respond to what is in the Speech
from the Throne for that situation and what solutions she sees.
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Mr. Speaker, I think we have already
heard that a number of Canadian families have been completely
ignored by the government. Let me speak about the complete lack
of leadership by the government with respect to those who do not
have a family with whom they can find a home, with whom they are
able to live, the homeless.
We have watched the government completely abandon any
responsibility to put in place a national housing strategy, the
only industrial nation in the world which does not have a
national housing strategy. When did the government decide that
the homeless did not count?
The government pretends that it cares about aboriginal families.
Yet we have seen the government virtually turn its back on many
of the most important recommendations of the Royal Commission on
Aboriginal People.
One of the most important principles of the recommendations in
that commission's report was that treaty rights should be
negotiated, not litigated. Yet it is the lack of leadership by
the government which has driven many aboriginal people into the
courts to seek justice and to seek their rights. The result is
that many tensions have been created by a government absolutely
not prepared to provide any leadership in dealing with the
inevitability of finally addressing treaty rights long overdue
and disregarded.
Later this evening we are to have a take note debate on some of
the tensions created in the fishery industry. Again it is
important to note that the Union of Nova Scotia Indians began to
provide leadership six months ago on April 29 around the failure
of the federal government to address what kinds of tensions would
be created by a favourable decision on the Marshall case when it
came before the supreme court. We now have to repair the damage
done by that lack of leadership.
1835
There are many other areas in which the government has
disregarded its responsibility to provide leadership. The
government says that it cares about the environment all of a
sudden, and thank goodness it is back on the agenda. However,
let me say that it is very difficult for Canadians to be
confident that the government will deliver on any new commitments
to the environment when it has done nothing to put an end to the
export of our most precious resource, our water.
It has done nothing to address the concerns of communities in
Ontario in speaking out against the importation of MOx plutonium,
MOx fuel, with all the implications both short term and long term
that holds for damage to our environment.
Having gutted the most important provisions and improvements to
the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Canadians are
wondering how they can trust the government to make a priority of
the environment.
Before I wrap up I want to make one further brief mention of the
complete absence in the Speech from the Throne of any commitment
to meaningful electoral reform or parliamentary reform. The
government knows and understands how serious it is in a democracy
to have more and more cynicism toward politics, more and more
people feeling that their vote does not count and they cannot
hear their voice in parliament. It is a privilege to live in a
democracy. We understand that politics is the lifeblood of a
free and democratic society.
The New Democratic Party absolutely believes in the importance
of modernizing our electoral processes and our democratic
institutions to ensure that they remain responsive, effective and
accountable. The federal Liberal government has delivered many
promises in its Speech from the Throne, but Canadians can be
forgiven for not trusting the Liberals to deliver on those
promises because of their dismal record of not doing so.
My colleagues and I will use every opportunity available to us
inside and outside of parliament to act on the concerns of
ordinary Canadians to push the government to address the concerns
of working people because we believe in a responsive, positive
and proactive role for government.
We believe in a vision for 21st century Canada which includes
the notion of political leadership not just by the federal
government but by all levels of government working in effective
partnerships with the private sector, the non-profit and
co-operative sector, labour representatives, and primary
producers for something that is bigger than ourselves. That is
the legacy of my party's contribution to Canada. That is what
inspired each and every one of my colleagues to seek public
office and to represent our constituents and our communities as
New Democrats.
In conclusion, that is what will inspire our every move as we go
about our work on behalf of our constituents. As Tommy Douglas
once said, it is never too late to build a better world. Let us
get on with the task of working together on behalf of all
constituents to build a better Canada and a better world as we go
into the 21st century.
Mr. Jim Hart (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Ref.): Mr. Speaker,
I listened with interest to the leader of the New Democratic
Party in her response to the throne speech. I would like to ask
one brief question. We heard the leader of the NDP talk about
the programs and the spending which the federal government plans
to undertake.
We also heard of some programs that she and her party would like
to see added to that list.
1840
Exactly how much higher would the leader of the New Democratic
Party like to see Canadian taxes go?
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Mr. Speaker, that is a very
unhelpful question which breeds much cynicism toward politics in
a lot of Canadians who look at what goes on in parliament today
with some distress.
Let me say very clearly that we believe the federal government
or any government has a responsibility to act in a fiscally
responsible manner. It is very difficult for the vast majority
of Canadians to understand how the party the member represents
can on one hand say that it is committed to reinvesting in health
care and to ensuring that the agricultural crisis which many
families and communities are experiencing are addressed with
public dollars. On the other hand, that party talks about the
kind of across the board tax cuts which would give millions and
millions of dollars to the wealthy and absolutely nothing, or
pennies, to those who need assistance most.
That is what the Reform Party stands for. That is why my party
is very happy to be here with sufficient force to stand and not
only push against the Reform Party agenda but finally begin to
push the Liberal Party back toward a more responsible stand on
some of these issues than the dominance it has had over its
actions over last six years.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I begin on a congratulatory note. I extend my
congratulations to all previous speakers and leaders. I also
extend congratulations on behalf of the party to the new governor
general, Madam Adrienne Clarkson, and offer our best wishes to
the outgoing governor general, Mr. LeBlanc. Some congratulations
are also in order with respect to the Speech from the Throne
which broadly and vaguely stated the government's willingness to
look to the future.
It is necessary to compliment the Liberal government for finally
recognizing that the modern economy exists, for showing an
awareness for the next century and for spending some time in the
throne speech telling Canadians that new technologies will play a
larger role in all our lives. These are penetrating statements
of the obvious, yet it marks a shift in simply following the
policies of a previous Conservative government and reaping the
benefit of those visionary initiatives.
[Translation]
We are on the verge of the 21st century; that is an undeniable
fact. The Liberals acknowledge it, and that is encouraging.
They may have taken six years to do so, but finally the
government has taken the risk of stating that the country is in
a period of transition and that there are a number of challenges
ahead on the horizon. Yet there is nothing in the Speech from
the Throne that helps Canadians understand the direction in
which the Liberals wish to steer Canada. Nothing in the throne
speech assures Canadians that the country is going in the right
direction. The Speech from the Throne says nothing about all
the complicated workings of governmental affairs.
[English]
I compliment the government for making a grand gesture to the
Canadian public yesterday, a gesture that exhibited supreme
confidence in the future of the country and the ability of
Canadians to respond to future challenges. Unfortunately it was
an empty and shallow gesture, one which offered no vision and no
leadership. This was not a blueprint of where the country is
headed. It was a pencil sketch or connect the dots. Sadly it
showed a government with no ideas, no focus and no sense of how
we move the country forward, only vague notions of what the
future might look like.
Canadians want some serious issues addressed, issues like
increasing the tax burden, the agricultural crisis in western
Canada, the issue of immigration, or the consequences of a
hostile takeover resulting in a single national airline. Those
looking for these issues to be addressed in the throne speech
were sadly disappointed.
1845
There were a lot of right sounding words in the throne speech,
words like knowledge economy, building a higher quality of life,
technology and advancing Canada's place in the world. These are
all important issues that this parliament will have to address,
but beyond the catch phrases themselves there was nothing,
nothing new and nothing that explains the purpose of the
government.
It is disheartening to see over the course of several months
that the federal government failed to prepare itself for this new
parliament, even with the three-week delay in the opening. It
failed to meet the demands of Canadians for a responsible
government and for the delivery of a vigorous new plan for this
parliament.
It has also failed to anticipate the Supreme Court decision in
Marshall, the void that it would create and the chaos it would
initiate.
It is appropriate now to quote a respected Canadian philosopher,
John Ralston Saul, who wrote:
The modern tools of communication become the tools of propaganda.
And fear of the consequences of non-conformity is propagated.
This statement takes on a wonderful clarity and irony in the
context of yesterday's throne speech. What was the meaning
behind the promises we heard? Were they one line promises with
little if any detail on how exactly these promises were to be
implemented? It was much like we have seen from previous throne
speeches from the government. Much of what we heard were ideas
generated by the PC Party of Canada or ideas that have been long
media tested, words that sound wonderful and warm people's hearts
but do not amount to much.
No one would deny that we need to improve our commitment on
children's issues, to a stronger economy, to a quality health
care, to aboriginal peoples amongst other issues. These we can
all agree on but where were the details? When can Canadians
count on the government to explain its vision in a manner that
provides answers rather than more questions?
We have heard much about the Liberal's concept of diversity. We
heard it many times in yesterday's speech. How can the
government speak of respecting diversity when it chooses to
antagonize Quebec, when it chooses to antagonize Atlantic Canada,
the west and other regions and when it chooses to antagonize
every region of the country with alienating provocative
approaches to federalism?
When the government boldly states that the supreme court
decision on the clarity of the referendum question must be
respected it makes clear that the goal is to provoke Quebec. The
Liberal plan B approach has done nothing but antagonize Quebec
and is completely unconstructive.
We need to encourage Canadians if we are to evolve as a strong
and united country. When the government ignores the plight of
western farmers or Atlantic fishers it shows that it respects
diversity only when it falls within the Liberal agenda. It
demonstrates that it is only a true crisis that evokes a response
and even then the government responds slowly and inadequately.
It is heartening to know that the government has finally
recognized the priority that needs to be given to environmental
issues, six years too late, I might add. And still the Liberals
have done nothing more than to affirm and reaffirm Canada's
commitment to the Kyoto protocols and the reduction of greenhouse
gas emissions.
The government speaks of a children's agenda but it has not
taken any meaningful action to protect the environment in which
our children will live. Thankfully, some industries have stepped
up the challenge and have taken meaningful steps to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions and to do so from their factories.
Others have not been so noble. The government needs to stop
talking about the reduction of harmful greenhouse emissions and
start meaningful implementation of those commitments.
I talked about what was in the throne speech. What we uncover
more about the government is in discussing what was left out of
the document.
The throne speech delivered the message of the new economy, of
high technology and of the Internet, but here we have a
government that has abandoned the country's traditional
industries, industries that have powered our economy for more
than a century, industries such as forestry, fishing, oil and
gas, mining, farming and shipbuilding. These industries continue
to play an invaluable role in keeping our communities alive,
prosperous and thriving, traditional industries that have
sustained Canadians and provided not only income and occupation
but also pride and purpose. They continue to do so. They
continue to be a part of Canada's overall economy despite Liberal
government indifference.
Where on earth was the commitment to our brave men and women of
the armed forces for equipment and resources to ensure their
safety and success? This glaring omission speaks volumes.
1850
Within the pages of the speech there was a flavour of the
abandonment of the past. While the push to the future is a noble
ideal, we cannot forget the fact that our traditional industries
continue to provide meaningful work in areas of high
unemployment. The speech was littered with reaffirmations of
previously unfulfilled promises or commitments.
As a Maritime member, it becomes obvious that the lack of focus
on significant industries will have a negative impact. It sends
a message to Atlantic Canadians and others that they are not a
high priority for the Liberal government. One only has to look
at the results of the last federal election and two recent
provincial elections in the Atlantic provinces to know how
Atlantic Canadians react when ignored.
When the Liberal government speaks of high technology and of the
knowledge based economy bringing a higher quality of life to
Canadians, it neglects to mention that the costs to the quality
of life in our smaller communities amongst fishers, farmers and
miners will be hurt. Let us build a stronger future by
encouraging and connecting Canadians from coast to coast. Let us
not disconnect from the important industries that continue to
drive the economy.
It is appropriate tonight that we in the House will be
participating in a debate on the crisis emerging in the
commercial fishing industry between native and non-native
fishers. The government has tiptoed around this critical issue
for weeks allowing it to fester and grow to the point of
confrontation and violence.
Let us hope that the government uses tonight's debate as an
opportunity to reset its priorities and focus on the necessity of
finding a swift and long term resolution to this crisis. This
must be an inclusive focus on consensus building and it must
avoid the base political antagonism that has been practised by
some.
We have learned recently that aboriginal chiefs, including those
who have until now supported the moratorium, have just left the
meeting in New Brunswick and that the fisheries self-imposed
moratorium is now off. This means that boats and traps will be
put back in the water and there is a serious issue that needs to
be addressed and addressed quickly.
Across the country other crises emerge. The crisis faced by the
western farm families went literally and figuratively unnoticed
in yesterday's throne speech. The low agricultural prices caused
by subsidies among our trading partners threatens to put many
Canadian farmers out of business completely. This issue needs
government action before it is too late.
There is nothing in the throne speech that will stem the brain
drain. The government must move to keep highly skilled Canadians
from emigrating to the United States. As well, there is nothing
to stem interprovincial brain drain. Far too many young
Canadians are forced to move away from home and family depriving
their communities of the knowledge and the skills necessary to
build a strong foundation for the country in the 21st century.
We cannot wait for more Centres of Excellence to be established
and more implementations of millennium scholarships. A focus on
research and development and the improvement for our children is
laudable. However, if our children are to simply grow up, become
well educated, armed with skills and then move to the United
States what have we accomplished and what have we gained?
We can do more than simply applaud the government's commitment
to a free trade arena or area of the Americas by the year 2005.
We can do that but it is finally heartening to see that free
trade has become a government priority. Free trade is something
that this party initiated. I would certainly like to see the
Liberal government undertake this effort with as much vigour and
tenacity as it did with its anti-free trade efforts in 1993.
It may have taken the Liberal government six years but it
appears that it has finally realized that for Canadians to
succeed they must be innovative and productive. They must invest
in skills development and they must seek new opportunities around
the world.
The reality is that the Liberal track record has been about
declining productivity and investment, record levels of taxation
and punishing regulations and red tape. Pie in the sky
platitudes are not enough for Canadians and after six years they
should and do expect more.
The Liberals are simply paying lip service to increasing our
quality of life. Under this Prime Minister, Canadians have seen
their federal tax revenues go up while their disposable incomes
and revenues go down.
At best, we have seen incomes decline. The Liberal government's
lack of vision and leadership is actually destroying and
undermining Canadians' quality of life not improving it as the
throne speech would have us believe.
1855
The government needs to cut taxes starting with personal income
taxes and capital gains taxes. We must put money back in the
pockets of those who have earned it and allow them to generate
economic growth. The government must set firm, achievable debt
reduction targets.
The PC Party of Canada has given specifics about where it stands
on tax issues such as the decrease in the capital gains tax and a
full indexation of tax brackets. The Liberal government has
remained silent. Our party will continue to consult with experts
and Canadians on this matter. Our federal government chooses to
avoid consultation.
This reluctance to put forward a plan for tax cuts is part of a
trend. We have not seen any ground-breaking initiatives in the
last six years that would reverse the trend. The government's
commitment to seasonal workers is abysmal. Agriculture, natural
resource workers, middle class families and scores of other
Canadians have been ignored and undercut by the government.
Tax reduction is fundamental to the economic well being of
Canadians and tax relief, more dollars being left in the hands of
families with children, would be a step in that direction. To
help children, the government must help parents of those children
with meaningful tax relief. In the throne speech, the government
said it would make a third significant investment in the national
child benefit but there are no details of exactly how much the
government will invest nor are there any contingency plans should
the provinces and territories choose not to co-operate.
Just as it has done with a series of other issues, issues such
as poverty where the Liberals identified a problem that was
obvious to all and then provided Canadians with false hope.
Canadians are becoming cynical and despondent. The government
even created a separate ministry aimed at poverty but with no
budget and no mandate and then tried to convince Canadians that
it had addressed the problem. Canadians will not be fooled.
There are more examples of more promises and no action. The
government's day to day management of native issues contradicts
the promise that aboriginal people will be able to more fully
participate and contribute to Canada's economy. This
paternalistic attitude flies in the face of the government's
pledge to promote greater aboriginal self-reliance.
The government's attempt to present itself in a caring and
compassionate way as a government that helps families and
children in particular is a sham. However, in the Year of Older
Persons nowhere was there even a mention of seniors. To quote my
colleague from Saint John:
Too often in our society today, seniors are overlooked and
ignored. Our society is aging, and as it does, more and more
seniors are falling through the cracks—substandard housing,
inadequate health care, and in many cases, just plain neglect.
Yet this government didn't see fit to mention them even once in
their blueprint for the new millennium.
Whether I speak of families, children or of the elderly, it is
obvious that when it comes time to implement legislation that
would be truly beneficial the government has constantly failed to
deliver. One need only look at the government's chance to reform
family law and strengthen support with the joint common senate
committee on child custody in 1997. The government ignored its
report and the justice minister has already indicated that she
wants more consultations that will last until the year 2002.
Another area where the Liberal government has failed to deliver
has been with the new Youth Criminal Justice Act. It has called
this legislation a priority yet it has refused to acknowledge how
it is going to pay for this when it is already not living up to
the monetary commitments under the old young offenders act.
The lack of attention to youth crime has spilled over into other
areas of law enforcement. An abysmal lack of funding for the
RCMP has constantly forced our Mounties to do more with less.
This has literally endangered the officers and the public at
large. Bowing to public pressure, the government is now
expecting the already overworked members of our national police
force to combat high tech crimes such as money laundering,
organized crime and the smuggling of people, guns and drugs.
The government speaks of public safety as its number one
priority yet it continues to release dangerous offenders into our
communities.
Finally we have more Liberal rhetoric regarding the future of
health care. It is fine for Liberals to talk about improving our
health care system but it cannot be forgotten that the dire
straits of health care in the country was created by this
government. By simply putting money back in when it does not
even equal the amount of money that was taken out, our health
care system will not improve.
1900
This approach simply will not cut it. Accessible and universal
health care is one of the things for which Canadians take the
most amount of pride. We are very anxious to see how this
government plans to keep the proud tradition of our health care
system alive. Certainly this throne speech gives no hint.
Medical research is vital. If the government intends to foster
an international reputation as a world leader in this field, we
cannot continue to ignore the daily health care needs of
Canadians. They are sadly off course.
[Translation]
The Throne Speech represents a government whose vision is a mile
wide and an inch deep. There were some fine platitudes about
this country's potential but there was nothing that provided
Canadians with an understanding of where this government is
coming from, and where it is going.
[English]
With the dawn of the new millennium, this Liberal government had
a golden opportunity to present a comprehensive plan on the path
that the country should take. Sadly that opportunity was missed
and the government has traded vision for vagueness at the expense
of all Canadians.
Madam Speaker, on behalf of the Right Hon. Joe Clark and the
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, I thank you for the
opportunity to present our response to the throne speech.
Mrs. Elsie Wayne (Saint John, PC): Madam Speaker,
something was left out of the throne speech. I am wondering what
my colleague feels about the situation with regard to the
aboriginal chiefs, our native people and the lobster industry at
the present time and what is happening with the fishery.
I am not sure about this, but my understanding is that there was
a meeting held in Moncton, New Brunswick today and the chiefs
have decided to put their traps back in the water tomorrow. These
are not just the New Brunswick chiefs, but the Atlantic chiefs.
What the government did with regard to the fishing situation in
all of Canada from coast to coast was not addressed. I would like
to hear from the hon. member as to what he thinks should have
been in that speech.
Mr. Peter MacKay: Madam Speaker, it has become obvious
that not only was there an omission in the throne speech but also
there was a lax approach by the government to this emerging
crisis. It was two weeks before the government chose to act.
Going back even further, it is shocking to think that the
government did not anticipate or foresee that this was one of the
possible scenarios the supreme court could follow in its decision
in the Marshall case.
I know that members of this party, members from South Shore,
West Nova, Southwest Nova, Petitcodiac, Beauséjour, our newest
member, and Saint John have worked very diligently to meet with
both the native and non-native fishers to get their ideas and
input. I am encouraged to see that the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans has followed that tack. Now the time has come to sit down
with these members to try to come up with a solution that is
going to work respecting the need for conservation and respecting
what the supreme court has done in a meaningful but measured way
to avoid violence or possible death in this issue. It has to be
done quickly.
[Translation]
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): Pursuant to order adopted
earlier today, the House will now proceed to the consideration of
the motion concerning Canadian fisheries.
* * *
[English]
SPECIAL DEBATE
FISHERIES
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans, Lib.) moved:
That this House take note of the difficulties in Canadian
fisheries, especially as complicated by the Queen and Marshall
case and its implications for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal
peoples and for the future management of natural resources.
1905
He said: Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the
Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
I appreciate this opportunity to bring members of parliament up
to date on the developments in Atlantic Canada following a recent
decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Many members have been
following the story in media reports over the past four weeks,
but this is the first chance I have had to tell the House
personally what is happening.
I think it is important for members of parliament to understand
the background to this issue and what I am going to do to resolve
it. The judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in the Marshall
case is an important judgment that affirms certain rights of the
Mi'kmaq and Maliseet peoples flowing from the historical treaties
with the crown. In short, the supreme court decision affirms a
treaty right that deserves our respect; but that right is a
regulated right, it is not a blank cheque to fish anywhere at any
time.
As a result of this judgment we will have to consider a number
of fundamental questions about the management of the fishery. In
this new reality our challenge is to find ways to work together
to secure the future of the fishery for both aboriginal and
non-aboriginal communities. We must formulate a process for
integrating fishing under the treaty right in the overall
fishery. We need to develop a management scheme that will
respect the treaty right described by the court while being
sensitive to the social and economic realities of the Atlantic
fishery and those who depend on it.
When the supreme court handed down its judgment on September 17,
the issue had my immediate and full attention. We have been
working with federal departments to analyse the implications of
the judgment. In addition, we engaged in immediate and
continuous dialogue with aboriginal communities, provincial
governments and other stakeholders in the fisheries. Throughout
this past month I have been heartened to hear the clear
commitment to conservation and to co-operation expressed by the
Mi'kmaq chiefs.
From the beginning our objective has been to achieve an
effective management regime which represents a supreme court
judgment and is fair to the interest in the fisheries. Through
the goodwill, patience and restraint that has been demonstrated
by all participants, we have made considerable progress toward
this goal. The treaty signed in 1760 between the British and the
Mi'kmaq was called the Peace and Friendship Treaty. We should
keep those words in mind, peace and friendship, as we work
together toward the long term solution.
The supreme court decision is complex and its full implications
are not yet totally clear. However, since September 17 we have
clarified a number of issues raised. Let me summarize what we
understand about the judgment.
The court has affirmed that the beneficiaries of the treaty have
a right to, among other things, fish, hunt and gather and trade
the products of these activities for necessaries. Translated
into modern terms the judgment indicates this right entitles the
beneficiaries to have the opportunity to gain a moderate
livelihood from the exercise of their fishing, hunting and
gathering activities.
The court has also told us that right is limited. It does not
extend to the open-ended accumulation of wealth, nor does it
provide for an unregulated harvest. While the court has made it
clear that there is a treaty right to fish, it has also made it
clear the exercise of the right is subject to regulation by
government. Catch limits that would reasonably be expected to
provide a moderate livelihood can be enforced without infringing
the treaty rights.
There are many considerations that will be central to our
efforts as we move forward in concert with all the parties. For
example, we consider this to be a communal right and not an
individual right. To be clear, even though the right is
exercised by individuals, it is for the benefit of the
collective.
Another issue that is fundamental to the interpretation of the
judgment is that in order to accommodate the treaty right, we
must understand who are the current beneficiaries of that right.
It is our view that the treaty applies to the aboriginal
communities that best represent the modern manifestation of the
original signatories. Our initial assessment is that the Mi'kmaq
and the Maliseet Indian bands in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island, and the Listiguj first nation in Quebec are
the modern manifestations of the collectives that benefited from
the treaties.
We now need to focus on a process that will allow us to
accommodate the treaty right. We will involve in this process
all who are directly concerned with the sustainability and the
viability of the Atlantic fishery.
1910
I became involved earlier on this issue and I have worked
closely with natives, with commercial fishers, with federal
departments and with provincial premiers to find short and long
term solutions.
When the supreme court judgment was delivered on September 17
and others in government sought a clear understanding of the
implications, we worked quickly to analyse some fundamental
questions about the management of the fishery and how to address
them.
There may be some critics who think we should have been able to
guess what the court would say and that we should have jumped
immediately into action, but it is difficult to predict the
supreme court decisions and the terms used within the judgments.
Some court decisions take years to interpret. In this case we
had a preliminary assessment in less than two weeks' time.
Unfortunately, emotions ran high in some communities which
resulted in serious property damage, injuries and violence. Those
events deeply saddened me and many other Canadians across the
country.
It is important for us to work together. We must not allow hot
tempers and poor judgment to tarnish Canada's reputation for
tolerance, for generosity and respect for the law. I am
encouraged to see that calm and goodwill have returned to most
areas of Atlantic Canada. In the meantime we are working on a
process that will accommodate both commercial and native
fisheries for years to come.
I would like to extend my personal thanks to all the chiefs and
members of the industry who took the time to meet with me to
share their views and concerns. Since the beginning I have said
that I would respect the decisions of the chiefs, and that
continues to be my position.
I also want to commend the people in area 35 who together,
aboriginal and non-aboriginal, found community based solutions.
The decision that was handed down on September 17 by the supreme
court left many unanswered questions. We need time to work
together. But thanks to the willingness of all those who keep
the lines of communication open, we have made progress.
Aboriginal members of the fishing sector, the province, the
federal government have all shown a strong will to resolve this
issue.
What was really important when I met with the chiefs in Atlantic
Canada was the long term issue. Many of the chiefs felt that we
must not focus on the short term and detract from what are the
real issues, which is a long term issue. That is what I hope to
focus on, that we begin a process, a comprehensive plan of
progress with all those parties that are affected by the
fisheries issues, to bring them together and talk about real
solutions. Real solutions can come about through dialogue and
through co-operation, with people working together, sitting
around the table looking at each other eye to eye and talking
about the problems and how they can resolve them.
We have been working on a short term solution. I know the
chiefs are meeting today. Until I hear from them directly, I
will not comment whether they in fact have decided to lift the
moratorium or not, because this is something that they have done
on a voluntary basis. Certainly I would be disappointed if that
is the decision they have made, but I will wait until they have
directly contacted me before I comment on that. An hon. member
has said that I have not had contact. I will wait to see if that
is the case.
We must go back to the fact that this treaty was a peace and
friendship treaty. It was signed more than two centuries ago.
Natives and non-natives have lived and worked together for
generations since that time in peace and harmony. Together with
patience, restraint, respect for the law and with the
co-operation of everyone, we can turn the spirit for the next
century.
Mr. John Cummins: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of
order to seek the unanimous consent of the House to extend the Q
and A of the minister to allow the House to fully question him
about this issue.
1915
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): The House order made
earlier today provides that there shall be no request for
unanimous consent, so I am afraid that request cannot be granted.
We will proceed to questions and comments.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Madam
Speaker, the government failed to obtain the court's objectives
in the Marshall ruling. It had no management plan in place in
the event of a decision in favour of this treaty right and it has
made no attempt either in its presentation to the court or since
to balance the interests of other Canadians in the face of the
treaty right granted by the court.
The minister has suggested in his speech and elsewhere that he
will apply this treaty right as a communal right. He has said
that the communal right will be exercised by individuals for the
benefit of all. I would like to know how he will be able to
determine a moderate living if he is going to apply this as a
communal right. If we consider a moderate living for all of the
Mi'kmaq, if that is his objective, it is obvious that there will
be nothing left for anybody else.
I would like the minister, very clearly, to answer the question
of how a moderate living could be determined if the treaty right
is applied as a communal right.
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal: Madam Speaker, the communal
right is seen as a collective right. I am sure the hon. member
is very much aware of what that means.
How we define a moderate livelihood, as described by the courts,
is something that we have to sit around the table on. We have to
work with the aboriginal community and with all the parties
together. We must ask how we can ensure that the aboriginal
people who are the beneficiaries of this treaty right are going
to exercise it. We need to define those terms, but we need to
define them in conjunction with the aboriginal people, by sitting
around the table and talking with them.
If we were to ask everybody in this room how to define that we
would have 30 different definitions. It is something that has to
be negotiated. We have to sit at the table and do it.
I have always felt that it is better to negotiate than to go to
the courts, but there are others out there who refuse to move
forward. Even when we introduced the aboriginal fishing strategy
after Sparrow many said that we could not move forward. The last
Conservative government was not any better at predicting what the
supreme court was going to do with respect to Sparrow. However,
we were trying to bring the aboriginal community into the
fishery. Buying up licences was one way we were doing it. We
have already tried to work things out through negotiation.
We have to negotiate. At the end of the day, if we cannot find
some sort of mediation, we will have to go back to the courts.
However, when we go to the courts we have to go by what they put
forward and we have to live with their views.
One of the challenges we have is to define a moderate
livelihood. It is something we will have to sit around the table
to deal with. That is why we need to focus on the long term and
not on the short term issues that distract us. The courts have
recognized it as a treaty right and we have to ensure that we
work together so they can exercise that right by taking due
consideration of the interests and being sensitive to the other
interests in the fisheries.
Mr. John Cummins: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of
order. Let the record show that there was not one mention by the
minister of the people who are going to be displaced.
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Madam Speaker, I welcome the brand new Minister
of Fisheries and Oceans to the portfolio. I was glad to hear him
tell the House and all Canadians listening that it is indeed
better to negotiate than it is to litigate.
1920
We know the historical aspect. The previous Conservative
government and the current Liberal government told the aboriginal
people “Take your cases to court”. In the Bay of Fundy region,
District 35 opens up its commercial offshore season tomorrow.
The Bay of Fundy inshore fishermen are working very closely with
the aboriginal people to come up with a long term solution. The
problem is, they are doing it on their own with no help at all
from DFO officials.
Will the minister commit the necessary human and financial
resources to aid those people in their co-operative effort toward
a long term solution?
Hon. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal: Madam Speaker, I welcome
the hon. member's comments. What we want to do is start working
as soon as possible on a long term solution by bringing people
together. In the next weeks I will come forward with a plan,
which will include all parties, to bring everyone around the
table. We want to make sure that we start as soon as possible.
Certainly the input of the member will be very valuable as we
move forward.
Hon. Robert D. Nault (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, Lib.): Madam Speaker, I look forward to Reform
members' interventions in this debate. It is always very
interesting to see where they are coming from.
I am pleased to join my hon. colleague in debating this motion.
The supreme court has provided valuable guidance on how an
agreement between two parties, the 1760-61 Mi'kmaq treaty, should
be interpreted as we enter the 21st century. However, the court
did not specify how those treaty rights are to be implemented and
respected both now and in the future.
It is very important for people to understand that the court's
decision is complex and far-reaching. There are no quick and
easy solutions, as has been suggested by some people already this
evening. A constructive resolution requires that all parties
work together to respect an affirmed treaty right in a way that
is sensitive to the interests of all those who rely on the
fishery for their livelihood.
We have much more work ahead of us—governments, first nations
and non-first nations—to reconcile and understand the court's
interpretation of this and other historic treaties. The process
by which we can work together toward finding a settlement is not
new. In fact, it is well under way. Our commitment to negotiate
with first nations in the spirit of partnership is ongoing. So
too is our commitment to finding settlements to legitimate
outstanding first nations obligations. These commitments were
reconfirmed last year with the launch of “Gathering
Strength—Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan”.
The government's response to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Peoples affirmed that agreements are best negotiated in a way
that respects the rights and concerns of first nations and those
of their neighbours.
This is nothing new. We see it taking place across the country
every day. On the west coast the British Columbia Treaty
Commission is negotiating modern day treaties with 51 first
nations where no settlements were negotiated. In the Yukon,
comprehensive claim settlements, self-government and shared
resource management are returning certainty to the territory. In
the Atlantic region a process is under way with first nations to
find approaches to identify and settle legitimate outstanding
obligations to first nations. The same spirit of partnership
will be needed to understand historic treaties.
In “Gathering Strength” we said that the continuing treaty
relationship provides the context of mutual rights and
responsibilities which will ensure that aboriginal and
non-aboriginal people can together enjoy the benefits of this
great land.
Unfortunately, for too many years first nations have not fully
enjoyed the benefits of this great land, in part because they
have had limited access to fish, forests, minerals and other
natural resources. Yet, court rulings have consistently and
clearly demonstrated that first nations do indeed have rights.
They have worked relentlessly to have aboriginal and treaty
rights recognized.
1925
I would like to quote from a letter to the editor in today's
edition of the Vancouver Sun. Miles Richardson, the chief
commissioner of the British Columbia Treaty Commission, writes:
“Aboriginal rights exist whether or not they are set out in a
treaty or agreed to by anyone. But without a treaty it is
unclear about how and where those treaties apply. The courts
have continually said that the best way to resolve these issues
is through good faith negotiations with give and take on all
sides”.
I agree completely with those words. I can confirm that my
department is working in partnership with first nations and other
governments across Canada to ensure that treaties are fully
respected.
It is clear that the supreme court ruling on the Marshall case
has implications for the people of Atlantic Canada, both first
nations and non-first nations. My colleague, the Minister of
Fisheries and Oceans, is working very hard to arrive at a fair
and equitable solution involving access to Atlantic fishery
resources in light of the Marshall decision.
The impact of the Marshall case likely will not be confined to
fish and it likely will not be confined to Atlantic Canada. I
will be reviewing with others involved how these broader issues
should be addressed. After all, this is a shared responsibility
among all parties. It is up to all of us to help explain to all
Canadians the meaning of treaties and the treaty relationship.
I think we are seeing that the days are gone when one minister,
the minister of Indian affairs, is the only one working on or
speaking to aboriginal issues. These issues are of significant
importance to all ministers and I commend and support my
colleague, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, for his efforts.
My role is broader. I see it as having the federal lead to work
closely with first nation leaders, my provincial counterparts and
my cabinet colleagues to explore together an overall approach to
the broader question of the treaty relationship and aboriginal
access to resources.
As the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development I am
just one person among many who is working on or speaking to
aboriginal issues. These issues are of significant importance to
all ministers. Again, I commend the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans for his efforts. Together we will explore an overall
approach to the broader question of the treaty relationship and
aboriginal access to resources.
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): There are many
members who wish to ask questions tonight. Therefore I suggest
that we limit our questions and answers to one minute in order to
give as many members as possible the chance to intervene.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Madam Speaker, it is
very difficult to get the opportunity to ask a question tonight
and I will keep it to one minute.
With regard to the minister's statement there is one looming
question that needs to be asked. We all know that there is no
plan by the department of Indian affairs and there is no plan by
the minister of fisheries to integrate natives into the fishery,
but I want to know the minister's reasoning behind his statement
when he said that natives were kept out of this fishery in the
past.
In the 1950s and 1960s a lobster licence in southwest Nova
Scotia could be bought for $1. I believe prior to that a licence
was 25 cents.
What kept any first nations from the lobster fishery at that
time?
Hon. Robert D. Nault: Madam Speaker, obviously members
who have a preoccupation with the fishing strategy are asking
very specific questions, but they seem to have lost the gist of
the speech and what I was trying to suggest.
I want to make it very clear to members that when the courts
rule on particular rights of first nations they rule with the
intent of saying to Canadians and to governments, provincial and
federal, that the rights exist. Then they suggest to
parliamentarians and members who are on the government side that
they sit down with the aboriginal people to negotiate how those
benefits from the treaty will flow, and they flow in a number of
ways: from the economic development side of the issue, which was
mentioned by my colleague earlier in his question to the Minister
of Fisheries and Oceans; the issue of how first nations people
would be involved in the regulatory regime of the fishery itself;
how they would be involved in other resources; and in gathering,
which was part of the statement that was made by the court.
Those issues were not defined. That was the whole issue. For
someone to be as simplistic as to say that we should be prepared
and coming out with a plan tomorrow and saying here it is, that
is not what the courts asked us to do. The courts have asked us
to sit down with the first nations and to define exactly how that
treaty right will benefit them.
1930
Mr. Mike Scott (Skeena, Ref.): Madam Speaker, we have
been hearing a lot of words over there about how the government
will try to work to effect a compromise between aboriginal and
non-aboriginal fishermen on the east coast. For the benefit of
those listening or watching the debate tonight, I would like them
to know that this is the same minister, when push came to shove
on the Musqueam reserve, who sent eviction notices to all
non-aboriginal leaseholders on that reserve because the
insensitive and belligerent chief of the Musqueam insisted that
be done.
Could the minister tell us what comfort the fishermen on the
east coast can take by his words and those of the Minister of
Fisheries and Oceans when this is the kind of action we have seen
from the government consistently, time after time, when it has
come down to an issue between aboriginal and non-aboriginal
rights?
Hon. Robert D. Nault: Madam Speaker, any time an
aboriginal community tries to create an economic development
opportunity for themselves it becomes a win-lose for the Reform
Party.
I see the Musqueam issue as a win-win in the sense that first
nations people will make economic benefit from this legally
binding contract. I do not know what the Reform Party would like
to see the Government of Canada do. If its members would give us
their position on that particular file, if they would like us to
subsidize the first nations to the tune of $7 million to deal
with it, I would be prepared to look at it. So far all the
Reform Party is doing is running at aboriginal people but not
giving us solutions as to how we deal with the situation.
The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and I will be setting up a
number of tables. Those tables will be like any other
negotiation that we have done in B.C. or across the country, as I
have mentioned earlier. We will sit down with the people, the
chiefs of the Atlantic region and other interest groups, and we
will then come up with a resolution as to how best to proceed
with the treaty right confirmed by the court.
That will not happen tomorrow, next week or the week after. We
will set up these tables and we will work through it over the
winter. We hope that in the short term, which is in the next
year, we will have some solutions to the issues. That is how it
will be done. It is not the simplistic view of some members
opposite that we should just go out there and ask people to break
the law or change the law because we do not like the results of
what the courts have ruled.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Madam
Speaker, on September 17, 1999, the Supreme Court of Canada
rendered its decision in Regina versus Marshall. The effect of
that judgment is quite clear. The situation in law now is that
before fisheries managers can lawfully open the fishery to
others, the Mi'kmaq people must be accorded the opportunity to
fully satisfy their rights for a moderate livelihood. In other
words they are given a priority right to fish.
This follows from the order of priority set out in Sparrow and
in other cases which establish firmly that aboriginal treaty
rights have priority over general, commercial and sport fishing
rights.
Moderate livelihood is defined as including such basics as food,
clothing and housing supplemented by a few amenities, but not the
accumulation of wealth. It simply addresses day to day needs.
This definition is broad and hopelessly vague. It is likely that
there are few existing commercial fishermen who enjoy any greater
standard of living than that from the inshore fishery. These
fishermen will now have to stand aside while each and every
Mi'kmaw who chooses to go fishing does so and earns enough to
achieve this level of income.
1935
What happens if there is some doubt as to when to close the
fishery? Our experience is quite simple. When in doubt
fisheries managers will be inclined to err on the side of
allowing too much Mi'kmaq fishing rather than too little. This
has been our experience. It happens because non-aboriginal
fishermen do not have constitutional remedies for infringement of
their fishing rights as aboriginal fishermen do.
The practice of erring on the side of aboriginal fishing rights
seems to have been adopted as a method of keeping DFO managers on
safe ground and free of legal challenges to their decisions.
The present situation also allows for the courts to strike down
the current regulations of the fishing rights of the Mi'kmaq
because these regulations did not have any specific accommodation
in regulation as a priority right. The minister's absolute
discretion under the Fisheries Act, which is the basis for the
current regulations, was not held to be adequate protection of
the treaty right. Accordingly at the moment there is no valid
regulation of the Mi'kmaq right. There is a legal vacuum.
Unrestrained fishing can take place by the Mi'kmaq until such
time as a valid regulatory regime can be put in place. That may
take months or even years since consultation must take place
beforehand.
Before I go any further I will look back at the situation in
British Columbia because the experience there with preferential
fishing rights accorded to natives is not a happy one. The
problem in British Columbia was visited upon us by the
Conservative government, in particular John Crosbie, minister of
fisheries at the time. He allowed for a separate native
commercial fishery in British Columbia in June 1992. There was a
tragedy that year for fish stocks. The situation only worsened
until 1994 when there was a complete breakdown in enforcement. We
have encountered some of the lowest spawning escapement on the
Fraser River in history.
As a result the Liberal government asked John Fraser, a former
Minister of Fisheries and Speaker of the House, to investigate
the management system in place on the Fraser River. He found
that the natural disaster excuses the government had offered to
be without much substance. It had said that the water was too
high and the water was too warm. The fact of the matter was that
the problem was visited on us because of the poor regulations
which were in place, poor enforcement and so on of that native
commercial fishery.
That was the experience of British Columbia. It has been a
tragedy. Prior to 1992 the fishery on the Fraser River was a
profitable one. This past year commercial fishing was completely
closed on the Fraser River for the first time in history. That
came about as a direct result of the aboriginal fishing policy
and the commercial fishing regulations which were put in place by
the government. There is no question about that.
Over time the government has blamed nature, acts of God: the
water was too high; the water was too low; the water was too
warm; the water was too cold; it was El Nino; it was La Nina, all
these problems. When they look at that collapse they say it was
El Nino in the north Pacific in the last couple of years.
What happened? Why was it that there were strong returns of
sockeye to Port Alberni on Vancouver Island this year? Why is it
that in Alaska they anticipated 25 million sockeye to return to
Bristol Bay and we ended up with over 40 million? Those fish
were swimming in the same waters in the north Pacific as the fish
from Fraser River. Those returns came back strong. The only
difference was the aboriginal fishing regulations in place on the
Fraser River and the cutbacks by the government resulted in a
lack of enforcement and a lack of proper monitoring of the
fishery.
The minister talks about supreme court decisions and the effect
they have on the government.
Supreme court decisions are not made in isolation. The
government was there and it was supposed to address the issue on
behalf of all Canadians. It was supposed to present its case and
especially the case of the fishermen who would be impacted by the
decision to the court so the court could have something to base
its judgment on.
1940
What did the crown do, the crown being the Liberal government?
In the first instance the crown expert witness described the
prohibition on Mi'kmaq trading peltry with any other than the
British as a Mi'kmaq right to trade. How we can get from a
restriction on trading, which that was and which the truck houses
were, to a right to trade is beyond me, but that point was
conceded by the government.
Second, the expert witness conceded that the treaty right
included a right to trade fish although peltry was the only
commodity cited in the treaty and the price list agreed to by the
chiefs and the British did not include fish.
How do we get from an agreement which does not include fish and
which is a restriction on trading rights to a priority right to
fish? I will tell the House how. The government had in place a
policy on the west coast which gave to natives a priority right
to fish. How can it have that kind of policy in place and
sustained on one coast and then go to court and try to deny it on
the other? It cannot be done and the government knows it. It
did not do it and that is why we are in the jam we are in now.
There is another interesting oversight by the government. The
crown also failed to enter into argument the public right to
fish. The public right to fish has existed in British common law
since the Magna Carta. The public right to fish guarantees all
of us equal access to the fishery. That public right can only be
broken by the House. It takes an act of parliament to allow for
separate native commercial fisheries. That has not happened on
the west coast. There is no act of parliament dealing with it.
Those fisheries are operating illegally.
That argument should have been put to the court when the
decision was argued so the court would understand the legal
condition in which that treaty was signed. That treaty should
not then have been interpreted as an exclusive right or as a
priority right given the underlying right that we all enjoyed,
the public right to fish.
The crown failed to enter evidence demonstrating the social and
economic impact on the maritime fishery if the Mi'kmaq were
awarded the right to fish commercially. The crown also failed to
argue that a decision in favour of a commercial fishery on eels,
there being no viable commercial fishery in the maritimes on
eels, could result in a commercial fishery on other species such
as lobster. The crown failed to introduce evidence such as the
1995 fisheries conservation council report which suggested that
lobster were already overharvested so that any official entry
into the fishery through a treaty would mean an existing
participant in the public commercial fishery would have to be
displaced.
In other words, the crown failed to represent to the court the
situation that currently exists, a situation in which a fishery
is already oversubscribed, in which there are already too many
participants according to the Fisheries Resource Conservation
Council, and in which allowing the entry of others would require
the displacement of those who are currently exercising rights to
fish. That argument should have been put in place and it was
not. The government overlooked it.
It is not the first time a tragic oversight by the government
has happened in arguments before the Supreme Court of Canada.
It happened in R. v Nikal, which I will not go into now because
of time limits, but I will reference the recent Delgamuukw
decision of the Supreme Court of Canada.
1945
In Delgamuukw, the federal government supported aboriginal
claims to self-government and the continued existence of
aboriginal title. Although the Supreme Court of Canada did not
deal with self-government, it did find in favour of
unextinguished aboriginal title which continues to cause chaos
throughout British Columbian resource industries. That is
tragic. It caused the logging disputes we had this summer and
the flagrant breaking of law, not to mention the hardship. The
minister, himself, mentioned just moments ago that these rights
would extend to logging, mining and so on.
There is chaos and turmoil in eastern Canada. Shortly after
this decision came down, I offered the minister a reasonable and
legal escape route. I sent it to him in a letter and I sent that
letter to the provincial governments affected. I told him that
what he should do first is to seek a stay of judgment and,
second, to seek a rehearing of the case.
It is clear what the effect of a stay of judgment would be. It
would simply allow for a cooling off period. It would have
allowed the government time to pool its resources and to figure
out what it was going to do with the situation it was faced with.
The second thing it would do is this. By asking for a rehearing
it would have given the government, the attorneys general of the
provinces involved and other stakeholders, whether they be
fishermen's organizations, processing organizations or the
communities affected, the opportunity to go to the supreme court
and say “Look, if this decision moves ahead this is the impact
it is going to have on our communities”. It would have given
those stakeholders a chance to say “Look, when you dealt with
the Gladstone decision of the supreme court you acknowledged that
others had rights”. That Gladstone decision dealt with an
inherent aboriginal right to commercially fish herring roe on
kelp.
Even though it was found to be an inherent aboriginal right, the
court acknowledged that others had acquired rights as well. That
argument was not taken to the supreme court by the government. It
left it out. It refused to bring that forward. It refused to
defend the interests of current stakeholders.
The fisheries oversubscribed. If one drives down the coast of
Nova Scotia and takes a look at those small towns and villages
one will see that the only building standing is the lobster
processing plant and behind every house there are lobster pots.
That is how those communities exist. If we take away their
access to the resource what is left? It is not only the
fishermen who will go out of business, it is the processors, the
guy who runs the gas station and the guy in the grocery store.
It trickles right down. It will destroy the economy. Nothing is
gained by taking from one who is simply making a living and
giving it to another.
In my view it is imperative for the court to rehear this matter.
Neither Parliament nor the provincial legislatures have the power
to deal with the matter, it having been put out of reach of the
legislative branch by sections 35(1) and 52 of the Constitution
Act, 1982. The notwithstanding clause is not available since
section 35(1) is not a part of the charter.
The only legislative remedy is a constitutional amendment by
Parliament and the legislatures of seven provinces containing 50%
of the population of Canada. This is probably impractical.
The minister says to negotiate. Negotiations would be lovely
but they can only be successful if one goes to the table with
something in one's hand. The minister has no cards. He has no
chips on the table. He gave it all away when he failed to score
points and make the proper arguments before the Supreme Court of
Canada.
1950
I want to quote three passages from the Gladstone decision of
the Supreme Court of Canada. I want to show which references the
government could use if it sought the court's advice on this
matter. These three passages would provide legal weight to an
escape route from this problem. The first quotation reads:
It should also be noted that the aboriginal rights recognized and
affirmed by s. 35(1) exist within a legal context in which, since
the time of the Magna Carta, there has been a common law right to
fish in tidal waters that can only be abrogated by competent
legislation.
This is from R. v Gladstone, paragraph 67.
The second quotation reads:
While the elevation of common law aboriginal rights to
constitutional status obviously has an impact on the public's
common law rights to fish in tidal waters, it was surely not
intended that, by enactment of s. 35(1), those common law rights
would be extinguished in cases where an aboriginal right to
harvest fish commercially existed.
This is R. v Gladstone, paragraph 67.
The last quotation reads:
Although by no means making a definitive statement on this issue,
I would suggest that with regards to the distribution of the
fisheries resources after conservation goals have been met,
objectives such as the pursuit of economic and regional fairness,
and the recognition of the historical reliance upon, and
participation in, the fishery by non-aboriginal groups, are the
type of objectives which can (at least in the right
circumstances) satisfy this standard. In the right
circumstances, such objectives are in the interest of all
Canadians and, more importantly, the reconciliation of aboriginal
societies with the rest of Canadian society may well depend upon
their successful attainment.
This is R. v Gladstone, paragraph 75.
That says it all. By not arguing for the rights of other
Canadians when this matter was before the court, the government
has put peace and good government in the country in jeopardy. It
has walked away from the very legitimate concerns that other
Canadians have for their fishery, the legitimate interests that
other Canadians have to earn a living from the fishery. It is
beyond belief that this could happen.
DFO could balance the interests of Canadians in several ways. It
could state, as did the court: that the federal government has
the ultimate responsibility to balance the interests of all
Canadians; that there will be only one commercial fishery
operating under the same rules and regulations; that the treaty
right will be accommodated by issuing commercial licences to fish
in the public commercial fishery alongside other Canadians; that
any licence issued to the treaty fishery will be offset by a
licence that the government purchased from a voluntary seller of
a licence in the public commercial fishery.
The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault): I must interrupt the
member. His time is really over.
Mr. Scott Brison (Kings—Hants, PC): Madam Speaker,
given that the hon. member made the suggestion to the federal
government that it seek a stay of judgment to allow a cooling off
period during which legitimate and constructive negotiation to
allow peaceful aboriginal entry into the fisheries could occur,
what was the government's response? Why did the government not
pursue a stay of judgment and pre-emptively perhaps make a
recommendation to the supreme court in anticipation of the
potential ramifications of the Marshall decision which would have
allowed a peaceful entry for the aboriginal fishers and would
have prevented some of the chaos that exists now?
We are on the eve of the Bay of Fundy lobster season beginning
tomorrow morning. It is going to affect communities in my
riding. We understand that there is now a withdrawal by some of
the native fishers on the 30 day moratorium.
There is tremendous chaos looming right now which the government
could have prevented with an appropriate pre-emptive strategy
that was more long term in nature. I would appreciate the
member's feedback on that.
1955
Mr. John Cummins: Madam Speaker, the government's
response to my position that a stay could be sought from the
Supreme Court of Canada and that a rehearing of the judgment
would be appropriate was simply to reject it as unfounded. I did
not just pull that suggestion out of the air. I consulted with
some prominent constitutional lawyers in my home province of
British Columbia, lawyers who have experience before the Supreme
Court of Canada. It was their suggestion and one that is very
real.
A caller mentioned to me early this morning that some of the
bands that had committed to participating in the moratorium had
simply moved their gear and placed it elsewhere. I cannot
confirm this, but if the moratorium has been broken, the
government should use the opportunity to say that the situation
is out of hand and out of control and that it would be best to go
back to the supreme court to seek some legitimate advice on how
to handle the situation. It has 30 days to do that. In other
words, there are only about three days left for the government to
make that representation to the supreme court.
Mr. Gordon Earle (Halifax West, NDP): Madam Speaker, we
have a very serious situation on our hands. As everybody can
appreciate, it is very serious for those of us who live in
coastal communities and for those of us who live along the sea.
It always disturbs me when I hear the situation presented as the
hon. member who just spoke presented it, to rehear the case. It
reminds me of people tossing a coin to see who goes first. If
they do not get the right answer they go for the best two out of
three. If they still do not get the right answer they go for the
best three out of five. They want to keep going until they get
it the way they want it.
It seems very unusual to talk about rehearing a supreme court
decision. I wonder if the hon. member would have taken the same
position if the decision had come down not in favour of the
aboriginal treaties.
We have a very serious situation. The court has ruled. It has
made a decision. We should now be focusing our attention on
giving a practical application to the decision that will be
beneficial to all who are involved, to all the stakeholders in
the industry. We have to do that through negotiation, which is
where the government has fallen down. It waited until the
decision came down before it looked at the prospect of
negotiation despite the fact that Delgamuukw had talked about
negotiation and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples had
spoken about negotiation.
We have known for a long time that there must be a sharing of
resources and that it must be done in a way that will maintain
peace and harmony but we wait until a very crucial decision comes
and now it comes down to one side against the other side,
communities being divided against communities.
I have heard a lot of goodwill spoken on this issue by people on
all sides, by the aboriginal people and by non-aboriginal people
who want to resolve this issue in a favourable way. This is
where the minister and the government must take the lead and show
leadership. They must not wait and see whether the negotiations
have broken down. They must not wait and see if the traps have
been pulled. Rather, they must initiate leadership and do
something now. It is great to hear about the long term plans but
we have an immediate situation that must be dealt with now. It
is a matter of getting the priorities around the table now to
deal with the crisis that is facing us.
Mr. John Cummins: Madam Speaker, the objective of asking
the court to rehear the case is simply this. There is obviously
turmoil on the east coast. People are upset because they are not
sure what the decision means. They are not sure whether this
priority right allows for others, non-aboriginals, to have access
to the fisheries resource. We need clarification from the court.
The rehearing is not to rehear the judgment. The court has
spoken on that right. It has acknowledged that the treaty right
exists. What it has not done is to clarify what right others
have given this decision.
2000
We can argue this out until the cows come home but the quickest
way to solve this problem is to go back to the court and ask it
for clarification. What balance did the court have in mind when
it allowed this treaty right? Was it going to allow that treaty
right to be infringed? The suggestion in Gladstone and in other
cases is that yes, others have rights, but those rights are not
stated in this case. In fact, the people affected by the
decision were not represented in court.
It is beyond me why the member would not want others to be heard
by the court as well. The government did not represent the
interests of existing commercial fishermen when it made that case
in court. Those people had a perfect right to be heard in that
court. For the member from Halifax to suggest that they do not
have a right to be heard in court is beyond me.
Mr. Mike Scott (Skeena, Ref.): Madam Speaker, I have two
quick questions for my friend.
The first question is when we heard the Minister of Indian
Affairs and Northern Development make his intervention, he
suggested that aboriginal people had been denied access to
resources. My experience in British Columbia is that that is not
the case. Could the member elaborate on what the aboriginal
participation is in the regular commercial fishery in British
Columbia?
The second question is a genuine question. Can the member
explain to the House and Canadians what the aboriginal experience
is on the east coast with respect to the lobster fishery? Is
this fishery a traditional fishery that existed prior to European
contact and colonization? Was there a reliance on lobsters by
the Mi'kmaq Indians as a part of their culture and as a part of
their subsistence prior to Europeans coming to North America?
Mr. John Cummins: Madam Speaker, with reference to the
first question, aboriginal people played a big role in the
British Columbia fishery. Prior to 1992, when the former
Conservative government introduced this racially based commercial
fishery which gave natives a priority right to commercially fish
in British Columbia, 30% of the commercial fishermen in British
Columbia were native. Some of the most prosperous fishermen in
British Columbia were native Canadians.
If we went to Prince Rupert in the member's riding of Skeena,
60% of the people working in the fish canneries were natives.
There was a high participation of native people in the fishery in
British Columbia where the native population represents about 3%
of the population.
With regard to native participation in the lobster fishery on
the east coast, one circumstance that a historian described to me
today was that fish were not mentioned in that treaty because
they held very little value at the time the treaty was made.
They were readily available to anybody who wanted them. If they
wanted fish, it was not hard to catch them. As a trade item they
had no value. Certainly lobsters were probably not a commodity
that was sought after by natives. There is no evidence to
suggest that they were.
As the member behind me said earlier, prior to 1968 anyone could
have got a lobster licence. For a long period of time they were
available to everybody for 25 cents. The people who participated
in that fishery did so for a variety of reasons, but it was tough
to make a living. Since the restricted licences came in, the
fishermen, the processors and DFO have worked hard together to
put a quality product into the marketplace, a product which has
gradually risen in value. Now that it is a valuable fishery,
obviously there is interest from others.
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Madam Speaker, I wish to
state at the outset that the aboriginal fishers and the
commercial fishers on the east coast have my sympathies.
I had the pleasure of touring Nova Scotia in the summer of 1998.
I would remind hon. members that, at the time, the entire area
of education had been vested in the aboriginal people of Nova
Scotia.
2005
I took the opportunity to tour. I went to Indian Brook, and
this summer I went to Prince Edward Island to see the people on
Lennox Island, the Micmacs. I noticed one thing during my
visit. There was social peace everywhere. The native
community, and the non-native community, shared a lot of visions
on the sea.
Then there was the famous Marshall decision. Unfortunately, I
find that the government handled it very badly. If we look at
the turn of events, what is occurring in the Atlantic provinces
is not very happy.
I decided to raise the issue of the vision of the treaties,
because, as we recall, the supreme court analyzed the Murray
treaty before making this decision. The native peoples viewed
the treaties very differently from the Europeans. For them, the
treaties were not just between governments, but between nations
as well.
What we can also see in history is that all of the people in an
aboriginal nation felt bound by the treaty. Whether it was an
ordinary treaty, a friendship treaty or a treaty of co-operation,
all of the members of the nation felt bound by it.
I mentioned the example of the Micmac guardians of the treaty
known as the Putu's. The guardians of these treaties, brought
together the Micmac communities every year, reread the treaty
and discussed it.
We realize that the native view of the treaties is something
both quite sacred and important. Naturally, everyone knows,
even if it is something rather folklorical for us, still it is a
tradition that remains current. There were a lot of festivities
when a treaty was signed: singing, dancing and so on.
Things were not the same for the Europeans. It was more a
business matter, where the signing meant as much hold as
possible on all of the land. Treaties were often signed by
generals. This was the case with the treaty at issue, General
Murray's treaty. No one knew the ins and outs of this treaty.
They simply left it to the government or to the general signing
the treaty and then forgot it.
When the treaty became a bit of a bother, it was stuck away in
the bottom of a closet and forgotten. This is the way the
native people have always been treated.
I would like to tell a story to explain what is going on in the
Atlantic provinces. Two hundred years ago, a neighbour of my
family decided to put up a fence that took in 50 feet of my
property, and things stayed that way ever after. Each
successive generation said it would straighten the matter out,
reclaim our land and our jurisdiction. Two hundred years later,
the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court of Canada,
decided that the fence was in the wrong place. How long will it
take for the fence to be put back where it belongs? No more
than a day.
It was no surprise that native fishers set out in their boats
immediately after the decision, because they want to force the
issue. They see that they have been left out in the cold and
that it is very important that they get out quickly so as to
perhaps force negotiations. Unfortunately, negotiations are
very slow in coming.
I would not want to forget the Murray treaty, because I
mentioned this famous general earlier. Early in the 17th
century, there were a series of treaties in Virginia,
Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. As I said earlier, the British
crown drew up treaties with all aboriginal nations.
There were treaties of this sort in Halifax in 1750. Grand
chief Jean-Baptiste Cope, the aboriginal negotiator, concluded
treaties. The one in dispute today, the 1760-1761 treaty, was
concluded by General Murray, and had to do with matters of
trade, including such things as trading posts. This was the
dispute, according to the Marshall decision.
2010
Nowadays, are aboriginal people allowed to trade a commercial
fishery for goods or money? At the time, they had the right to
do so and specific counters were set up for such activity.
The English had total control over all commercial trading because,
in signing the treaty, the aboriginals pledged to negotiate only
with the British crown. That was for the Murray treaty.
Centuries have passed and a number of major events have
occurred, including the Constitution Act of 1982, which includes
section 35. That section, which was drafted after long battles
by aboriginals, was included in the Constitution Act.
In my view, three paragraphs are particularly important: The
existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples
of Canada are recognized and confirmed. So, this type of treaty
was reconfirmed by the court which said “Yes, this is valid”.
In the current act, “aboriginal peoples of Canada” includes the
Indian, Inuit and Metis peoples of Canada. This means that the
Micmacs and Malecites meet the definition of aboriginal peoples
and Indians. For greater certainty, in subsection (1) “treaty
rights” includes rights that now exist by way of land claims
agreements or may be so acquired. This means that any land claim
will now automatically be included and protected under the
Constitution.
I looked at how the jurisprudence has evolved over time, because
I feel it is important.
Since this debate began, I have been hearing my colleagues
commenting “We should go back to the supreme court in order to
get it to specify what reasonable livelihood means; we should go
back to the supreme court and ask it to suspend its decision”.
Since 1973—I have gone back to 1973 but there are other earlier
ones—aboriginal people have won just about all supreme court
decisions. The first one I will refer to is Calder.
Mr. Calder is a Nisga'a—we shall shortly be addressing the
Nisga'a question in the House—and he took a case to the supreme
court back then, and the decision was as follows:
Six of the seven justices of the Supreme Court recognize the
existence of ancestral title based on land occupancy Canada law.
The justices acknowledge that aboriginal territorial rights
exist not only by virtue of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 but
also under Indian title as the result of ancestral occupancy.
Above and beyond the rights guaranteed by treaties or laws,
aboriginal ancestral rights exist in Canada, that is to say
customary rights that have survived colonization and the
political transformation of the country.
The year 1973 constituted a very significant breakthrough for
aboriginal peoples before the supreme court. Then in 1984 there
was Guérin. In this case, the majority of the justices of the
supreme court reaffirmed the existence of ancestral title and
emphasized the federal government's fiduciary role.
The federal government, therefore, has an obligation to become
involved in what is going on at the present time on the east
coast.
The Justices recognize that aboriginal ancestral rights existed
before the British and Canadian regimes.
Thus, the rights existed even before the Europeans arrived here.
The relationship between the Government of Canada and the
aboriginal people is a fiduciary one and imposes real
obligations on the federal authorities.
Note the wording “real obligations”.
Then came the Simon case. The decision was as follows:
The Supreme Court finds that native ancestral or treaty rights
are not extinguished through the implicit effect of a statute.
That means that the Parliament of Canada, even if it passes a
law, cannot extinguish native rights. That is explained clearly
in the decision in the Simon case, which dates back to 1985. I
am following a time line up to the present. Members will
realize that the solution is not necessarily a return to the
supreme court.
In 1989, there was the Sioui case. In this decision:
The Supreme Court recognizes the validity of the treaty signed
by General Murray... in favour of the Hurons—
He had concluded an agreement with the Hurons on September 5,
1760.
The Court recognizes that the consent of the native peoples is
obligatory to the extinguishment of treaty rights.
That means that, without the agreement of aboriginal peoples,
rights cannot be extinguished. Furthermore,
Now we come to the Sparrow case, which was pivotal to commercial
and fishing activity in Canada. A lot of things were said in
it:
I think that is currently recognized now.
2015
It goes on to say that, furthermore, an ancestral right cannot be
interpreted so as to take in the particular regulation prior to
1982. Regulations that applied to one thing way back then
could apply to something totally different today. That is the
gist of the Marshall ruling. It says that there were trading
posts at that time, and today native peoples are being given the
right to engage in commercial fishing. This was the decision
from which the case law evolved.
It added that any government measure detrimental to the ancestral
rights of native peoples must be justified explicitly and in a
convincing manner. And the interpretation of treaties in
particular must be generous and liberal.
This means that when the supreme court judges look at a case,
they are going to give the broadest possible interpretation to
the words and provisions of the earlier decision.
Then there were the three famous decisions we often read about
in the newspapers: Gladstone, Van der Peet, and Smokehouse.
In Gladstone, the ancestral right to fish commercially was
recognized. In Van der Peet and Smokehouse, the claimants had
to show that their nation had already fished commercially in
order to be granted the right to continue doing so, and failed
to make their case.
The Calder decision of 1996 recognized that the right to
regulate for conservation still exists. The minister is
therefore right in saying that regulating conservation is an
important role he must play.
Finally, there was the Delgamuukw ruling, which is
revolutionizing our approach to aboriginals.
Not only do we take into account the treaty, but also oral
traditions. This means that someone appointed by his community
could come before a court with oral traditions and say “I am in
a position to demonstrate that we have always occupied that
land”. If the oral tradition is accepted by the court, it would
be as powerful as the signature on a treaty.
What I am trying to show is that the legal basis of the
aboriginals is absolutely unshakable. Whenever the minister of
Indian affairs comes before the committee, once a year, I always
make a point of asking him or her the following questions “When
are you going to act regarding the aboriginal issue? When will
you stop waiting for the courts to rule on this issue?”
Today, parliament is faced with a supreme court ruling, and it
is always the same story.
All these decisions have led to minor changes in the
government's policy. There are 1,000 grey areas in the Indian
Act. There are 1,000 grey areas in the treaties. And what does
the government do? It manages, but from one crisis to the next.
Since the crisis began on September 17, the government's
attitude has been “If we can manage to solve this crisis and get
it over with, we will go back to our business”. That has always
been the problem. There will be other crises in natural
resources. There will be other crises in forestry. There will be
other crises regarding self-government, because of this
government's total carelessness. It does not deal with the
issue.
The government begins discussions with various aboriginal groups
and overlooks potential crises. When a crisis erupts, parliament
must be called. Parliamentary decisions must be made.
The minister needs to get his feet wet.
In Marshall, as in all the other decisions, the government is
completely subservient to the courts, not only to the supreme
court, because the situation had to gravitate there. Instead of
seeing what was up ahead, instead of saying “We will sit down
and negotiate”, the government says “We will wait for the court
to decide and then we shall see”.
The Marshall decision recognized the rights of aboriginal
fishers on the east coast and now we are stuck with having to
make room for them. Certainly, this upsets the old way of doing
things. Ingrained habits die hard. White fishers were not used
to seeing other people allowed to enter their market, their
fishery. Someone is going to have to give in, and it is not the
aboriginal people.
Frankly, we are not going to send out the RCMP to arrest them
when they have a Supreme Court of Canada decision that says they
are entitled to be there.
The minister ought to settle this by negotiation. Earlier, I
received some most alarming news over the news wire.
2020
Instead of the minister coming along with his colleague, the
minister of Indian affairs, both of them proud as punch, to
inform us that everything is just fine, that there are no
problems, that now there is a moratorium, that the people will
talk to each other, he should hop a plane this very night with
his colleague, go down there to sit down and define what is a
reasonable livelihood. That is what the Marshall decision is
all about.
In Marshall, it is stated that they are entitled to fish
commercially for a reasonable livelihood. What does this mean?
As I said, the Bloc Quebecois will certainly not be in favour of
going back to the supreme court to ask it to define “reasonable
livelihood”.
Is that minimum wage? Is it $100,000 a year?
This needs to be thoroughly discussed. These discussions should
be held at the bargaining table. The definition of the suitable
subsistence level must be negotiated, not determined by
moratoriums that no one respects and by other interpretations
that could be requested of the Supreme Court.
I think historical errors have been made. For example, when the
Fathers of Confederation signed the Constitution in 1867, the
native peoples were not represented.
Treaties have always been made for the benefit of the moment.
When they were unfavourable, they were stuck in the closet.
There is good reason why native peoples are reacting
aggressively today.
The government totally lacks courage, and shows a total lack of
care.
The Indian Act dates back 100 years, and the government is still
trying to manage the aboriginal peoples with an act that is 100
years old. Why does the government not speed up the issues of
self-government and territorial claims?
So long as the native peoples lack the land and resources to be
self-sufficient, we will go round in circles in this parliament,
and the native peoples will react, especially since the supreme
court decisions are in their favour. As I said earlier, the
score is about 50 to nil in their favour.
It seems to me there are things to be done. I say that Quebec's
approach will be different. It has always been different and
will continue to be in a sovereign Quebec.
In the bill that was introduced in the National Assembly, it was
clear that aboriginal nations would sit down with the government
to draft the Quebec constitution, something the Fathers of
Confederation did not do in 1867. We want to avoid past errors.
Finally, I say to aboriginal people that Quebec will always
abide by the treaties that were signed by the British crown. It
goes without saying that we must maintain the same statutes and
the same conditions. In fact, we will probably improve them.
The James Bay agreement signed in May of 1975 is proof of that.
The Quebec government has already said to the Cree “If you want
to update the agreement, we are prepared to do so”. This is not
done in this parliament. Here, the government goes from one
crisis to the next. Right now, some serious and dramatic events
are taking place on the east coast. I will get to that in a
minute.
I want to tell aboriginal people that the Bloc Quebecois will
always support their efforts to gain greater autonomy. The Bloc
Quebecois is probably the one party in this house that is best
able to determine and appreciate what it means to strive to
achieve greater autonomy. I want to tell aboriginal people that
we are on their side in this endeavour.
It is unfortunate that the minister is not here, and that the
minister of Indian affairs is not here either.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
Mr. Claude Bachand: It is true that I am not allowed to say
that. Perhaps they are listening to me in the lobby.
I have here with me the communique issued about an hour ago by
all the chiefs on the east coast. I will read it in English.
They say:
[English]
[Translation]
Tomorrow morning there will be problems. That is why I told the
minister to get on a plane this evening with the Minister of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development. They should go to the
east coast. The chiefs have just said that the moratorium is
over and that they will resume fishing tomorrow. Their
communique also states:
[English]
“We are no longer asking our members to stop fishing should
they wish to fish”, said Ben Sylliboy, Grand Chief of the
Mi'kmaq Nation, in a statement.
[Translation]
This was released at 7.16 p.m. Here is proof of the
government's negligence and carelessness, and we are paying the
price. I suggest that they take a plane this evening and sort
this out.
The solution lies in negotiation, not in going back to the
supreme court.
2025
Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, PC): Madam Speaker,
I thank my colleague for his comments.
We see that there is a crisis in the lobster fishery, but we
also often forget to mention the social crisis in our regions.
Tomorrow morning, our communities will still be facing a crisis.
Tomorrow morning, children will go to school, and natives and
non-natives will still be divided. It is sad; families are
affected by this problem. Unfortunately, the Liberal government
has refused to show leadership and take action. It has left
communities to fight it out, instead of stepping in, taking
control, and sitting down and negotiating.
It is very important to remember that what is involved here is
not just a crisis in the lobster fishery. What my constituents
are facing is a social crisis. We have worked very hard to get
along, to work and eat together, and in less than two weeks,
everything is being destroyed.
I hope that the minister will take this into consideration and
take action to ensure that we will be able to repair the damage
to our communities.
I wonder whether my Bloc Quebecois colleague would agree with me
on this.
Mr. Claude Bachand: Madam Speaker, I am totally in agreement
with my colleague from the Progressive Conservative Party.
As I said at the start of my speech, I was in the aboriginal
communities this summer and the summer before that. I noted a
very fine social peace between aboriginals and non-aboriginals.
My fear now is that the government's carelessness and
permissiveness in making decisions, and its lack of courage,
will tear the community apart, as it has already begun to do.
The minister has stopped momentarily. I believe from the
communique I have just received that it is absolutely urgent to
negotiate. That is why I am suggesting that the minister take
the plane tonight. If he is short domestic travel points, I
would give him one, two even, if he wants to take his Indian
affairs colleague to the east coast.
[English]
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Madam Speaker, would my colleague from the Bloc
Quebecois not agree that because of the void in leadership in
past Conservative governments and the current Liberal government
the current government must allocate financial and human
resources? The real leadership in this crisis will come from the
grassroots. The fishermen themselves and their communities will
come up with short and long term solutions to the very serious
crisis we now face in Atlantic Canada.
Would my hon. colleague not agree that the government must
provide immediately the human and financial resources to help
solve this problem?
[Translation]
Mr. Claude Bachand: Madam Speaker, I totally agree that, the
mess having been caused by the federal government, it is once
again up to the federal government to go and clean it up. When
I refer to cleaning up the mess, my colleague from
Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madelein—Pabok will surely have
suggestions shortly on how that can be done. For instance,
buying back licences, something that is often done, so that more
space can be made for the aboriginal fishers who have had the
supreme court rule in their favour.
Now the government is going to have to roll up its sleeves and
show some courage. Instead of going back to the supreme court
it is going to have to negotiate immediately, so that social
peace may be restored to these communities.
THE MESS is of its doing, as
my colleague has said, the Progressive Conservatives as
well. When the Bloc Quebecois is in a sovereign Quebec, I will
always be able to support my NDP colleagues, for I find their
positions very close to those of our party.
[English]
Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Madam Speaker, every
member of the House and every Canadian who has been following
recent events in the east coast lobster fishery appreciates the
fragile nature of the situation that has developed in the
aftermath of the recent supreme court decision affirming treaty
rights for Mi'kmaq and for aboriginal people in Canada.
2030
Confirmation within the last hour of the collapse of the
voluntary moratorium is very worrisome. It underscores the
importance for every member of the House to try to do everything
humanly possible not to inflame the tension that has gripped
communities in the east coast fisheries.
I must say in that regard I find it frankly abhorrent to hear
the intemperate, inflammatory and simply historically inaccurate
references again and again by Reform Party members to a racially
based fishery. That does nothing to help move us toward a
solution which will ensure a sound, sustainable fishery for all
those who deserve their fair share in the aboriginal and
non-aboriginal communities of the east coast.
It is evident that major challenges are posed by the Marshall
and the Delgamuukw decisions which will impact on a host of
resource sectors and not just the fishery. Both aboriginal and
non-aboriginal will now be vying for access and will be demanding
their fair share.
There seems to have been very little appreciation of the
enormous significance of these legal decisions, and I might say
not only by the federal government but by the Government of Nova
Scotia as well. If there had been, both levels of government
would surely have been working together and working overtime with
all the stakeholders affected to develop a plan which would be
ready to be put in place when the supreme court brought down its
decision on the Marshall case. Instead what we have seen is
paralysis and ineffectual action, in fact virtual inaction by the
federal government.
The government's failure to have a contingency plan was
inexcusable and has resulted in a vacuum into which various
legitimate stakeholders inserted themselves with predictable
results. It is a response, incidentally, that is becoming all
too frequent these days as Liberal lack of leadership in the
agricultural and airline industry crises so sadly demonstrates.
As I mentioned earlier in my throne speech remarks, that same
lack of foresight was not displayed by the Mi'kmaq leadership. As
early as April 1999 the Mi'kmaq implored governments to
recognize, and I quote directly from a document dealing with the
issue of the Mi'kmaq fishery, that the impending decision from
the Supreme Court of Canada in the Queen versus Donald Marshall,
Jr. case had increased Mi'kmaq expectations for greater access to
the east coast fishery while at the same time creating
uncertainty and anxiety within the existing industry.
It is regrettable in the extreme the federal government did not
have the foresight to at least take under serious advisement the
urgings of the Mi'kmaq leadership to anticipate the outcome of
the decision.
[Translation]
The Liberal government did nothing as it awaited the Marshall
decision. Its inaction allowed tensions and chaos to take hold
in the Atlantic fishing communities.
[English]
Regrettably calm heads and voices were absent in the aftermath
of the Marshall decision, precisely because the current fisheries
minister and his predecessor had been conspicuously absent from
this file prior to the supreme court decision.
It is little wonder that lobster dependent coastal communities
in Atlantic Canada have been wracked with tension and dissension
in recent weeks.
2035
Surely the answer is not to blame the supreme court for ruling
on a treaty rights issue which was placed before it. Nor is it
acceptable, as the Prime Minister suggested, to stay the court's
decision or, as some members in the debate keep insisting, to
send the matter back to the supreme court.
It is important for us to acknowledge that aboriginal people
have been waiting for two and a half centuries for a ruling to
clarify their rights of access to the fishery under existing
treaties. A lack of preparation and foresight by the government
is a lame and feeble excuse on which to criticize our highest
court. Talk about shooting the messenger.
What is the right policy response to the challenges now
confronting the lobster fishery and other commercial fisheries on
the east coast? Atlantic Canadians want and deserve a coherent
answer to this question. They want to see a post-Marshall regime
based on principles of fairness, equity, sustainability and long
term commercial viability.
[Translation]
In the wake of the Marshall decision, Atlantic Canadians want a
fair, just and sustainable fishing arrangement. To achieve this
end, those involved must be consulted and listened to.
[English]
To arrive at a workable set of rules governing access to the
resource we first need to consult those who are directly
involved, to listen patiently and respectfully to all the
stakeholders. Without their insights, knowledge and at least
tacit agreement we cannot proceed.
Permit me however to outline briefly some broad ideas which
might inform that process and might form the basis of an
acceptable solution. First, emphasis should be put on
conservation, on preserving the long term health of the stocks.
Sound principles of management and conservation based on well
grounded science must be implemented.
Atlantic Canadians cannot afford another government induced
collapse along the lines of the cod fishery fiasco. Independent
expert advice must be sought and must be heeded.
Second, we need to find a way to allocate licences to aboriginal
Canadians so that they may enjoy legal and uncontested access to
the resource. This may involve the government buying back some
licences from commercial fishers. Indications are that maybe 10%
of those who are currently fishing would welcome the opportunity
to make way for aboriginals to make their rightful claim to their
fair share of the fishery. Let us be clear that we are talking
here about those who would choose voluntarily to exit the lobster
fishery at this point in their lives.
It is absolutely critical to build consensus on a set of rules
governing conservation, allowable catches and so on. A level
playing field is the only way that we are likely to get buy-in
from all groups concerned.
Third, we must work toward establishing community based fishery
policies to replace the corporate industrial model which has
enriched a few large companies at the expense of many independent
inshore fishermen and their families. The unemployment, the
poverty and the out-migration in many of these fishery
communities is eloquent and distressing testimony to the failure
of that approach.
[Translation]
Over the long term, we must work to establish fishing policies
that are more community oriented than industry oriented.
[English]
It is important to recognize that the modest entry of aboriginal
fishers into this resource is not the reason various Atlantic
fisheries are under threat.
In my discussions with Mi'kmaq representatives over the last
week they have expressed what is understandably a great deal of
distress and, I think it is fair to say, hurt at the implication
that the problems caused to the fishing stock in the east coast
are in any way attributable to their entry into the fishery.
2040
The real threat comes from the indiscriminate and unsustainable
practices of corporate fish companies and multinational
conglomerates. In my view the Leader of the Opposition was wrong
today to condemn a communal approach to resource allocation as he
did in respect of the Nisga'a treaty.
There is every reason to believe that increased meaningful local
control and responsibility for the resource by fishing
communities would generate rules that guarantee a reasonable
livelihood for fishers, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, while
preserving the future of the resource. To believe otherwise is
to demonstrate a striking lack of faith in the decency, fairness
and sense of responsibility of fishers.
I pay tribute to the important and ongoing work of the joint
working group on the Mi'kmaq commercial fishery that was
established in February of this year. Let us hope that same
careful, respectful, collaborative approach can get important
progress back on track in moving us toward a solution by
involving all stakeholders: aboriginal, non-native and
government. That working group has been earnestly laying the
groundwork for a viable commercial fishery that looks after the
interests of all fishers, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike.
This kind of forward thinking is what we need from our leaders
and decision makers at every level, and especially from the
federal government where it has been so notably absent.
Let me conclude by saying that we need public policies to govern
our fisheries and other resources that are grounded in long term
thinking, in devolving decision making to those closest to the
resource, and in a sense of fairness and respect for the
livelihoods of all. The existing industrial factory style
approach underwritten by bad science and greed has taken us to
where we are today.
Let us turn this page and refashion the fishery and our other
resource industries as well so they will be around to provide a
decent livelihood for our children for many generations to come.
Mr. Charlie Power (St. John's West, PC): Madam Speaker,
I have a question for the member whose comments were quite
insightful on this whole issue.
Today in the House the minister was asked several questions. On
a couple of occasions the minister said that today we should
applaud those aboriginal leaders, 33 out of 35, who on a
voluntary basis decided to have a moratorium and not fish for 30
days. He went on further to say that was co-operation and
dialogue and that they had a solution in place which was working
because dialogue and co-operation was working.
Does the hon. member now begin to believe that in order to have
dialogue and co-operation it takes two trusting parties? In this
case where the aboriginal leaders have absolutely no trust in the
minister and no trust in the government, how then can we have
co-operation and dialogue and therefore how can we have some kind
of co-operation with the minister and the department to solve
this very serious issue?
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Madam Speaker, I do not think it
gets us to a solution to be stating absolutely that this problem
cannot be solved because aboriginal and non-aboriginal fishers in
Atlantic Canada do not have trust in the minister.
It is absolutely true that fishers need to be able to build
trust in the minister. They are shaken by the fact that it was
not just this minister who has been very absent and in fact
stayed completely out of the arena when there was an urgent need
for immediate leadership in the aftermath of the Marshall
decision.
However, I think they are badly shaken by the fact that the
federal government and the Conservative government before it
showed so little respect for the issue of treaty rights that they
basically were forcing people into the courts, turning their
backs on the important principle laid out in the recommendations
of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples that we need to
adopt an approach that says we negotiate, not litigate, these
matters.
2045
There is a long legacy of this government and the previous
government, not just the current minister, not showing
appropriate respect for aboriginal Canadians, who now,
understandably, want their fair share of the Atlantic fishery.
Mr. Derrek Konrad (Prince Albert, Ref.): Madam Speaker,
I want to state that the leader of the NDP in her speech did not
offer any constructive or workable solutions, unlike Reform,
which called for a stay and a rehearing of the judgment so that
they could work it out and get it right instead of getting it
wrong and then the government going in with all kinds of
weaknesses trying to negotiate, let alone legislate, an end to
this problem.
I was interested in her comments that slammed large companies as
causing widespread poverty in the region affected. I wonder how
she squares that with union support for her party that thrives in
large successful corporate environments. Is she totally against
the corporations that fish in that area for lobsters? She would
rather see them all go out of business I take it.
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Madam Speaker, again, I do not think
it is very helpful to make sweeping statements about anything so
ridiculous as condemning all large companies.
What we are talking about are fishing methods used by some of
the large companies that virtually involve raping the ocean
floor, ignoring the ecosystem, ignoring the food chain and
ignoring the fact that if they are going to suck up everything
that is in sight and throw fish overboard because they do not
meet certain specifications what they will do is cause the kind
of crisis that we now see in the east coast fishery. I do not
think it takes us anywhere to go down that blind path of
ridiculous conclusions.
We need to look carefully at what kind of fishing practices are
sustainable and what ones are not. For the benefit of all
concerned, we need to adopt a regime of practices and regulations
that will ensure a sustainable fishery over time.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Madam Speaker, the leader of the New Democratic Party says we
must try to develop a viable and sustainable fishing industry.
Could she give her opinion on the most recent international
agreement that Canada signed this summer? I am speaking of the
UN fishing agreement.
Article 5 of that agreement provides that the signatories pledge
to develop and to maintain a sustainable and cost-effective
fishery.
My problem here is that Canada must now deal with a requirement
from the Supreme Court of Canada to the effect that we must
guarantee adequate livelihood to aboriginal people. However, we
still do not know what is meant by a cost-effective and, more
importantly, a sustainable fishery, in the language and
vocabulary used by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Sustainable has to do with the proposed fishing gear, but will
it be viable?
2050
What is the expected level of cost-effectiveness, particularly in
the context being dictated at the UN by all the countries of the
world, including France, the United States, England and so on,
and without subsidy? What will this “without subsidy” mean? What
do the words “viable” and “cost-effective” currently mean?
Right now, we are asking Gaspé Peninsula fishers to share their
resources with aboriginal people. If the court forces them to do
it, they will do it, but they will also share their misery. In
the wintertime, they have to rely on employment insurance.
How are we going to define the terms “viable” and
“cost-effective”? Is the NDP prepared to team up with us to put
pressure on the Liberal government to force them to develop that
definition? We need it not only to solve the aboriginal crisis,
but also to ensure sustainability in the fisheries of eastern
Canada.
[English]
Ms. Alexa McDonough: Mr. Speaker, let me say first that I
think the member who has raised the question would be the first
to admit that the specific questions he raises are immensely
complex, both in scientific and legal terms. However, I agree
absolutely with the point of the member's question, which is that
the federal government has to be prepared to allocate the
appropriate resources to ensure that we come up with answers to
those questions.
The situation that the member describes in his own riding is one
that is recognized by all of us who represent coastal
communities. It is a problem that results from the crisis
management approach that this Liberal government and the
Conservative government before it took by not recognizing that
the concept of sustainability is absolutely crucial. It is not a
matter of unilateral regulations imposed by the federal
government; it is a matter of recognizing that there have to be
appropriate restrictions on fishing efforts for the benefit of
all who are involved in the current fishery and those who want to
depend on the fishery in the future.
It is a matter of recognizing that solutions have to be local,
regional, national and international. That is why it is so
important that we have international fishery agreements such as
the one that is under discussion.
It is a complicated scientific and legal issue and it is
incumbent upon all of us to put pressure on the federal
government to allocate the appropriate resources and to give the
kind of respect that is needed to local fishers being involved in
helping to devise the scheme and the regime that will govern the
current and future fishery and to ensure that it is sustainable.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, it is my
pleasure to rise in the emergency debate on the native commercial
fishery on the east coast. I will be sharing my time with my
colleague for West Nova.
I would like to thank our fisheries critic, the member for St.
John's West, and our House leader, the member for
Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, for tabling this debate and
bringing it to the floor of the House of Commons.
I tried several times to make a comment when the leader of the
New Democratic Party was speaking. I will make that comment now
because I am sure the member must think that this is a catch and
release fishery. I would like to tell this House today that it
is not a catch and release fishery. This is very real to the
people in eastern Canada.
This debate comes as the result of the implications of a
September 17 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada recognizing
the treaty rights of the Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy
people. The Marshall decision states:
The 1760 treaty does affirm the rights of the Mi'kmaq people to
continue to provide for their own sustenance by taking the
products of their hunting, fishing, and other gathering
activities, and trading for what in 1760 was termed
“necessaries”. This right was always subject to regulation.
This quote from the supreme court decision indicates that the
impact of this decision could be far greater than simply fishing
rights. All crown based resources in Atlantic Canada, including
logging, fishing and possibly even sub-surface rights, may be
affected by this decision.
That is why it is imperative to have direction and leadership
from the government on this issue, something that has been
lacking so far.
2055
It has been 26 days since the supreme court decision and still
the federal government does not have in place any sort of long
term plan for regulating a sustainable fishery. The lack of
leadership the government has shown on this issue, and therefore
the lack of confidence both native and non-native communities
have in the minister and his department, will only worsen if we
do not hear something concrete from the minister soon. As it is,
there has already been violence and near chaos in the fishery in
Atlantic Canada. Because the leadership has not been there to
establish a clear plan for the future of the fishery this has
occurred.
I would like to take a moment to reference the speech made
yesterday by the member for Windsor—St. Clair. In his comments
on the throne speech he spoke well and he was extremely
articulate. In fact, he was too articulate. He went on, and he
went on, and he went on. I thought for a moment that his
grandmother had mistakenly vaccinated him with a gramophone
needle. I suspect that was not the case. I reference it only
because the government has been very quick to pat itself on the
back whenever the occasion arises and it can find all kinds of
accolades to congratulate itself with.
In comparison, I point out the lack of comments, speeches and
leadership, and the lack of a plan of any type coming from the
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans before, during or after the
September 17 decision of Regina v Marshall.
It also needs to be mentioned that former Liberal cronies in the
Nova Scotia government did not even see fit to represent the
province of Nova Scotia as an intervenor in the supreme court
case.
Indeed, it is not leadership from the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans that has put in place the 30 day moratorium. Instead,
this was the result of consultations and agreement among 33 of
the 35 chiefs of the assembly of Atlantic Mi'kmaq chiefs who
agreed to voluntarily suspend their fishing to allow all parities
to reach a negotiated settlement. Not the minister but the
chiefs themselves put this in place. Unfortunately, through
continued government mismanagement and incompetence this is being
rescinded.
Fisheries leaders have worked with native chiefs to find a way
to recognize native treaty rights. The result had been this 30
day moratorium that should have given the government time to
implement some plans and set in place guidelines and regulations
for a long term, sustainable fishery, if we would have seen
leadership. It comes back time and time again to leadership and
the confidence in this minister and in the government.
All fishers recognize the need to negotiate room in the fishery
for native fishers, but conservation remains a concern for
everyone. The Sparrow decision acknowledged that there are
arguments for limiting the aboriginal food fishery. Conservation
and resource management are justification for such measures.
We have 4,900 fishing licences in the South Shore riding that I
represent. We have 1,700 lobster licences in the South Shore and
West Nova. All of these fishers fish under conservation. They
fish under rules. They fish under management. It is now the
government's responsibility to ensure that conservation remains
the priority of the department and that regulations are in place
and enforced against everyone involved in the fishery.
Resource management is based on conservation and regulations.
Regulations were introduced back in the 1930s and continued with
trap limits, size restrictions, licences, seasons and lobster
fishing areas. This and only this has preserved the resource.
It is due to the fishers who have followed these regulations that
we have the lucrative industry we have today.
These rules apply evenly, whether they fish in Southwest Cove,
Blandford, Indian Point, Port L'Hebert, Port Mouton, Little
Harbour, Barrington, Clark's Harbour, Woods Harbour, Shag Harbour
or Lunenburg. Every one of those licences I mentioned earlier is
more than a licence. It also represents a family and in some
cases two or more families.
We all know where the Reform Party will stand on this issue. It
will argue that the native fishery is a fishery based on race.
We must make sure that we do not fall into its trap. There are
answers, but inciting racism is not one of them.
The minister still has an opportunity. It is still within his
reach—
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Order, please. I do not
think it is appropriate, especially in light of the words of the
hon. member for Halifax earlier, to ascribe inciting racism to
any party or any members in the House.
Mr. Gerald Keddy: I withdraw those comments, Mr. Speaker.
The point is well taken.
The minister still has an opportunity to reach a settlement with
native and non-native fishers, but to do so he must show
leadership. Leadership requires taking a position and having a
plan. The government did not have a plan A let alone a plan B.
I state once again that this is about lack of leadership and the
lack of confidence fishers have that their livelihoods are being
protected. It is also about lack of confidence by first nations
that the government intends to integrate them into the fishery.
Separate seasons, no conservation and no way to regulate the
native fishery will not integrate natives and non-natives in this
fishery. It will and has caused violence. Believe me when I say
that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I mentioned earlier that Chief Justice Binnie stated in the
Marshall case that the 1760 treaty right was always subject to
regulation. This is not complicated. This right was always
subject to regulation. Fishery representatives have stated from
the beginning that the industry can accommodate the gradual
integration of first nations if they fish the same seasons and
have the same licensing structure and same regulations as
non-natives.
We all know that because of the supreme court ruling we now have
an important new player in the fishery. If the government had
shown any leadership at all, we would not be in the situation we
are in tonight.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the priority native commercial fishery mandated by the
Supreme Court of Canada in the Marshall decision reflects
precisely the separate native commercial fishery imposed on
British Columbia fishermen by the previous Conservative
government.
The regulations the minister is imposing on the east coast
fishermen to manage the fallout from this decision are precisely
the regulations that were imposed on the fishery in British
Columbia and which have taken that fishery from profitability
prior to 1992 to the point this year where there is no fishery on
the Fraser.
Why should I believe the crocodile tears that are coming from
the member who just spoke when the policy of his party was
precisely the same as the policy mandated by the Supreme Court of
Canada?
Mr. Gerald Keddy: Mr. Speaker, is the hon. member
suggesting for a moment that we do not listen to the Supreme
Court of Canada, that we are somehow above the law?
There was an opportunity all along. We were following this
debate and the issue very closely. The government failed to show
leadership. For the hon. member to raise questions and innuendo
in the House on issues which he is obviously not cognizant of and
for which he does not have the facts, including the aboriginal
lobster fishery that existed previously, is a serious mistake.
If we have leadership from the government we have an opportunity
to bring an end to the problem in this fishery right now. We can
put a moratorium in place. However it was the Reform Party that
did not want a moratorium. It insisted that we could have a stay
of proceedings. Look where the stay of proceedings is right now.
We are 72 hours from the end of this. The stay of proceedings
will not happen. We went in the wrong direction with it. We
should have had a moratorium in the beginning. That is the
problem.
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concern of the
member from the south shore of my beautiful province of Nova
Scotia.
Many of the fishermen in these communities we are talking about
are in his riding.
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I have spent an awful lot of time on the phone in the last few
days talking to fishermen and representatives in the hon.
member's riding. A lot of them have said that possibly for the
short term in terms of a solution to incorporate the aboriginal
people into the fishery is a sort of voluntary buy-back program.
There are 6,300 licences in the maritime provinces right now that
incorporate lobster fishing. Of those, roughly 10% belong to
people who would voluntarily exit the industry if they got a
decent price for their licences.
Would the hon. member not agree that could be a short term
solution as we work toward a long term goal? The government
could purchase these licences, transfer them over to the Mi'kmaw
nation and everyone could fish under the same conservation
guidelines.
Mr. Gerald Keddy: Mr. Speaker, I think the problem here
is that the hon. member is mixing up short term and long term
solutions.
That could perhaps be part of a long term solution. It is a way
to integrate the native fishery into the existing fishery. The
bottom line for the fishery has to be very simple: a commercial
fishery based on rules and regulations, the same seasons, the
same trap limits and the same lobster fishing areas for everyone
in the fishery.
We can find ways and we can be innovative and we can bring the
Mi'kmaw fishers into the fishery, but we have to do it under one
set of rules with one set of regulations for everyone in the
fishery.
Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): Mr. Speaker, the supreme
court rendered its decision on the Donald Marshall Jr. case on
September 17. Almost a month has gone by and only now has the
government recognized the seriousness of this particular ruling.
Tonight's emergency debate is focused primarily on the fishery
and more specifically on the lucrative Atlantic lobster fishery.
Yet the supreme court ruling will have far greater implications
for all future federal government negotiations with our
aboriginal peoples.
As my hon. colleague from south shore has mentioned, this ruling
will most definitely be used as a benchmark for future
discussions over such things as logging rights, mineral rights
and even land claims.
Despite the importance of this decision, the government chose to
postpone the opening of parliament by three weeks to introduce a
new throne speech rather than reconvene parliament to address
this situation. Shame.
What is more disturbing about the government's obvious contempt
for the parliamentary process is the fact that Canada's fishery
industry was almost totally ignored in the Speech from the
Throne. Except for a very brief mention in the speech, it would
appear that this Liberal government could not care less about
what happens to Atlantic Canada or the fishery.
After watching the aftermath of the supreme court decision, can
there be any doubt that the government was totally and utterly
ill prepared to respond to the violent reaction among fishers
that such a decision was bound to create? It is absolutely
unbelievable that the government did not have a strategy prepared
for whether or not the supreme court ruled in favour of Mr.
Marshall. That was exactly what happened. Instead of being a
leader in this dispute, the minister has left it to the affected
parties to come up with their own solutions to this impasse.
Native leaders have just come up with their own solution.
Following an emergency debate this afternoon, it was reported
that native leaders have now decided to withdraw their support
for a 30 day moratorium. This means that native fishers will
once again take to the waters without any government
restrictions. Such action will certainly heighten tensions in an
already hostile environment.
Native leaders are charging the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
with negotiating in bad faith by imposing trap limits on two
native reserves in Burnt Church and Indian Brook who refused to
enter into a moratorium agreement along with the 33 other band
members.
Native leaders went to great pains to explain to the media that
their original decision to agree to the moratorium was taken of
their own accord and was not influenced by the request of the
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It would appear as though they
do not recognize the authority of the minister to impose a
solution to this impending crisis in the fishery. And why should
they? The minister and his own senior officials have shown
clearly that they have no solution to offer either native or
non-native fishers with regard to this dispute.
2110
In light of the decision taken by native leaders today, it is
vital that this minister and this government act immediately to
establish at least a short term solution until a long term
solution can be negotiated.
What was this government thinking? Why was it so cocky that it
could not even fathom the possibility of losing this case before
the supreme court? On what did it base this arrogance? It could
not be based on the Sparrow decision. It could not be based on
the recent logging disputes in New Brunswick. The rulings in
these cases should have triggered some kind of warning bell
within the government. Let me ask the question millions of
Canadians have been asking themselves, one that our party
repeated in the House today. Why was the government not prepared
to respond to this situation? Why?
This case has been ongoing since 1993. It is now 1999 and this
government is acting as though the situation suddenly appeared
from nowhere. I have been in the House asking questions on the
illegal lobster fishery that has been going on for the past two
years. The minister and his officials knew that was happening.
He cannot say that he did not know. He should have had a plan in
place. It is not acceptable.
Our West Nova fishers perhaps are victims of their own success.
Not so many years ago a lobster fisher was said to be involved in
a poor man's profession. There were virtually no markets for
lobster. Lobsters were used as fertilizers on our fields.
The lucrative lobster industry did not just happen overnight.
Through conservation, dedication and a lot of hard work, industry
leaders slowly began developing markets for this crustacean. We
have gone from exporting lobster to the U.S. to opening lucrative
markets in Europe. A lobster licence that may have sold for $5
30 years ago is now worth $250,000 in some cases.
Lobster fishers risk huge amounts of money to participate in
this lucrative fishery. Besides the expense of a fishing
licence, investments include the purchase of a vessel, fishing
traps, bait, fuel and wages for their employees. There is a huge
overhead involved in this industry. So much money is tied up in
their investment that any major decrease in catches or a
significant reduction in the price received for lobster would be
catastrophic for many fishers, particularly those who have just
recently entered into the fishery.
Let us face it. The government was caught with its pants down
by not having a strategy in place to address the supreme court
ruling. Rather than admit its lack of preparedness and thereby
ask the supreme court to grant a temporary stay of its ruling
until new regulations could be established, the minister simply
allowed a free for all within the Atlantic fishery which led to
fear and ultimately violence. This could all have been avoided
had the minister of fisheries taken a leadership role in
establishing temporary rules and regulations that would have
encouraged dialogue leading to long term solutions.
As tensions continued to rise, the minister kept telling
Atlantic Canadians that he had the authority to impose
restrictions based on conservation. I asked the minister why, if
he were legitimately concerned with conservation, he would allow
anyone, native or non-native, to fish out of season.
The supreme court has rendered its decision. The native
people's right to participate in the fishery has been upheld by
Canada's highest court. However, the decision did not clearly
define how the fishery was to be conducted. The supreme court
decision left many questions unanswered, such as what constitutes
a moderate livelihood and how those displaced by this decision
will be compensated.
Many non-native fishers are frustrated by the lack of leadership
coming from the minister's office. The minister's initial
reaction to the supreme court decision was to allow native
fishers to participate in an unregulated, unrestricted fishery.
Naturally, tensions were bound to escalate as commercial fishers
feared the potential loss of their livelihoods.
The Atlantic fishery is worth over $1 billion to our economy. I
would consider that quite significant, yet this government has
responded with a casual air of indifference toward this crisis.
2115
The fishers of West Nova are some of the finest fishers in the
world. Although the minister and his government colleague appear
ready to turn their respective backs on the industry, I want them
to know that I will not. I will continue to demand from the
government that we work with the stakeholders to come to an
acceptable solution of this serious issue.
On behalf of our fishers I implore that the minister begins
addressing the issue immediately before the lobster industry is
damaged beyond repair.
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for West Nova
for his remarks with regard to his fishermen. As I mentioned to
his colleague from the south shore, I have been dealing
exclusively with people in fishing and representatives in that
area.
The one thing I would like to add is that he is correct that we
need immediate action from the minister. Would he not agree that
with the recent decision by the aboriginal chiefs in Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick to lift the moratorium it would be a very wise
idea for the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to get on an airplane
and head down to that area to deal with the issue immediately?
Mr. Mark Muise: Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague
for his question. I guess the answer is very obvious. I have
been saying all along that the minister should have been on the
ground in Atlantic Canada three weeks ago, the day after the
decision happened, so he could get a sense of what was happening.
I walked those streets for 42 years and I have never, ever
sensed the tension that is in my part of the province. The hon.
member for South Shore and my colleagues from New Brunswick tell
me the same. The ministers should be on the ground. They should
be talking to be people who have a chance of resolving the
problem. They should show leadership and they should be there
immediately to start working on it right away.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, I cannot help but comment on the last remarks of the
hon. member. The tensions and whatnot that he is describing, the
fears and the hurts that people are relating to him, are the same
problems that we have been listening to for the last six or seven
years in British Columbia. They are problems that were brought
on by the policy of the former Conservative government.
The solution that is proposed is the same solution. The one
season, one set of regulations solution is the same one that was
proposed by the fishing industry on the west coast and was
rejected wholeheartedly by the previous government and by this
caucus all the way along. That has been our proposed solution.
I am still curious as to why the suggestion I made that a stay
of judgment and a rehearing of the case be sought is rejected by
my friend who just spoke. The facts are clear that the
moratorium will not work. There is no compulsion on anybody to
comply with the terms of the moratorium, but a stay of judgment
would have some legal authority. It would give voice to those
people who are affected by the decision. I would like to know
why they reject that notion.
Mr. Mark Muise: Mr. Speaker, I am always impressed or not
impressed by my hon. colleague's inflammatory remarks. It is by
working together in trying to come to a solution that we can
achieve peace and some kind of acceptable solution of the matter.
It is not by driving a wedge between both parties or using
derogatory or inflammatory comments that we will come to a
solution. We have to represent our people. We have to speak out
on their behalf. We also have to encourage people to work
together because that is the only way.
Once the court has made a decision it cannot be reheard. There
is no room for appeal or there is no ability to appeal a supreme
court decision. We have to work together instead of trying to
drive a wedge, which my hon. colleague seems to be doing so well.
I will have no part of that.
2120
Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Secretary of State (Children and
Youth), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide a
preamble to the comments I want to make with the fact that
throughout the great country of Canada for centuries aboriginal
people have very generously stood by and watched the development
of the country for commercial purposes, whatever the resources
are. It could be oil and gas. It could be forestry if we look
at B.C. It could be mineral resources. Aboriginals have reaped
few of the benefits. They have no resource sharing revenue
mechanisms to have returns of revenues to them.
At this point in time in our history aboriginal people are
saying that they want equity of access. We want to be
self-sustaining communities and we want to participate. Quite
clearly, to put this debate in context, we must understand that
aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people have to work hard to
allow cooler heads to prevail, to be reasoned and logical, and to
try to find constructive solutions.
In dealing with the debate and trying to help clarify the
government's position on the Marshall decision, I am extremely
impressed with my colleague, the minister of fisheries, who very
appropriately went to the aboriginal people and the commercial
fishery in the Atlantic region to deal with the problem. It was
very skilfully done. The level of arbitration and consultation
had proven results. We have to work not only at dealing with an
interim crisis but at a long term and strategic solution for it.
When the supreme court ruling was handed down on September 17
some people said we should have provided an instant analysis and
announced some bold new initiatives. Kind of a knee-jerk
reaction was what was wanted. Some critics even suggest we
simply put down our fist and simply close the lobster fishery
indefinitely. Closing the fishery would have been in some
respects an easy way out but would have been unproductive for all
parties.
The supreme court decision, my colleagues across the way should
know, is the highest legal voice in the land and we must respect
its rulings. We cannot cherry pick on a decision that the
supreme court makes when we feel that we do not like it or other
people do not like it. What kind of a country would we have?
What would happen to the charter of rights under those
conditions?
In this case the court upheld the 1760 treaty with the Mi'kmaq
but with the modern interpretation of what it means in 1999. The
judgment spoke of a moderate livelihood for natives and not an
open-ended accumulation of wealth in the fishery.
Just as important, the court also said the right could be
regulated. I am sure some people who want to inflame and create
fear unnecessarily would have us believe that there would be
anarchy on the seas, that native people would go out there
indiscriminately after decades and years of depending on country
foods and on the fishery for sustainability. That they would go
out there and pillage is ludicrous.
As we can see, the judgment is complex and there are still a
number of issues to be resolved. The minister immediately sought
clarification of the ruling to provide the best possible response
in the shortest period of time. This analysis took less than two
weeks when many other cases have required months.
We have heard in the House of Commons today a reference to what
the opposition considers the fact, that this is a race based
right. It is very important to understand that the collective
rights of aboriginal people are not race based. Those comments
are race based. The collective rights of aboriginal peoples are
human rights that accrue to them by virtue of their existence as
people with their own cultural, legal and political traditions.
2125
Aboriginal peoples have welcomed others to this land and have
asked only for a reasonable accommodation of their fundamental
human rights as individuals and as people. With our particular
brand of Canadian ingenuity we as Canadians have inherited and
built upon a constitution that seeks accommodation between those
people that were here and experienced colonization and all those
that have come afterward.
The Mi'kmaq of the maritimes have waited 240 years to have their
fundamental rights respected under a treaty entered with the
crown, a treaty that is part of the constitutional fabric of the
country. The Mi'kmaq like other aboriginal people have been
asked to respect the rule of law and they have done so by taking
their claims to the courts.
I cannot express strongly enough my belief that Canadians of all
origins are by nature a generous and accommodating people who
respect the rule of law. I have no doubt that we will continue
to prove ourselves to be so in the future, but the will and the
spirit to co-operate has to be there. We cannot achieve that
level of accommodation if we create fear in the public. It is
our responsibility to instil hope. It is our responsibility to
be responsible in what we say to the public. If we inflame with
those kinds of comments we are doing nothing to resolve the
issue.
It is important for the House to know the roles the minister of
fisheries has played. Instead of closing the fishery, as I
mentioned earlier, the minister took the harder road of
negotiations. The minister and the government wanted to respect
the supreme court ruling. There were other suggestions that were
not taken up for obvious reasons.
Where others might have given up the minister continues to seek
solutions through dialogue and co-operation. The minister
continues to be involved on a daily basis. He is in constant
touch with the aboriginal leaders, the commercial fishery,
government officials and Atlantic premiers.
Early on the Marshall decision was a prominent issue when the
Atlantic Council of Fisheries Ministers met in Quebec City last
month. There was a clear recognition from all jurisdictions of
the need to clarify the implication of the court decision and to
put in place a management regime. The council recommended that
regime must ensure the conservation objectives are not
compromised and be fair to other interests in the fisheries.
Conservation is one issue but there is another issue. We can
play on that. We can use that to be partisan. We can use that
to be smaller than we should be. We can do that and that is
about economic preservation. Major investments have been made by
the commercial fishermen out there. They have increased the
value of lobster licences. It is a major investment. It is
their retirement package. If we have a sudden influx of other
people who would take up in that industry it devalues that
investment. That is a major concern. That is an economic
preservation concern. That is another thing to think about.
However it is quite interesting if put it into the proper
context. On district 23 in the Burnt Church area of Miramichi
Bay the number of lobster trapped used by aboriginal people adds
up to less than 1% of the number of traps used by the
non-commercial fishery. Is that a conservation crime? Is that
something that at this point we will have to be totally
unreasonable about? It is something we should think about. We
have to put everything in context.
I agree that we should be looking at finding a solution. We all
witnessed the unfortunate incidents in the days following the
court. In conclusion, we have to work hard.
2130
As I said in the beginning, closing the fishery would have been
the easy solution, the quick fix. But there is no quick fix on
an issue that affects people's rights, lives and livelihoods. I
am confident that the minister's staff and department will
continue working in the right direction to better the lives of
everyone involved.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for her
remarks. They were very insightful, passionate and sincere. I
could not agree more with the need for reasoned and moderate
debate.
However, along that line I would ask the hon. member, in all
sincerity, that if this was the true intention, why did her
government, three days after the Marshall decision was handed
down, decide to prorogue parliament, thus hamstringing and in no
small way completely doing away with the ability to debate this
issue in the House of Commons? It was the Progressive
Conservative Party that had to call for this debate. It was not
done voluntarily by the government.
If that is the case and if debate is what will lead to a
solution—and I agree with the member that it will—why did her
government do away with that ability by proroguing this House?
Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, I think the issue
on proroguing the House is a red herring. It is irrelevant to
the very important issue at hand. We had a lot of things to
consider. There were a number of requirements that had to be
met. We were preparing for a throne speech and the installation
of a new governor general. Those are not excuses; those are
reasons. However, that does not take away from the importance of
what was occurring, which was demonstrated in the action that the
minister took.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I would like my hon. colleague opposite to repeat
part of her speech. I want to be absolutely sure that I
understood the interpreter.
When she says that catches by native fishers represent
approximately 1% of commercial catches, is she not contradicting
the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans who says that we must
ensure conservation of our stocks? One percent is nothing.
I would like to know if she is contradicting the Minister of
Fisheries and Oceans and if the problem is more of a management
problem. How will the fishing be done—that is the problem we
have with non native fishers—and, particularly, who will be
doing it? That is the problem.
[English]
Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, I would never
consider contradicting the minister. The minister indicated that
conservation is important, and it is an important issue, not just
for the fisheries but for every resource. That is an important
issue and it is a general statement.
What I did say was that the number of lobster traps used in
District 23, Burnt Church, on Miramichi Bay by aboriginal
lobster fishers adds up to less than 1% of the number used by the
commercial fishery.
We can assume whatever we want, but what I went on to say was
that there are other considerations besides conservation.
Conservation is always important when we are dealing with a
resource, but there is also economic preservation. That was the
point I was making.
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the hon.
member and the area from which she comes. If the member believes
that this minister is doing such a fine job, then would she not
try to convince her minister, because the people's perception of
politics is their reality, and the Minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development to get out of Ottawa, to get down to the
maritime region and to deal with this issue firsthand, instead of
dealing with it by long distance from Ottawa? Would the member
not make that suggestion to her minister and make it an
imperative motion for him to get down there immediately to deal
with this issue?
2135
Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague
knows that this is important to the minister. I also know that
the minister has a great deal of respect for members of the House
and would want to be here to respond to their questions as he did
today in question period. He would want to be here to respond to
those members who represent the people in the area, and he has
been dealing with those people continuously. That is not an
issue. The minister has demonstrated quite clearly that he is
capable, committed and has the confidence to do the job.
Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
Miramichi, as the hon. member opposite noted, is where Burnt
Church is, where Red Bank is and where Eel Ground is, three of
the reserves that I represent in the House. Listening to some of
the debate tonight I wonder how well some of our native people
are being represented in the House.
Across this country there are nearly one million status and
non-status people who were the original people of this country. I
take affront with some of the statements made in the House in
terms of the rights those native people have and should have
under the agreements our ancestors made with them.
I also have a very valuable industry in my constituency, which
is fishing. Tonight we are talking about lobsters, but in terms
of the fishery it is a much broader issue than just lobsters.
Lobsters over the last 40 to 50 years have become one of our most
valuable species, along with our snow crabs. Those two species
provide a lot of income to the people along the Baie de Chaleurs
and Miramichi Bay areas.
We also have to recognize what happened and be very aware of the
situation that developed which pitted one group of people against
another group, the commercial fishermen. I would like to point
out to the House that some commercial fishermen are natives.
The aboriginal fishery strategy over the past decade has offered
fishing licences and in fact the Burnt Church reserve has
approximately 10 licences. It is the same with the reserve at
Big Cove where they have fishing licences and also with Indian
Island.
It was a very unfortunate incident that happened on that Sunday
some weeks ago when fishermen decided to take the law into their
own hands. There was a certain degree of frustration because
they saw, in terms of the supreme court ruling, that their
industry and their livelihood was at stake. I met with some of
those fishermen. They came to my office in great numbers on the
Wednesday prior to the incident that happened on Sunday. It seems
that there were other people who came into our area. There were
lobster boats and commercial boats that came from outside the
Miramichi constituency to fish on the shores of Burnt Church.
We have to recognize the value of conservation. The inner
Miramichi Bay in the fall of the year has very warm water. The
lobsters come to change their shells, to moult. It is a nursery
where the lobsters procreate and develop for the next season
ahead. With that, the commercial fishermen saw a danger to their
industry.
We also have to recognize that for the native people of Atlantic
Canada the treaty rights they obtained as a result of the
Marshall decision created a great period of exhilaration, a great
victory they had won, a point they had been striving for and
reaching for over many years. Many of the native people took to
the shores to set their pots and fishing traps to see what
lobsters they could obtain.
We talk of this in terms of wisdom. Many of us are pointing at
certain people who have made mistakes. I would like to point
out, Mr. Speaker, that when I point at you with one finger, I am
actually pointing back at myself with my other three. I think a lot of us
in the House tonight, as we try to find some villain in this, are
actually doing three times as much damage to ourselves as we are
to the people we are pointing toward.
Some will criticize the supreme court. They feel that the
supreme court did not have enough wisdom in terms of the outcome
of the decision it rendered. The court might have stated in its
own behalf that it recognized rural Canada and especially the
Atlantic provinces if it had foreseen the difficulties, but that
wisdom was not seen by the supreme court.
2140
Some will criticize the minister, but the minister has to
look at those judgments. He and his staff and the Department of
Justice have to decide just what is said in those pages that have
been written by the justices. It takes some time for that to be
brought to light and for the proper decisions to be made.
Some will criticize the fishermen who were taken back by the
decision. They were very much concerned that an immediate
process should evolve and that the minister should simply say
“no native fishermen”. That would not be a wise decision. The
native people have as much right to the resources of the country
as anyone else.
In terms of perspective, we must mention that the fishery has
grown over the years. In the 1960s a commercial lobster licence
could be obtained for about 25 cents. Today licences are worth
somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
We also have to recognize that over the years the lobster
industry has been developed.
I read an article some years ago about teachers being sought in
the southern part of New Brunswick. At that time, during the
great depression, teachers often boarded with parents in the
community. One promise that one school board made in southern
New Brunswick was that no one boarding at their house would have
to eat lobsters more than twice a week. Lobsters were frowned
upon in terms of being a commodity and only poor people ate
lobsters. Today, of course, such is not the case.
We have to recognize that in Atlantic Canada the fishery has
been developed. The various species all have different values.
We talk about smelts, clams, oysters and the list goes on. In
fact, the Marshall case dealt with eels. The fact is that all of
them will have to eventually be translated into accommodations in
terms of how native and non-native fishermen will approach the
fishery.
The point is that not only have native people been restricted in
terms of the fishery; the people on the west coast talk about the
public right to fish. On the Atlantic side we do not have the
public right to fish. Fishing has been closely regulated and
people have obtained fishing licences as a result of having paid
fees over the years which have been applied by certain
regulations.
I hope that in some way this matter can be resolved. In the
Miramichi constituency we have people with fear. People are
afraid that others may infringe on their rights. We have had
burnings, we have had trucks destroyed. There was a special
healing site that the native people in Burnt Church
burned by fire. A house has been destroyed. All of those things
have created great problems in our community. With it, people
who have lived side by side for some 200 years are suddenly no
longer great friends.
I hope that in the debate tonight we can bring some reason to
this problem that has been created in the Atlantic fishery, that
people can restore some faith in their ability to relate and
understand other people and that, above all, in the near future
we can develop a fishery which can accommodate people, both
native and non-native, and that the fishery can work in the best
interests of the economy of Atlantic Canada.
I also wish to point out one final point. Burnt Church is a
very isolated reserve. It consists of between 900 and 1,100
people, depending upon the season. The people of Burnt Church
have great economic needs. I think that is true of a great
number of reserves across the country. There are some 600 of
them. Many of them lack the economic resources to develop their
own people and to provide a livelihood for their children.
Let us put all of that into perspective and hope that we as
Canadians and as parliamentarians can join together to see a
resolution to this great problem that will accommodate most of
our people.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, it was suggested that returning to court for a stay of
judgment and a rehearing was cherry picking. It is not the case.
The purpose of returning to court would be to avoid the type of
confrontation we have seen and to seek a clarification of the
court's intent in this decision.
2145
For example, would they permit an infringement of the treaty
right that they recommended? I refer to paragraph 75 of the
Gladstone decision where the court itself recognized that others
had acquired rights to fish. It said that reconciliation of
aboriginal societies with the rest of Canadian society may well
depend on achieving that balance.
Does the member opposite not see a value in returning to the
court and getting the court's opinion on how these conflicting
rights could be adequately addressed?
Mr. Charles Hubbard: Mr. Speaker, I am not a lawyer and I
certainly have to take under advisement what the hon. member has
asked.
The conclusion I come to is that since the early 1980s we have
brought the Constitution home and the supreme court is the
supreme court. Certainly the Department of Justice may work out
with members of the court an interpretation of some of their
statements in terms of that judgment, but we cannot turn our
backs on a supreme court decision.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I would like
to ask a question of my colleague from the riding of Miramichi,
which is adjacent to the riding of Acadie—Bathurst.
I sympathize with the problems in his riding, but they are the
same as in my riding.
My colleague told us that fishers went to see him in his office
on Wednesday, and all the problems occurred on Sunday. Then we
learned that the minister went there two weeks later. I would
like my colleague to comment on this situation. Is he
disappointed with his minister's attitude or does he approve of
the minister's slowness in handling this whole issue? There
is a crisis in our region, and we must take action.
I think the minister should not even be here tonight. He should
be in Atlantic Canada trying to solve the problems of native and
non-native fishers.
[English]
Mr. Charles Hubbard: Mr. Speaker, in New Jersey on
Thursday of last week I met with a number of people and I visited
the Burnt Church reserve a short time later. I made a statement
that generally all people are good people but there are people in
every group who want to create major problems.
I know that in terms of what happened there, we were unfortunate
to have outsiders come to Burnt Church. It was also unfortunate
that some of the fishermen did what they did.
On the afternoon in question, members of the MFU and I spoke
with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I called him on the
phone and he was readily available. We discussed the problem in
the presence of the MFU representatives. We said to them that
there should be a solution early next week.
That the boats came from outside the constituency on the weekend
certainly was a major factor. From that, the Sunday morning
episode resulted and then the Sunday night episode shortly after
I visited. I was down there that evening from about 6.30 to 7
p.m. and shortly toward dark those vehicles were destroyed. It
is a very unfortunate thing, but the point is that it happened
and we all have to live with it. Hopefully the minister in the
fine efforts he made in the week since has brought some
resolution to it. He has met with the 30 chiefs. He certainly
had great courage in doing so and I want to commend him for it.
He met with the MFU and hopefully we can resolve this.
Ms. Angela Vautour (Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, PC): Mr.
Speaker, native communities, like many non-native communities,
are in some economic difficulties. The hon. member for Miramichi
mentioned that. There are a lot of native communities in
difficulties. That is why it is so important now that there is
an opportunity for them to have some work in the fishing industry
we make sure that 10 years from now there are still lobster out
there. That is going to benefit both communities.
Would the hon. member agree that we could have seen more
leadership on the part of his government, because conservation is
the solution to this? We have to get around the table. It is
very clear that conservation is what—
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): The hon. member for
Miramichi has 30 seconds, please.
2150
Mr. Charles Hubbard: Mr. Speaker, the leadership was very
evident. I was satisfied with the leadership the minister
provided. I am glad to see the hon. member opposite, who has a
very large native community of her own, speaking up for them
and representing them in the House. I thank her for that.
Mr. Mike Scott (Skeena, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to
engage in the debate this evening.
I would like to start by focusing my remarks on the supreme
court. I do not doubt for one moment its sincerity. I do not
doubt for one moment its character or the integrity of the nine
justices who sit on the supreme court, as I do not doubt the
integrity and the character of members opposite and of members in
other political parties who hold different views than I do on
this issue.
I would hope that members opposite would refrain from attacking
the character and motives of people in this party every time the
Reform Party disagrees with them on a philosophical basis on
issues that are so fundamentally important to the future of
Canada.
In saying that, I want to focus on the supreme court. Many
people and many members in the House look at the Supreme Court of
Canada in awe. They somehow see these nine justices as being
virtually infallible and that somehow we have to accept anything
handed down from the supreme court as being the final word. It
is as if these people were anointed or appointed by some higher
being, by some deity that is unknown to us.
The fact is that the nine justices on the supreme court were all
appointed by partisan prime ministers, either Conservative or
Liberal. Over the past 30 or 40 years all the existing justices
on the supreme court have received their elevation to the bench
in that manner. While I would never want to accuse any of the
justices on the supreme court of being partisan, it is important
to note that I recognize that they are appointed within a certain
milieu, a certain political prevailing philosophy.
For about three decades or more that certain political
prevailing philosophy can be characterized in several different
ways. We could call it more and more the posture of the
politically correct. We could call it progressive enlightened
thinking. Or, let me borrow from Thomas Sowell, the great
American writer who said in his excellent book The Vision of
the Anointed that these people have become enraptured with a
certain vision that is predominantly a Liberal left vision. The
philosophy of that is so evident in our political, social and
academic institutions. It has become progressively more so over
the last three or four decades.
We are not saying that these are bad people. We are not saying
that their characters are flawed. We are not saying that they
ought to be harshly rebuked and criticized for the views they
hold. What we do say is that they are fundamentally wrong in
their thinking. That is the problem we have with this issue
today.
The people who embrace this vision of the anointed, again to
borrow from Thomas Sowell, assume their own moral superiority
because they are convinced of the rightness of their cause.
Therefore, they believe they are somehow morally on a higher
plane than anybody else. They believe that anybody who disagrees
is not only morally wrong, but is in sin. We can see the
evidence of that in the debate in this chamber from time to time.
Also, these people who are ensconced in this vision of the
anointed also tend to insulate themselves from the reality of the
impacts of their own decisions. They do not want to see the
reality of the decisions they make. When they make a decision
and feedback comes back to them that somehow something has really
gone wrong, they point their fingers at anyone and everyone and
any other thing they can possibly dream up rather than seriously
examine from an intellectually honest point of view their own
positions and decisions to see how they affected the outcomes
that they do not really want to see.
2155
I submit that the Supreme Court of Canada is very much caught up
in this vision of the anointed. The political institutions of
this country, the Liberal Party in particular, are also very much
caught up in this vision of the anointed.
What we have is a people who fervently believe that they can
right the wrongs of history by ignoring the lessons of history.
They do not want to give any regard to history's lessons. They
do not want to give regard to basic democratic principles and
values. They think they can ignore basic democratic principles
and values and that because they are somehow more clever, gifted
or more able, they can concoct some kind of new societal
arrangement that will be successful while ignoring those
principles.
I submit that 10,000 years of human history has proven that
cannot be achieved. Without democracy we return to the barbarism
that all our ancestors experienced in the past. Regardless of
who we are in this House, that is where we came from. We learned
that through 10,000 years of recorded human history. We learned
from experience. We learned by trial and error and many
different kinds of societal arrangements that the best way to
arrange our affairs so that we can have peace, harmony,
prosperity and human rights is through basic democratic
institutions.
The cornerstone or founding principle of democracy is the
equality of all people before the law. We cannot have it any
other way. We cannot be so smart, egotistical or arrogant as to
believe we can somehow rearrange society and give special status
and rights to be assigned on whatever basis, blindly ignoring the
lessons of history and basic democratic principles and expect
that we will have peace and harmony in society.
I submit that the evidence of that is before us today. We have
had three or four decades of successive policies emanating from
government that have tried to encourage Canadians, aboriginal
Canadians in particular, that this somehow can happen and that it
somehow can work. Not just in the case of the east coast lobster
fishery but right across the country we are seeing more and more
evidence that not only does it not work but it is leading to real
conflict and disharmony in our society. It is not healthy.
I do not doubt the sincerity of the justices on the supreme
court and that they were trying to do the right thing. I
question how they could come up with the decision they did when
the treaty of 1760 on which they relied to render this decision
does not even mention fish.
Clearly what they were trying to do was right the wrongs of
history by reading into this treaty things that were not there
and trying to create some kind of different societal structure
that would in their view be a benefit to the Mi'kmaq people.
As much as there are people in the east coast lobster fishery
right now who are being displaced and are hurting financially and
will continue to hurt financially until this issue is resolved,
the people who will pay the biggest price for this folly before
it is all said and done will be the Mi'kmaq people themselves.
I will say it again for anybody in the House who cares to
listen. The people who will pay the biggest price before it is
all said and done will be the Mi'kmaq people themselves.
Unless the government can demonstrate leadership on this and can
break with its failed vision of the past and embrace the genuine
basic principles of democracy and encourage our aboriginal
brothers and sisters to do the same, we will be in real trouble.
We can see it coming everywhere. I take absolutely no pleasure
in saying this but it is coming. It can be seen everywhere: the
Musqueam in Vancouver, the east coast lobster fishery, in
Manitoba and in Northern B.C.
It is coming because we have had this political rhetoric in
Canada that has encouraged aboriginal people to go down this
path. Think about that for a minute. Talk about encouraging
aboriginal people in the wrong direction.
I would wager that the sons and daughters of members in this
place are not trying to forge a future for themselves in a
fishery somewhere. The resource industries in Canada are mature
to say the least and some of them are over mature as my colleague
from Delta pointed out. Some of these are declining industries.
2200
The future economy in Canada and in the world is in high
technology, in transportation and in the global economy. It is
not in fish. The people who are in the fishery right now are
there because they have a historical attachment to it. They have
a history with it and are earning a living right now. I would
wager that if we were to ask virtually any of those individuals,
were they 18 or 19 and had to make the decision all over again,
they would not be going into a fishery. They would be going into
something else where they could see a much more sustainable and
prosperous future for themselves and their families.
What we are telling all other Canadians is that they should get
into the information age and the technological age and think
about the future in terms of global trade and global economies.
We then turn to the aboriginal people and tell them to think of
the future in terms of the fishery and logging, in terms of
resource extraction and those industries that are already mature
in Canada.
It is only within democratic institutions that the value and
worth of the ordinary individual is found. When we get into
assigning rights and status on the basis of anything other than
individual equality, we end up going backward in time. We end up
building walls rather than bridges and we end up creating real
conflict in society over time.
The supreme court and the democratic institutions of the country
genuinely believe they can achieve what human beings have never
been able to achieve in the past 10,000 years. The evidence that
they cannot is before us today.
The Marshall decision from the supreme court should be a real
wake-up call for everyone who is considering what the Nisga'a
agreement means. The treaty I am talking about in this instance
is a very thin document. The Nisga'a treaty is 200 pages long
with 400 pages of appendices and 50 or so agreements that have
yet to be negotiated and do not even fall within the agreement as
it exists today. Each one of those conditions is subject to a
supreme court decision at some point in the future. Consider
what that might mean for our country.
The people who have negotiated these treaties have no idea. When
we suggested in the spring that they submit that treaty to the
supreme court for a reference so we could find out what the
supreme court's view would be on the application of the charter
of rights and freedoms and what the supreme court's view would be
with respect to the constitutionality of that agreement, those
people were so arrogant and so sure of themselves, again assuming
their own moral superiority, that they looked at us, tried to
mischaracterize what we were saying and ignored the warnings we
were trying to give them.
We have been trying to give these warnings for six years in this
place. We have been trying for six years to say, “hold on, we
think you'd better think this through again. You'd better take
another look at it”. It is not because we question their
character, not because we question their motives, not because we
think they are bad people, because we do not, but because we know
they are fundamentally wrong.
I would argue that the empirical evidence supports us. The
empirical evidence supports exactly what the Reform Party of
Canada has been saying since its inception. When we break away
from the equality of all Canadians, when we start assigning
special status or special rights or special access to resources,
when we start assigning different rights to people on any basis,
we have a recipe for disaster. We have a recipe for disaster on
the east coast of Canada right now.
I do not know what the answer is but I do know how we got here.
I know the government needs to take leadership. It needs to
demonstrate that it has the ability to lead and to govern for
peace, order and good government which it fails to do.
It routinely allows decisions to be made by the supreme court so
it can duck the responsibility and the potential follow up for
making those decisions itself. That is why we are in the
predicament we are in today.
2205
I submit that there are people in the federal government and the
justice department who are constitutional and legal experts.
There has to be ways of dealing with this issue that will be
fair, affordable and lead to a resolve of the issue.
The very first responsibility of this government or any federal
government has to be to reach out to those aboriginal people who
are caught betwixt and between and tell them that their existence
with special status has never been of any benefit to them at all.
We need to rethink the relationship between the aboriginal people
and the Government of Canada and the rest of Canada. Obviously
the existing relationship has not worked to the benefit of
aboriginal people and has not worked to the benefit of Canada.
It is time that we broke from the failed thinking and failed
policies of the past and came up with some new ideas, some new
visions and some new ways to move forward. If we do not do that,
I fear that we are in for more conflict, more unrest and more of
these kinds of events that have been occurring on the east coast
of Canada. I do believe that there is a potential for that if
this government does not demonstrate that it has the ability to
lead and the ability to change its thinking on these fundamental
issues.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I can see that many members want to put questions,
so I would like to give the hon. member for Skeena the
opportunity to speak while the Ministers of Fisheries and Oceans
and Indian Affairs are here, by asking him the following
question.
Since the House of Commons has recognized the need to hold, on
this very first day of the session, after the government has
prorogued Parliament, an emergency debate on the fishery crisis
and the Marshall judgment, would it not have been important for
the government to immediately re-establish both the standing
committees on aboriginal affairs and fisheries, so that we could
find out who would be representing the government on these
committees?
Some members have told us tonight “We are not lawyers nor
constitutional law experts”.
This committee would have had the opportunity and the money to
examine the ins and outs of this issue and help us make a more
informed decision on what is happening here.
I have the feeling that the government, just like the minister
who would like us to believe that he is doing something, would
have us go round in circles. I would remind the House that we do
not even have the right to vote on the issue being debated here
tonight. In the end, I feel like I may be losing my time here,
when there are things to be negotiated.
In the meantime, to be able to inform the people we represent,
we should have access to correct and relevant information. I
would like to know if my hon. colleague from Skeena is as eager
as I am to find out the truth and to see if the government is
indeed out of money.
[English]
Mr. Mike Scott: Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate my
friend's question. We have sat on the fisheries committee
together in the past and I have appreciated his contribution.
I think the member would agree with me, since we have both sat
on committees for a number of years now, in some cases together
and in some cases apart, that the Liberal government is not
fundamentally interested in having committees decide anything. It
does not really want the committees to get into these issues and
examine them because the committee might make some
recommendations that it would not want to have to deal with.
I am sure the hon. member would tend to agree with me that the
government really does not know how to deal with the issue in
front of it right now.
It is almost like somebody rolled a grenade into the room. The
government does not know how to deal with it but it certainly
does not want to allow any other body other than itself to come
up with the final decision on it. Part of the problem with our
parliamentary system is that it is just not functioning the way
it is supposed to.
2210
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the
comments of the member for Skeena and the fact that he believes
there are enough constitutional lawyers, enough legal opinions
and enough bureaucrats in Ottawa to help find some sort of
solution to this problem.
Would the member not agree with me that the real solution to
this issue probably lies in the fishermen themselves and in the
coastal communities of Atlantic Canada? In the last 26 days that
this decision has been rendered, we have heard time and time
again that the aboriginal people and non-aboriginal people have
been getting together to come up with short term and then long
term solutions for the long term viability and conservation
minded aspects of the fishery. The problem of course is that the
government is not giving any human or financial resources to aid
those people in their consultations.
Would the member not agree that a better solution to this would
be from the ground up instead of the top down?
Mr. Mike Scott: Mr. Speaker, I would have to agree with
my friend that in most cases bottom up solutions are better.
Being a member of a populace party, we certainly believe in
populism and in grassroots democracy. I would like to think that
there is hope for a resolution along those lines and maybe there
will be. I am not saying there will not. Far be it for me to
throw cold water on that idea. Obviously something has to be
done.
What we have right now are two fundamentally competing
interests. Human nature being what it is, it is going to be very
difficult to reconcile those competing interests. Whether it can
be done from the bottom up or not remains to be seen. Hopefully
there is some goodwill on both sides. Hopefully there is an
attempt being made as we speak to reconcile and to move forward
in some spirit of cooperation.
We have seen other examples in other parts of Canada where we
have competing interests and where there is a real economic value
at stake, it is often difficult if not impossible to have that
kind of reconciliation from the ground up. I am not saying it
cannot happen. I am just saying that I am not holding my breath.
Mr. Derrek Konrad (Prince Albert, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, our
national anthem states that this is our home and native land.
That applies to all Canadians. The Mi'kmaq and the fishermen of
Atlantic Canada have lived side by side in peace for hundreds of
years. All of a sudden one segment of society feels like it has
a second class citizenship, that their citizenship is not a full
citizenship anymore and we have bad relations all of a sudden.
My hon. colleague has commented on the bad situation that is
occurring. Before I ask him to comment further on that, I would
like to say that our national anthem also says that we stand on
guard for thee. I would like to know who is standing guard for
the nation?
Every group has its defenders. Every group has people who speak
for it. I would like to know who is going to speak for the
nation in this debate.
Mr. Mike Scott: Mr. Speaker, speaking for the nation is
the role of the federal government. Obviously right now we feel
that it is sadly failing in that capacity. There is no
demonstrated leadership from the federal government right now and
that is a big part of the problem.
In speaking to the first comment made by my hon. colleague, I
would have to go back to the comments I made in my intervention.
When we break from basic democratic principles and values, when
we wander away from the principle of the equality of all citizens
before the law, regardless of how good our intentions are,
regardless of how noble our motives are, we are creating the
environment that leads to the kind of conflict and confrontation
that we see today.
2215
Human nature is universal. Human nature has been with us as
long as there have been human beings. It is universal and it
does not change. We have learned over a period of 10,000 years
that with basic democratic institutions we can arrange society in
a way that we can move forward in peace and harmony. When we
start to undermine those basic core principles and values we get
the kind of results that we see today on the east coast of
Canada.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the Nisga'a treaty gives 25% of the salmon returning to
the Nass River to the Nisga'a. Four other bands are competing
for access to that resource whose treaty claims have not been
negotiated.
The Nisga'a treaty is a modern version of the 1760 treaty in
Marshall that the supreme court ruled on. It is a much expanded
version, by the way, in that it gives natives a priority right to
fish.
Seeing that there is so much consternation in the House today I
would like to ask the member to his knowledge what position have
other parties taken with regard to the Nisga'a treaty, given its
close proximity in relationship to the treaty we are discussing.
Mr. Mike Scott: Mr. Speaker, to the very best of my
knowledge every party in the House save the Reform Party of
Canada is supportive of the Nisga'a treaty. Every party has
indicated that they will be voting in favour of the treaty. Every
party has expressed a desire to have the treaty passed with
speed.
Frankly that is a good question by the member from Delta because
with the problems that we see coming out of the supreme court in
the Marshall case, based on this ancient treaty which as I said
is very thin, we can just imagine the kinds of problems that
could arise from the Nisga'a treaty. It really bears sober
second thought. It really bears a good debate and it really
bears careful consideration of the kinds of problems we might be
opening ourselves to down the road, given the instance of the
Marshall decision and how it has impacted on the east coast
fishery.
Mr. Ted McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra, Lib.): Mr. Speaker,
I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Malpeque.
This has been an interesting debate, a fruitful debate.
Sometimes I wondered what the debate was about. We had a lot of
discussion about the Supreme Court of Canada and about judicial
law making. That is a valuable subject but it might deserve an
arena in its own right. It does touch on the issue of the
fisheries and the issue of aboriginal rights, and I will treat it
only in that context and where it does have a relevance.
The important thing to remember here is the maxim of the wisest
of common law legal philosophers, Jeremy Bentham. He was saying
that law was not made by any single person or institution. He
used his great phrase “by judge and company”. When one asked
him what he meant he said it was not simply the judges but it was
the people who make the laws, the people who apply the laws and
the parties who bring cases to the court. I will have something
to say on that in a moment.
There has been criticism of our supreme court but I suggested at
the time of the adoption of the charter of rights and freedoms in
1982 that it would effect fundamental changes in our
constitutional system and it logically should be accompanied by a
reform, a recasting of the supreme court and the judicial role.
Not having had this advice followed, I have sympathy for judges
who are under attack. What I am about to suggest is a larger
role for the judiciary and for other constitutional players.
One of the most thoughtful of our members of the press gallery,
Jeffrey Simpson, wrote several weeks ago in an article that
reminded me of something I wrote many years ago on the discussion
of Brown v Board of Education which has been much criticized in
the House and elsewhere but by people who never the read the
judgment. This so often happens.
Brown v Board of Education is really two cases. One is the
actual judgment on school segregation.
2220
The second is the follow-up decision in Brown v Board of
Education. That is where we get the famous phrase which was
borrowed directly from English law in the 17th century of moving
with all deliberate speed. It is a phrase taken from equity. It
was used by Mr. Justice Felix Frankfurter, the greatest of the
Roosevelt appointments to the supreme court. It directed
attention to the basic point that complex social problems require
complex solutions which need complex evidence.
This is where the United States supreme court has perfected a
role that may be helpful to us to study. The solution of
fisheries problems on the east coast, the solution of logging
problems on the west bank of Okanagan Lake, and the solution of
other problems of aboriginal rights should be done best against a
background of social economic evidence. We have in this country,
because I see them consulted internationally, experts in economic
resources and economic resource management. This is the sort of
case for wise decision that requires taking that type of evidence
into account.
The big thrust of the second decision in Brown v the Board of
Education was that there was a role for a third party in
monitoring the solution. The emphasis of the phrase “with all
deliberate speed” was that it would not be a solution achieved
in one day, or in a single ruling, but might require a number of
years of supervision, monitoring, consulting with and directing
the parties.
This is where a role, whether it is executive, legislative,
judicial, or a combination of both, is an essential part of the
problem solving. In the American context it was clearly an ample
judicial role. This in the Canadian context has to be borne in
mind in connection with the nature of our supreme court.
I am very much surprised and a little disturbed because I think
it follows from lack of study of supreme court decisions a
suggestion of class bias in the Supreme Court of Canada. I would
not have found that at all. I would have suggested a highly
technical approach that sometimes would benefit by more opening
to sociological facts, economic facts which are the root of
decision making. In this case I would call for a Brandeis brief.
The whole nature of jurisprudence before the constitutional
court is the adducing of evidence, social and economic evidence.
In the case of fisheries it would be the nature of the resource,
how much is there, what proposals cans be made for its
utilization and for its sharing. Here I take us back to one of
the nicer phrases of our supreme court, one of the wiser
counsels, the obligations to negotiate and to negotiate in good
faith. It is a very positive factor in my approach to the
Nisga'a treaty which I believe the chief and council of the
Nisga'a band negotiated in good faith.
I would be less supportive of other initiatives in this area if
I did not have the same feeling of satisfaction that negotiation
in good faith involves a concept of recognition of good
neighbourliness. These are phrases that the World Court has used
but they apply equally in the common law from which the Polish
judge who cited them borrowed those phrases directly.
There are important gaps in our law as to aboriginal rights and
treaty rights. One of these very obviously is the meaning of
aboriginal rights and treaty rights. They are in sections 25 and
35 of the charter, but they were put there as what is called
saving clauses. There is a Latin phrase for them. I will simply
translate it for greater caution. They are put in there because
they were not there in the original charter of rights. It was
correctly felt to be necessary to put them in, but it was left to
later constitutional actors to define and flesh them out. Whether
executive, legislative, or judicial was not made clear, but that
is certainly open to development.
There are further gaps in the law in so far as section 35(1)
saves existing rights, but section 35(3) which was adopted 12
months later recognizes and constitutionalizes future treaties.
2225
I have expressed in the House some questions on this point.
Could a future treaty which ran counter to the charter or the
constitution proper be constitutionalized and override them?
That is an error or a gap being pointed out that was carefully
corrected by the then minister of Indian affairs in the Native
Lands Administration Act, Bill C-49. I believe it is corrected
in the federal enacting legislation for the Nisga'a treaty. I
simply point out that there is the need for work to be done.
I welcome in the exchanges in this debate the recognition by the
two ministers who have spoken, the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans and the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, that it is not possible to view aboriginal rights in
the context of single departments isolated from each other. We
are moving toward a comprehensive view, but it is an educational
process that involves all the institutions of government and may,
I respectfully suggest, involve all the members of Parliament. It
is a learning experience for us.
In particular, one of the things I would suggest is that there
is too much absolutism in this area. The original theories of
acquisition of rights by European settlers, whether they were
British, French, German or Danish—one can run through the
list—were based on absolutist theories such as terra nullius or
unoccupied land. These theories were rejected by the
International Court in 1975 and, to give credit, were accepted by
the early 1980s in Canadian thinking as incorrect. The evidence
led to the constitution repatriation project that was accepted.
I would also suggest that it is an equal error to proceed to
other absolutist views that it is one or the other, that one
party wins absolutely and one loses absolutely. The wise
solutions here are in the recognition of comparative rights, that
original so to speak inherent rights may also be subject to being
balanced by supervening rights, particularly supervening rights
obtained in good faith by those exercising them.
What we are getting into is a complicated process of
identifying, quantifying and balancing different competing
rights. The solutions here, and there ample ways of doing it
that require work, are in terms of comparative equities. Some of
this work has been done in the complicated business of deciding
property rights in central Europe which was originally under
national territorial title, then under Soviet occupation, then
under local communist governments, and then under post-communist
governments. The solution is never one absolutely that these are
one's rights and everybody else loses. It is a complicated
process of sorting out and in a way sharing. This is where we
come back to the concept of judge and company. All the players
are involved.
This debate shows a recognition that some sort of long range
solution is needed, but I do think we will need the courts as a
part of it. I do not think executive legislative authority can
do it alone. I do not think legislation can do it. I think the
court can be brought into the processes more fully.
Those would be my suggestions to the House. Criticisms of the
court, as such, should be saved for another occasion and we will
put forward suggestions for improving the court. We may find
that the judges are very well—
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): I am terribly sorry
to interrupt, but if I did not stand I do not think the hon.
member for Vancouver Quadra would sit down.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I can see that you are trying to please everyone,
but you should not make enemies in your own party.
Many members would like to speak, so I will ask the two
questions I have. I am a bit surprised at the suggestion that we
should go back to the court with this decision.
2230
Let me ask first this question, just to make sure I did not
misunderstand the last remarks of the hon. member opposite. Did
he say that we will have to go back to the court to get an
interpretation of the decision in the Marshall case?
Here is my second question. The hon. member has been talking
about absolutist views, whereas in reality nothing is ever
totally black or white. How can we deal with the situation, when
the court asks us to do our job and negotiate what a moderate
livelihood should mean?
Would the hon. member care to comment?
Mr. Ted McWhinney: Mr. Speaker, I suggested earlier a much more
complex process involving the co-operation of three institutions,
that is the supreme court, the executive and the parliament. I
think that with such a process, it would take years to work out
solutions to problems like the one on the east coast.
Could the hon. member repeat his second question?
Mr. Yvan Bernier: I wanted to know what a moderate livelihood
is.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): I am sorry to interrupt,
but the hon. member's time is up. The hon. member for Delta—South
Richmond.
[English]
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, the member opposite raised the column by Jeffrey Simpson
which appeared in the Globe and Mail. I quote from a
couple of paragraphs:
That court ruled in 1954 in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka
that the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine used to
justify segregation was unconstitutional because “separate
educational facilities are inherently unequal”.
It is an interesting concept when applied to the fisheries here.
Mr. Simpson went on to write:
Usually forgotten is that there were two Brown cases. The next
year, after hearing evidence about how the 1954 ruling should be
applied, the court gave school and political authorities
breathing room to implement the first decision. The judges said
authorities should act with “all deliberate speed” and required
them to “make a prompt and reasonable start”.
They did not, in either the first or second Brown rulings,
require that the next day the existing order of things be
overturned. The court was obviously alive both to the important
principles it enunciated and to the need for a period of
adjustment.
Would that the Supreme Court of Canada had been so alive in the
Marshall case.
Given these comments, would the member opposite not think it
wise and prudent to go back to the court for a stay of judgment
and a rehearing of the case to give some advise to the
government?
Mr. Ted McWhinney: Mr. Speaker, that was the question of
the hon. member opposite and we answered it on the general point.
What Mr. Simpson is referring to is what in fact followed with
Brown v the Board of Education No. 2. It was a process that was
before the courts over a considerable number of years, not just a
one shot return. I have nothing against the one shot return, but
I would envisage the solution of this problem, west coast logging
and similar problems, a process that involves court and executive
power working together, the parties constantly before the courts
and over a period of years. In my view that would be a
sophisticated solution.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, with
respect, I have a question for the member on a point that the
Reform is making. We should be going back to the courts. Part
of the problem is that we have depended upon the courts to settle
these issues instead of depending upon modern day treaties where
we look at some type of conclusion and closure to the entire
issue.
If we continue to fight the before the courts we will get deeper
and deeper into the quagmire we are in. It is a mistake to go in
that direction. I would like the member's comments on that and
the fact that if we continue to go before the courts we should
listen to what the courts have told us in every solution they
have brought down. This is not their job. They do not see it as
their job and they do not want it to be their job.
Mr. Ted McWhinney: Mr. Speaker, I would not put words
into the mouth of the courts as to what they want and do not
want. I would simply say, though, that this sort of solution
when we are dealing with sharing a scarce resource does not allow
for quick judgments by executive or legislative authority.
It is better done by a third party that can examine evidence and
weigh it.
2235
That seems to me to be best done by a court. I envisage a
process where evidence is led to the court and where it is
reasoned over and argued over. If we go that way we are into
comparative equities. That is what I was talking about.
Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, a lot has
been said tonight but we need to take a look at the motion itself
and pull things into perspective. The motion reads:
That this House take note of the difficulties in Canadian
fisheries, especially as complicated by the Queen and Marshall
case and its implications for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal
peoples and for the future management of natural resources.
Some have taken sides on that motion tonight. I want to
specifically say that I am not taking sides. We have to
recognize the decision and try to figure out a strategy as a
government and as members of the parliament of Canada on how we
implement that decision in a fair and reasonable way and ensure
that all those players who fish and make their livelihoods at
other natural resources can do so in a way that conserves the
stocks and live in reasonable prosperity.
As the motion says, we are indeed faced with a serious crisis.
Some members have mentioned this evening that this crisis seems
to be escalating with the potential collapse of the voluntary
moratorium negotiated by the minister last Sunday. I have talked
to the minister a number of times about the issue. I know he had
hoped that goodwill and tolerance would prevail. Over the
weekend the minister had gone a long way to achieving a
satisfactory interim solution.
Given the news we heard in the media tonight that may have
broken down. I would appeal and I hope others would join me in
appealing to the Mi'kmaq chiefs and others in those communities
to let the agreement of last Sunday stand. What we really need
is peace in the water and a timeframe in which to institute a
regulatory plan to manage the fishery situation in a reasonable
way.
The seriousness of the situation is perhaps outlined best by a
constituent of mine, Barry Murray, who is a fisherman in the
Malpeque Bay area. He wrote to the Minister of Fisheries and
Oceans. I will quote sections from his letter because it
outlines the seriousness. He wrote:
There are individuals with strong feelings on both sides of this
argument, and these personalities are at a heightened state of
volatility that will take very few more sparks to ignite
violence. Once started, this slippery slope may quite possibly
devastate both communities. I am not trying to exaggerate.
There is potential for a lobster stock crisis and community
unrest that would rival the cod crisis of the early eighties.
He closed by saying:
Mr. Minister, please close these out of control aboriginal
fisheries for conservation reasons until such a time that an
agreement can be put in place that will amply protect the stocks
and protect our fishing communities.
Mr. Murray outlines the serious volatility and the serious
situation in terms of the lobster fish stocks in Malpeque Bay,
the area he knows best.
I do not mind admitting I am disappointed that the supreme court
did not grant a timeframe. I do not know why, whether it is the
responsibility of justice lawyers or the supreme court, but I am
disappointed that the supreme court did not grant a timeframe
within which to institute the regulatory plan to address the
treaty rights.
2240
It is important for us to look at the facts tonight. We are
hearing all kinds of things, and people are basing their
interpretations of what the supreme court said on the media
instead of on reading the judgment.
What did the decision say? The supreme court found that Donald
Marshall had a treaty right to fish for and to sell eels, which
extended beyond the already established right of aboriginal
people to fish for food and ceremonial purposes.
The court also stated that this right to sell fish would be
carried out within certain limits. Section 58 of the decision
states:
What is contemplated is not a right to trade generally for
economic gain but rather a right to trade for necessaries. The
treaty right is a regulated right and can be contained by
regulation within its proper limits.
The court indicated that necessaries had been defined as
moderate livelihood which according to the court in section 59
includes “such basics as food, clothing and housing supplemented
by a few amenities but not the accumulation of wealth. It
addresses day to day needs”.
Section 61 of the decision places the limitations of the
Marshall decision within context. According to this section it
is very important that “catch limits that could reasonably be
expected to produce a moderate livelihood for individual Mi'kmaq
families at present day standards can be established by
regulation and enforced without violating the treaty right. In
that case regulations would accommodate the treaty right”.
That is what the decision states. Members opposite have accused
the minister and the government of not acting on the issue. The
fact is that the government had been proactive. The aboriginal
fishing strategy has been in place since 1992. Because of the
Sparrow decision it was moving along the line and doing what the
supreme court now recognizes as a right.
The aboriginal fishing strategy was the government's response to
the Sparrow decision. Through the aboriginal fishing strategy the
Government of Canada and DFO were buying licenses from retiring
fishermen and turning them over to the aboriginal community so it
could have a livelihood on the water as the supreme court said is
its right. Thirty-two million dollars annually has been spent on
the aboriginal fishing strategy. The member from Delta can like
it or lump it. Those are the facts.
The court did affirm certain rights of the Mi'kmaq that
originated with the treaties extending back to 1760. What is at
issue here is not the ruling but how to respond in a balanced way
to the aboriginal community and the non-aboriginal community so
they can survive and prosper together.
I applaud the minister for his efforts through dialogue and
co-operation. However, if things might be happening tonight and
the fishing effort is above the amount anticipated when the
minister made his decision last Sunday, I believe he should
consider using his authority under section 43 of the Fisheries
Act in the interest of conservation. At the moment the impact of
even a small fishing effort on lobsters could be serious.
Let us we look at what has been happening with the government
over the last number of years. We could go back to a release by
the former minister of fisheries on April 22, 1998. It outlines
that the November 1995 report of the Fisheries Resources
Conservation Council advised that lobster fishermen were “taking
too much and leaving too little”.
2245
As a result of the FRCC report and as the minister of the day
decided that we needed to double lobster egg production in the
lobster fishing areas, new conservation measures were instituted.
Escape mechanisms were put on traps. Lobster tariffs and sizes
were increased. V-notching was considered. Quite a number of
management measures were imposed upon the industry. It is
serious.
I maintain that if there is any lobster fishing over
and above what the minister anticipated on his agreement reached
last Sunday, then he has the authority to act under section 43 of
the Fisheries Act. He should take that authority and institute
that action to prevent jeopardizing the future of the lobster
fishery.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, even though the Liberal member who just spoke has a lot
of support for his comments from the Conservative Party behind
me, that does not mean to say that he is correct. When he said
that the aboriginal fishing strategy of British Columbia was a
direct result of the efforts by the government to try to enact
the provisions of the Sparrow decision of the Supreme Court of
Canada, he is just plain wrong, as was the judge in the R.
v Houvinen case, which was recently ruled on by the British
Columbia supreme court.
The Sparrow decision of the Supreme Court of Canada expressly
refused to deal with the native commercial fishery. That was
left for subsequent cases, namely Gladstone, Vanderpeet and
NTC Smokehouse.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): I am sorry, we will
have to ask the hon. member for Malpeque to respond to that
because there are two others.
Mr. Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, I would very much love to
answer that question.
If members will recall what I said to the member for
Delta—South Richmond and what I said in my remarks, it was that the
government was being proactive. The government recognized in the
Sparrow decision the right of the fishery for food and ceremonial
purposes.
We recognized as a government that there may be other treaty
rights coming along and that we had to involve the aboriginal
community in the fishery sector. We took a proactive strategy by
trying to do that through the aboriginal fishing strategy to
bring the aboriginal community in, in a managed way. That is what
we were doing and we were moving well on it. That is what it
is all about.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I have never seen so many people taking part so
enthusiastically in a debate on fisheries.
I would like to ask a question of the former parliamentary
secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I would like
to ask him to comment on the speech made by the Secretary of
State for Children and Youth, who said that, according to her,
catches by native fishers on the east coast represent only 1% of
commercial catches.
I would like to know where the member stands on what the
secretary of state said.
We just heard his call for calm to both native and non-native
fishers.
If this is about 1%, then somebody in the government must tell
us how the others will be compensated. Otherwise, I see a double
standard.
[English]
Mr. Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, I will let the
ministers speak for themselves. I will as well. I always have
spoken for myself and I will continue to do that.
I do not want to get into a numbers game. The numbers game has
been played in the media a fair bit, that there is only such and
such a number of traps. We have to keep in mind that in
Malpeque Bay and some areas in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at
this time of year they trap at about five times the rate of that in
June. We cannot go by the trap numbers or percentages
necessarily.
2250
If we go back to my remarks, what I argued was conservation.
The food fishery for the native community in Malpeque Bay was
shut down. In my view, any lobsters taken over and above the
current management plans, which are already maxed out in terms of
the pressure on the resource, could be considered a concern for
conservation. We have to look at the current management plans
and ensure that there is no greater effort on that resource as a
result of this decision until we have the regulatory regime in
place that recognizes this decision and does it in a managed way.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to the remarks by the
hon. member whose riding is across the Northumberland Strait
from my own in Nova Scotia. As parliamentary secretary he was
very involved in the ministry and speaks quite authoritatively
about issues like conservation, changing the carapace size, which he
supported even against some of the wishes of the fishers in his
area, and other measures which were taken.
How is this tardy response on this decision, which permits
native fishers to enter this fishery unfettered by regulation and
all the rules and regulations in place that are consistent with
conservation, and his minister's inaction and his government's
decision not to respond consistent with conservation?
Mr. Wayne Easter: Mr. Speaker, I really do not think the
member opposite can accuse the minister of inaction. He went
down and visited with the native community and the commercial
fishers. He said very clearly that there will be a regulated
fishery or no fishery at all. What he tried to achieve
through goodwill and discussion was to keep people off the water
until the proper regulatory regime could be put in place. He has
the authority under the Fisheries Act to act if the conservation
is jeopardized. I think we will see he will take that kind
of action if necessary.
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I will have to share my time with my colleague from
Beauharnois—Salaberry, unless the House gives us more time. The
motion says that speeches cannot exceed 20 minutes, but if I can
have more time, I will take it.
I took a few notes during the minister's speech, and since he
has not yet left to catch a plane despite the advice he was
given, I will take this opportunity to tell him what I think.
We like having the opportunity to talk to him, but when there is
an emergency, he should be there where he is most needed.
The minister recognized right from the start that the natives
have rights, which were confirmed by the supreme court, and that
these rights are subject to regulations.
All we need to do next is to define the words “moderate
livelihood”. It is unfortunate that at this stage I am the one
who has to answer the questions. However, I will ask a series
of questions he can answer in the questions and comments period
if he wants to.
What we are trying to get a definition of is the expression
“moderate livelihood”. That is the hardest thing to do here. And
I know that the minister, who was a businessman, knows that.
For a businessman, the hardest thing to do is to bring people to
the negotiation table, but the minister's experience could be
helpful in this instance.
I think that the court gave some useful indications. I mean that
when one does not want to be stuck, as we are, with a bad
judgement, one tries to negotiate an agreement, even a bad one.
In the present situation, the minister will have the opportunity
to introduce legislation, to regulate fisheries. I recognize
that the other party will not like the first set of rules.
However, the only way to settle the issue is to go to court or
sit down and negotiate.
2255
I imagine I am not telling the minister anything new this
evening, but I am keen to see the agenda he will set. All we
saw on the television was the minister calling for a 30 day
moratorium. We were not told who he would be sitting down with
to negotiate.
I also noted in my speech today the fact that he intends to
negotiate with the current beneficiaries, and mentioned that
they are the current incarnations of the treaty signatories. I
would like to get to know this better in good French or in
business language, but I would like a complete list to be sure
that there will not be other players joining a month after
negotiations have begun.
I would also like the minister to take note when I ask what he
is going to do during his 30 days. We would need to know his
agenda, what will be negotiated and who will be sitting around
the table. Certainly, there will be representatives of the
fishers, other federal ministers and provincial ones too, I
hope. The House must be reminded that, for every seafaring man,
there are, as a rule of thumb, five people working on land.
Thought must be given as well to the consequences of processing.
Still in the context of what is to be prepared, when will we
know exactly who will be involved in the negotiations?
Negotiations must deal with “moderate livelihood”, but the
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans signed the UN fishing agreement
this summer.
Article 5 pertains to commercial fishers as we know them and
mentions that the signatory countries are committed to
establishing and developing sustainable and profitable fishing.
In this international agreement definition, I do not see the
beginnings of the definition of profitable in the vocabulary of
the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans here in Canada. It is an
international agreement in which all the UN countries say, each
time the development of fisheries is discussed, “without
subsidies”.
What does “without subsidies”, as used internationally, mean in
Canadian terms? Does it include EI? Does it include the
interest deductions allowed by certain provinces on boats?
I need to know what form the profitable fisheries the minister has
already administered would take, because I already imagine the
moderate livelihood they have in mind for aboriginals is at
least one step up from the threshold of profitability.
I would also like to see a start made on defining the level of
profitability as understood by the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans.
One thing that worried me about the minister's remarks was his
comment that they had not yet taken in all the implications of
the decision. I would have preferred not to harangue the
minister unduly when he is new to the job, but it is unfortunate
that his department did not have a plan B, particularly when
they lost.
Out of respect for native and non-native fishers, I will perhaps
avoid trite plays on words here this evening but, in some cases,
they have a plan B ready, and in some cases they do not.
I would also like to know what the minister thinks about the
different management styles throughout the world because, while
we are on the aboriginal problem, I think that the 1867
legislation as it pertains to fisheries should also be revisited
because, under the treaties, the discretionary nature of
licences does not meet the aboriginal criterion.
We should take this opportunity to dust off Canada's old
fisheries act. But the most serious problem is the historic
sharing between the provinces.
If we end up having to define the resources we are going to have
to give the native fishers, we will need to know where those
resources are coming from.
Rather than get into individual calculations, why not take the
opportunity to look into some form of sharing?
2300
There are management systems and Canada is part of one in which
the percentage of each participant is determined before the
total allowable catch is calculated each year. I refer to NAFO,
the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, to which Canada
belongs.
Why could what is good for Canada when it seeks to reach
agreement with its colleagues outside its borders not be good
for working with colleagues within its borders? I ask the
minister that.
If my choice of vocabulary happens to grate on the ears of the
minister or his officials, I would invite them to re-examine the
French model, which speaks of stabilization criteria rather than
historical share. In other words, I am appealing to a quality
in the minister that can sometimes be a defect, but in this case
can be positive.
A businessman needs tools if he is to manage. In order to
manage, he must be able to plan, and to know how he is going to
pay for his boat and for his groceries. The same thing goes for
an aboriginal fisher, who has to know how and where he is going
to fish, and in what quantities.
Meanwhile, there are short term tools to determine what is
needed to buy social peace. Second, the government must make it
known to the fishers that it intends to make long term plans and
it can take advantage of this winter season to start a permit
buy-back program. There are some people who need to make
decisions about investing in a boat this winter. They may say
to themselves that it is better for them to sell their fishing
licence to Fisheries and Oceans because the size of the quota
for the coming years is too unpredictable. The government needs
to take all of this into account.
If it does not do so as soon as possible, I think it will be
irresponsible, and things will be worse than they were right
after September 17.
[English]
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. colleague who
sits on the fisheries committee, who is from the beautiful area
of the Gaspé, one very simple question.
Prior to my colleague's speech we heard the speech of a member
of the Liberal Party, the governing party, and I am singing
hallelujah for this. They have finally recognized and are
starting to believe exactly what the auditor general said last
April, that shellfish stocks, mainly lobsters, are in trouble.
This was back in April, long before the Marshall decision was
rendered.
Who does the member think is responsible for the downturn in the
lobster fishery which the auditor general pointed out and which
DFO itself still does not recognize as a very serious problem in
Atlantic Canada?
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier: I am glad the member has raised this point.
This is something the auditor general raised. I know the
representatives of some fishers' associations believe the
auditor general is not really the one who should decide this.
However, there is a problem. The member's question was right and
very much to the point. It is up to us now to look into all
this.
I would remind the House that what the auditor general said and
what is contained in the report of the Standing Committee on
Fisheries and Oceans about the situation on the Atlantic coast—
and this was a unanimous all-party report—is that everybody
agrees that there is a management problem at Fisheries and
Oceans and that things have to change. If the Marshall decision
is the opportunity to start anew, I think we should seize it.
What is being pointed out is significant. However, what is going
on in one lobster fishery differs from what is going on in
another.
There is a management problem. I am tired of hearing the same
worn out old record to the effect that it is a conservation
problem when it is in fact a management problem.
[English]
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, the
hon. member has been in the Chamber tonight and he has listened
to the to and fro of the debate. There has been a lot of
discussion about the Nisga'a treaty and about the supreme court.
These are two issues upon which we need to shed more light.
First of all, as was said earlier, the supreme court
said in many of its earlier rulings that it does not see this
as its job. The supreme court sees this as the job of the
government. That is the first point.
2305
The second point is that the Nisga'a treaty will bring
consistency to that area of the west coast, to B.C. in
particular. What we have now are inconsistencies. We do not
have a modern day treaty. We are dependent upon supreme court
judgments, which have caused serious confusion, and we have also
had a lack of response from the government on this issue.
Would the member prefer a modern day treaty and consistency, or
would he prefer that the supreme court deal with this so that we
would have inconsistencies and a lack of response from the
government? What is his feeling on that?
[Translation]
Mr. Yvan Bernier: Mr. Speaker, if I understood the question, the
member is asking me whether I prefer to go back to the courts or
put up with further laxity and carelessness from the other side
of the House.
Pardon the expression, but there is a French saying about it not
mattering whether one is bitten by a dog or a bitch. I would not
like to give the judges this responsibility, and I see that
there is a lack of leadership on the other side. How will we, on
this side of the House, find a way to put pressure on them so
that they come to their senses? I do not know.
Many people have suggested that the truth or the way to get out
of this mess might well come from the grassroots, and I believe
that.
Once the stunned reaction of our non-native fishers has passed— I
believe them to be very peaceful people—they will be able to
come up with solutions. We must have confidence in eastern
Canadians. We have always overcome crises, and we will again.
Together, with the communities involved, we must find a way to
get the government to take its responsibilities. But, I repeat,
Grit or Tory, the problem always remains the same. There is a
management problem at Fisheries and Oceans, and it is not for
nothing that the standing committee unanimously pointed the
finger not necessarily at the government but at the management
style in that department.
Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I will
try to breathe a bit of life into this debate in spite of the
late hour.
I am pleased to rise after my colleague from
Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, who also speaks with so
much conviction when he deals with fishery matters and when he
talks on our party's behalf on those subjects that interest him
so much and for which he serves his constituency so well.
I was also pleased to hear my colleague from Saint-Jean, our
critic for aboriginal affairs, who presented his concerns on the
subject debated tonight.
I would like to remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois is
really interested in this subject because of its constitutional
aspect.
It is a matter that touches on the relations between the native
people, or nations as we prefer to call them in Quebec, and the
other inhabitants of the country. We now have to participate in
a debate that will have consequences for our future, the future
of Quebec and the future of Canada, the relations between
Quebec, Canada and the natives people who belong to one or the
other of those jurisdictions.
I believe that this kind of debate was fully justified,
especially as a solution must be arrived at quickly. There is
increasing urgency, given the well-known facts that seem to have
deepened the crisis, which gave rise to violence and to
behaviours that are unacceptable in a free and democratic
society.
I have had the opportunity to hear part of the debate and I
would now like to talk about constitutional issues and the
Constitution, and mention that in a sovereign Quebec we will
avoid problems such as those faced today by Canada as a result
of the laissez-faire attitude of this government, and of its
failure to truly follow through on its constitutional commitment
as stated in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, which
says, and I quote the first subsection “The existing aboriginal
and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby
recognized and affirmed”.
2310
Enshrining things in the Constitution is not enough. Native
peoples know full well it is not enough to have their rights
recognized and affirmed in the Constitution. These rights must
be implemented and exercised; the existing laws, the laws which
were in force when this section came into force in 1982 must be
reviewed and amended to reflect those rights. This is the root
cause of the problem we are facing today and which is the topic
of the motion before us.
Nothing has been done for 17 years. This provision came into
force 17 years ago and successive governments have failed to
implement it properly.
As a matter of fact, if one looks at the Marshall decision, the
court says something very telling about the refusal to recognize
the treaty rights at issue in this case.
The court said, and I quote:
[English]
“Mi'kmaq treaty rights were not accommodated in the regulations
because presumably the crown's position was and continues to be
that no such treaty rights existed”.
[Translation]
The court affirms that such were the position and the views of
the crown. This clearly explains why regulations were adopted to
give total discretion, and that discretion was exercised to deny
rights granted by treaties that were, appropriately, widely and
liberally interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada.
So, it is carelessness on the part of the government that has
put citizens, people sharing the land who also want to share the
resource, in a crisis situation.
We Quebecers experiencing this constitutional crisis fully
understand and share the concerns of aboriginal nations, which
have seen their constitutional rights trampled, a government
hesitate and refuse to sit down and negotiate in good faith not
only as regards the way their rights are recognized, but also
the limitations that can be imposed on these rights, since the
jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada has led to the
adoption of restrictions that are reasonable when it comes to
the treaty rights of aboriginal nations.
All this to say that, from a constitutional point of view, this
shows once again the flaws of our constitution when dealing with
one of the peoples of Canada, with aboriginal peoples in
general.
We are here not only to discuss and to protect the interests of
Quebec, but also to promote the sovereignty project, which is
the reason for the presence of Bloc Quebecois members in this
house. I simply want to solemnly reiterate to Quebec's 11
aboriginal nations, that the Quebec government pledged long
before other governments to recognize aboriginal nations. It did
so in 1985 for 10 of them, and in 1987 for the Malecite nation.
Not only did the Quebec government recognize their existence, it
also indicated its determination to conclude agreements with
each of the aboriginal nations.
In the 1985 motion, these agreements guaranteed the right to
hunt, fish, trap, harvest and participate in the management of
wildlife resources. This explicit recognition of the right to
fish was expressed in a motion dating back to 1985.
2315
Since then, negotiations have been carried out in good faith to
follow up on these commitments. Sovereignist parties and members
of this sovereignist coalition have also re-iterated the
commitment they made in the 1990s to ensure that aboriginal
people would be entitled to self-government within a sovereign
Quebec and would even be able to take part in the drafting of a
constitution where their autonomy would be recognized.
As we have so clearly said before, once the draft legislation on
sovereignty has been proposed to Quebecers, once the bill on
Quebec's future has been drafted, following numerous
consultations of Quebecers through regional and national
commissions, the Parti Quebecois's current agenda provides that:
—the constitution of a sovereign Quebec recognize the right of
the native people to govern themselves on lands belonging to
their people and to take part in the development of Quebec. Also
the current constitutional rights of aboriginal people, their
treaty rights and their aboriginal titles would also be
confirmed by a sovereign Quebec.
Lastly, I want to say that the Bloc Quebecois is currently
considering a major proposal in which its members are also urged
to re-iterate their commitment to recognizing the existing rights
of the aboriginal people, to confirming these rights and to
ensuring that negotiations are carried out with the native
people of Quebec in order to recognize their right to
self-government.
We also stipulate in this major proposal that the relationship
between the native people, a sovereign Quebec and Canada could
be governed by a partnership agreement that would ensure that
these people and nations continue to enjoy a friendly
relationship and that the native people would not, as the
supreme court said in the Marshall judgement, be considered as
“citizens minus”, but as first-class citizens in a sovereign
Quebec and a sovereign Canada.
[English]
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver Quadra
mentioned that in terms of long term solutions the executive
legislature and the judiciary of the supreme court should get
together to work toward solutions or come up with definitive
reasoning for long term solutions not only in this particular
instance but in other instances.
Would the hon. member from the Bloc agree that there needs to be
a joint effort between the elected officials of parliament who
represent Canada and the supreme court to come to reasonable
conclusions in this particular instance?
[Translation]
Mr. Daniel Turp: Mr. Speaker, I think the supreme court has done
its job. My colleague from Saint-Jean set out the decisions that
attempted to interpret section 35 and give it content. The
supreme court told the government that it could limit rights in
order to manage and conserve the resource.
It might be advisable for the legislators in this House to
revise old legislation on fishing, as my colleague from
Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok proposed, to incorporate
the full scope of the ancestral and treaty rights of the
aboriginal nations in a broader fishing policy.
That seems more preferable to me than a regulation that would be
adopted and selected by the government and only the government.
I can see a role for this House in implementing ancestral and
sub-treaty rights for other aboriginal nations.
In my opinion, this House must assume its responsibilities.
It is up to the government especially to ensure that this
House assumes its responsibilities, something it does not seem
to want to do at the moment.
2320
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, the question raised by the NDP member and the reply
from the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry brings me to another
point.
What other skeletons are the Liberals hiding in their closet?
Are there other costs like this that we are not aware of? I do
not mean to describe the aboriginal nations as skeletons. What
I mean is that the truth is being withheld from parliamentarians
and non-native fishers. People have a right to know. All of us,
myself included, were kept in the dark.
When I was a little boy, I played with friends, not knowing that
they would have more rights than I do today. I am very glad for
them, but I did not know.
Canadians should be told once and for all what other swords of
Damocles are hanging over their heads, and not necessarily just
in the fishery.
This evening, we are looking at the native problem in the
context of the Maritime fisheries crisis. But to use a good old
Maritime expression, this is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg.
Mr. Daniel Turp: Mr. Speaker, I will only remind the House that
the present crisis seems to be triggering other crises, since
the Innu said that they could have additional claims relating to
the Churchill Falls project. In British Columbia, the chief of
the Nanoose first nation would like the confirmed or at least
claimed rights of his people reviewed in light of the Marshall
decision.
Like my colleagues, I will say that there is a transparency
problem; the government is not telling all and prefers to keep
the information for itself for all kind of reasons. The House is
often consulted only for appearances and I do not think that it
is an acceptable way to govern.
Earlier today, we heard the Prime Minister say in his speech
that Canada was a country about which many people dream.
However, I do not think that it is the case of the Mi'kmaqs
today. Canada probably gives them nightmares. This is
unacceptable in a country that some people boast about being the
best country in the world.
Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP): Mr. Speaker, it is getting
late. It is 11.25 p.m. here and it is 12.25 a.m. in my riding.
However, knowing that there are quite a few night owls among
Acadians, I am sure some of them are listening to me right now.
It is a pleasure for me to say a few words tonight about the
decision handed down by the supreme court in the Marshall case.
This decision has been taken seriously by all Canadians, and we
have been hearing about it for several weeks.
The peace treaty was signed in 1760 and, 250 years later, we
have to interpret what happened. We must not forget that, in
those 250 years, the Conservatives were often in office,
including for a period of nine years mostly in the 1980s. They
cannot stand up and blame the Liberals, because problems
occurred when both parties formed the government.
But, tonight, we can blame everybody. One thing we know is that
there was a treaty.
We can say that governments did not respond to the requests made
by aboriginal people after the treaty. Today, we have to deal
with a decision which was brought about by the inaction of
governments.
2325
Burnt Church is very close to my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, which
means that people in my riding are also deeply affected by this
decision.
Fishers from my riding have contacted me to tell me that they
are willing to recognize the rights of native fishers, but that
we must negotiate.
The more we wait, the harder these negotiations will be and the
more it will hurt.
An aboriginal woman from Burnt Church was quoted last week as
saying that native-white relations had been developing in the
right direction over the past hundred years. Today it seems to
her that everything has to be started all over again.
We have some responsibility in all that. When the decision was
released, I recall that my colleague, the fisheries critic, sent
a letter to the minister asking him to summon the all-party
standing committee to a meeting in Ottawa in order to discuss
the situation.
Last week, I myself sent a letter to the minister, with no
reply. He is asking us all to work together. Even today, as we
speak, the all-party committee has not yet been called together
to discuss the situation.
The only thing, then, is that violence is a possibility.
All sorts of things can happen, but in the end it is negotiation
that will solve these problems.
Therefore, I am calling upon the people in my riding, as well as
those in the neighbouring riding of Miramichi, to take things
calmly, and to enter into negotiations in order to solve the
problem. That is the only means to settlement.
Judging from my labour union experience, regardless of what
conflicts have taken place, regardless of whether it took three
months to settle them, or six, the only place there was a
settlement was at the negotiating table.
This invitation must therefore be responded to. The two groups,
native and non-native, must be invited to the negotiating table,
and it must be done as soon as possible. Not a week from today.
Let the invitation go out tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning
the two groups need to sit down at the table: the aboriginal
people and the unions representing the coastal fishers.
I will go even farther. I will tell you that I have concerns.
You know why? The people at home tell us, for example, that
crab fishers are now beginning to be concerned.
Are we going to wait yet again to have a crisis in the lobster
industry and after that another crisis in the crab industry?
And after that we will respond to that crisis and then we will
have another one in the herring industry and after that we will
respond to the crisis in the herring industry.
I say no. I say the industry must be brought to the bargaining
table. This applies to all of the fishing industries, be it
herring, groundfish or crab.
We must find a solution together. We must find a solution for
everyone. Otherwise, we will end up with the violence that has
been going on in recent weeks, and this is unacceptable in 1999.
The government is capable of choosing an approach the fishers
would agree to. Some fishers might be ready to sell their
license. Some people who have reached the age of 55 or 60 would
be prepared to retire. So the government could become involved
in buying back their licenses and make these licenses available
to the native bands in order to resolve this problem that has
gone on unresolved for 250 years. We have a 250 year old
treaty, with all the lawyers we have in Canada. They are
intelligent enough to be in the House of Commons?
I am happy today not to be a lawyer. I am also happy that the
minister is not a lawyer. So, perhaps we can solve the problem
today.
2330
It took 250 years to interpret a peace treaty signed with the
aboriginals. Today, we are all panicking and we are not prepared
to react after 250 years. We should be ashamed of our
governments.
This is why I urge you not to wait for a week. We cannot wait
until people fight with one another. We cannot wait until
violence erupts. People are concerned. They want to sit down,
negotiate and find a solution.
It takes leadership to achieve that. When a party steps forward
and says it wants to form the government, that means that it has
leadership and that it is capable of leading the country. It
should be able to manage the crises that we are facing today.
There are crises everywhere these days.
There is a problem with the airlines. There are two airlines in
Canada, Canadian Airlines and Air Canada, and the government
does not even know how to deal with this issue.
There is a problem with the immigrants arriving in the Vancouver
area. Again, the government does not know how to deal with this
issue.
There are problems everywhere. It is time to act before we lose
control of our country. The federal government and the Liberals
have that responsibility that Canadians have given them.
The government waits for weeks on end, but the aboriginal people
have been saying for years that they want a solution to their
problems.
When the Conservatives signed the free trade agreement, it did
not take them long to adjust the whole Canadian program to free
trade. It did not take them years to do that.
It seems as if the issue between aboriginal and white peoples
could take a year or two to solve. This is not true.
We cannot have such an attitude. We must settle the issue now.
We must not wait a year to do that. We must sit with these
people and solve the problem. There are solutions.
I am convinced that when fishers, aboriginals and a government
that shows leadership sit together at the table, solutions will
be found.
I urge the government, I urge the minister, who just got the
job, to make a name for himself by being a good Minister of
Fisheries and solving the problems we are facing in Canada. This
is what I ask him to do.
Mr. Yvan Bernier (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief, because I see that members
still have many questions to ask.
I would like to tell my colleague that he is right when he says
that our constituents are wondering what they will be allowed to
fish, even if they are not fishing lobster right now. He
mentioned those who fish herring or crab.
He is right to say that some of them are wondering whether they
will be able to go on fishing with the uncertain quotas the
minister is offering, or whether they are ready to retire. I
think the member is quite right, and knows whereof he speaks.
I would like the member to tell us what we can do to get the
Liberals to see reason.
At the same time, I would like to draw a parallel with what he
said about their dealing with problems on a timely fashion. Let
us not forget that, in the Atlantic provinces alone, it cost $1
billion to harmonize the GST. They sorted that out one spring.
This time, people need to understand that a similar amount is
involved, even more than with the moratorium on the fishery,
with the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, or TAGS. This program
cost $2 billion. The ineptitude and negligence have been going
on for 240 years and that is going to cost something. The
sooner we tackle the problem, the less painful it will be.
Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague
for his question.
He spoke about the harmonized GST and said that the matter was
settled quickly. It does not mean, however, that we, the people
of the Atlantic, welcomed it. But they did it anyway and it did
not take long.
2335
I wish to thank the government for having allowed us, tonight,
to discuss part of the problem. After all, I hope the minister,
who is here tonight, who is listening to what we have to say,
can react.
I agree with my colleague who said that it will cost money and
that the government must be ready to invest, but, then again, I
would like to reiterate that the only place where it can be
solved is at the negotiating table, and immediately—tomorrow
morning, if necessary. We must act now and force the government
to act and tell it that if it does not, it should not ask us to
work with it.
It wants us to work with it. Therefore, we will make suggestions
tonight and then we tell it to act. If it does not act, it
should not tell us that we are unwilling to co-operate because,
tonight, we are working with it and offering solutions.
[English]
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, I heard
a fair amount of discussion tonight from the NDP members who rose
to speak. There was discussion earlier that they had been in
contact with fishermen who live in the South Shore riding and in
West Nova riding.
I was at the meeting in Yarmouth. I was at the meeting in
Shelburne. I was at the meeting in Lunenburg. I did not see any
NDP members of Parliament there. I have talked with hundreds of
fishermen and I have not talked to one who has been in contact
with these NDP members of Parliament.
I have listened to what these members have said, which is little
better than nothing. What I now want to know is simple and I
want a straightforward answer. Would the New Democratic Party
support a moratorium on this decision immediately to allow time
for first nations, fishers and DFO to sit down and formulate a
plan for the peaceful integration of first nations into the
fishery? Will it support an immediate moratorium on this
decision?
Mr. Yvon Godin: Mr. Speaker, it is very sad that after
250 years these members still cannot recognize that we have a
problem and at the Supreme Court of Canada has made a decision.
That is why I am recommending that we be at the negotiating table
tomorrow morning to negotiate something with the two groups who
are the non-natives and the native people.
The member talked about the NDP not doing or saying anything. I
was on a radio station the other day when my colleague from
Beauséjour—Petitcodiac said that it was not the government's
responsibility to resolve the problem but the responsibility of
the community and that the community was destroying itself right
now. It is the responsibility of the government to come down and
resolve the problem with the people down home and get to the
table. We have spoken to more fishermen than you ever have as a
Conservative.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): I would like to
remind hon. members to address each other through the Chair
please.
Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern
Shore, NDP): Mr. Speaker, it is getting late in the evening
and it looks as if I may be the last speaker on this very
valuable debate.
I want to thank the Conservative Party's House leader for
Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for bringing forward this issue
for a take note debate. It is too bad it is not an emergency
debate. I also wish to thank the government for allowing us this
take note debate. Unfortunately it is just a take note debate.
I hope the government is doing more than just taking notes. I
hope the it is understanding the very serious nature of this
issue.
My colleague from New Brunswick mentioned that this is not just
about lobsters. This is about every single fish species that we
have, not only in Atlantic Canada but clearly right across the
country.
Aboriginal people in our prairie provinces are looking at the
Marshall decision to see what it means to their role at the FFMC
that they have in Winnipeg. They have great problems with that.
Aboriginal people on the west coast are looking at this decision
in terms of what they believe are their timber rights and their
fishing rights. People across the country are very seriously
concerned about what this decision means in their lives. It is
not just about lobsters.
We are talking about the lobster issue right now because
tomorrow morning area 35, the Bay of Fundy region in Nova
Scotia—New Brunswick, will be opening up to the commercial
fishery which normally opens up this time of year.
2340
Those men and women will be putting out their boats and going
out to catch lobsters. We have still not heard a word from the
government on how it plans to incorporate the Marshall decision
with the aboriginal people to get them into this fishery.
We have heard from people like Mr. Arthur Bull of the Coastal
Community Network of Digby who said they have been working
overtime, literally day and night since this decision, to come up
with reasonable compromises so that both sides, the aboriginal
and the non-aboriginal people, can work together. Unfortunately
there is nothing but silence from the minister's department and
the government.
We must bear in mind, for those who do not know it, that the
minister was recently appointed to his position at the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans. The people he has around him are fairly
new to the portfolio as well. Therein lies the problem.
Obviously the minister is getting his advice from what I consider
to be very elderly and tired people on the east coast in terms of
DFO, people I have had many concerns about in terms of their
management policies. They are the policies of this government
and previous governments. It is interesting to hear the
Conservatives talk about concerns when the Conservative
government from 1984 to 1993 did absolutely nothing to deal with
the issue. The Liberal government from 1993 to 1999 has done
absolutely nothing.
The attitudes of the Conservative government and the Liberal
government toward aboriginal people in the nation have been very
much paternalistic. They have told the aboriginal people time
and time again that they refuse to negotiate and refuse to
legislate. In fact they are telling them to spend taxpayers
dollars and go to court.
That is exactly what the aboriginal people have done. They have
gone to court and now the court has rendered its decision.
Whether or not we like it, it is the legal opinion of the
country. The supreme court has ordered it. It is not
parliament's obligation and it is not the right of
parliamentarians to tell the supreme court that we do not like
the decision so it should be stayed, got rid of, changed or
whatever. If we start doing that to the Supreme Court of Canada
within our constitution we are opening up a bigger can of worms
than opposition members or anyone else who is claiming that would
be the solution.
I am going to give the minister four very concrete points on how
he could come up with a short term solution. One is to
immediately reconvene the all party standing committee of
fisheries and oceans down in the maritime region. The minister
and his department obviously refuse to go down there on a long
term basis to deal with the issue. Perception is everyone's
reality. They cannot be seen to be making decisions from Ottawa
for Atlantic Canada. They must be in Atlantic Canada to put the
human and financial resources on the table.
The grassroots people who work the resource know the resource
better than the minister and most politicians in this room. They
know what the short and long term solutions are. The minister
must commit the human and financial resources for them to carry
on their work.
Second, the minister must consider a voluntary buyout package
and a transfer of the licences over to the Mi'kmaq nation to
include them in the fishery. There are about 6,300 licences in
the maritime region right now. Roughly 10% of those people would
be willing to sell their licences tomorrow morning. The
government must find out exactly how many licences would be
required on the short term to bring the aboriginal people into
the fishery. This is very important because conservation is the
key. Everybody must fish under the same conservation guidelines.
I do not think there is any debate on that.
The auditor general said last April that lobster stocks, and in
fact all shellfish stocks, were in trouble in Atlantic Canada.
Many people criticize the auditor general and me for espousing
those views. The fact is the auditor general was absolutely
correct. Last April he said that the management policies which
caused the cod collapse in 1992 were the same policies in place
to handle the groundfish stocks.
Let us not forget that in the spring the Mi'kmaq asked the
Government of Canada to sit at the table to come up with
solutions for the short term because they suspected that the
Marshall decision would go in their favour.
They came with an open hand to government asking it to come up
with solutions so we can evade the problems that are happening
now.
2345
My colleague from South Shore and my colleague from West Nova
are absolutely correct when they say they have never felt the
tensions greater than they are now. They are absolutely correct
when they say that.
The fact is that the government by sitting back in Ottawa trying
to come up with some solution it can grab out of the sky or grab
out of the air will not solve the problems. Government members
have to go down there and talk directly to the people involved.
They must do that in order to add calm to the equation of the
argument that is happening right now.
Another thing that has happened within DFO is severe budget cuts
to the department itself. The department does not have the human
or financial resources to monitor enforcement policies, so it
calls upon the RCMP to help. However, that department's
resources were cut as well. The fact is that we do not even have
the proper resources allocated right now in order to protect the
stock. That is the most important thing. It is not just lobster
stock but all other shellfish species out there as well. If the
auditor general was correct and they do collapse, it will make
the cod prices look like a drop in the bucket. Again, the
responsibility falls upon this government.
Every single member in this argument today, my colleagues in the
Conservative Party, the Reform Party, the Bloc Quebecois and
ourselves, has asked for and demanded leadership on this issue.
It is imperative that the minister show leadership. He should get
down there and start talking to these people. He should not do
it from Ottawa. This is very important. While he is down there
discussing this issue, he should seriously consider a community
based allocation of these stocks.
Mr. Arthur Bull of Digby has asked many, many times of the
Coastal Community Network of Atlantic Canada and those in western
Canada as well to get away from the corporatization of our fish
stocks which have concentrated the wealth of the fish stocks in
very few hands. It is time to start looking at a community based
strategy so that all people, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, can
work together for the long term benefit of this resource.
We also have to include what the corporate sector is saying
right now. The one thing missing in this debate right now is what
Clearwater, Highliner Foods and Donna Rae Limited are saying.
What are these big corporations that have huge access to fish
resources saying in this debate? They have been very, very
silent. We have all been working very hard trying to concentrate
on protecting the interests of the inshore fishermen.
What is needed now is leadership from this government. This
government should not be an ostrich and put its head in the sand
and hope the problem goes away. Government members must get down
there and work with the people toward immediate short term
solutions that have been presented by all members of the House
today. They must incorporate those ideas so that we can have a
calm fishery. We will all benefit in the long term.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Before we go to
questions and comments, I want to remind everyone once again to
address each other through the Chair.
Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Ref.): Mr.
Speaker, it is not a matter of liking a decision or not liking a
decision. The reason for going back to the court is to get some
guidance on what the court meant by the decision. For example,
the Supreme Court of Canada failed to accurately describe
moderate living. Some native advocates contend that a net annual
income of $80,000 is a moderate living.
The Supreme Court of Canada did not say whether the aboriginal
tax free status which exists would reduce needed fishery
earnings. The Supreme Court of Canada did not say whether
government contributions to aboriginal communities through the
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development can offset
earnings required from the fishery. The Supreme Court of Canada
did not determine whether non-status Mi'kmaq or Maliseet are
legally able to participate in the fishery. There are an unknown
number of non-status Mi'kmaq or Maliseet, but it is estimated in
the tens of thousands. DFO is determined that non-status Mi'kmaq
or Maliseet are not eligible under the treaty. This will
probably be met with a court challenge.
All I am saying is that these issues will come before the court
sooner or later. Why not do it sooner? Why not get the answers
now before we go down a garden path that we do not want to be
going down?
Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question.
2350
We are the elected officials of this country. My colleagues
from the Reform Party, the Conservative Party, the Bloc and the
Liberal Party, we are the ones who are responsible ultimately to
answer to the constituents of this country for legislation.
If previous Conservative governments and the current Liberal
government have refused to negotiate and to legislate, then it is
quite obvious that the supreme court will dictate to us what it
interprets as the rules and what it interprets as the law. Once
it does this, whether we like the decision or not, we have to
live with it.
We find ourselves in the pickle we are in today because of the
failed policies of the current Liberal government and past
Conservative governments where they have refused to negotiate
long term solutions for the resources of this country. It is up
to parliament to finally decide this issue. It is not up to the
supreme court. It is our responsibility as parliamentarians to
take this issue very seriously.
Mr. Gerald Keddy (South Shore, PC): Mr. Speaker, the
hon. member is absolutely right. It is up to parliament. I will
ask the hon. member the same question I asked of the hon. member
for Acadie—Bathurst. Would the NDP support a moratorium on the
decision to allow time for first nations, fishers and DFO to sit
down and formulate a plan for the peaceful integration of first
nations into the licensed fishery?
Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Speaker, if I may throw the
question back so he can ask it of me again. Is the member for
South Shore asking me about a moratorium on the aboriginal
fishery or about a moratorium on the non-aboriginal fishery?
Mr. Gerald Keddy: Mr. Speaker, right now we have a
supreme court decision dealing with the aboriginal fishery. I
suggested a moratorium on the aboriginal fishery because that is
the only non-licensed fishery out there. Any licensed fishery,
any aboriginal boats that are involved in the licensed fishery
would not be subject to it. We are only dealing with what the
supreme court decision brought down. Will the NDP support that?
I see no other way or plan to bring everyone to the table to
allow for the resolution of this matter.
Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Speaker, as much as I would like
to say yes to that solution in order to bring some calm to the
irrationality, I cannot. It is not up to us to break the law.
The fact is that the supreme court has ordered that. It has laid
down quite clearly that the aboriginal people have the right to
fish in this regard. I do not like the idea of their fishing
without proper conservation guidelines and without working under
the same rules everyone else does. However the fact is we cannot
override the supreme court decision and say quite clearly that
because we are in a mess and a pickle and because
parliamentarians and government have screwed this issue up so
badly that we are now going to say to the aboriginal people who
have waited 240 years for their right that they can no longer do
what the supreme court has said they can do.
The majority of people I have spoken to down there are willing
to incorporate the aboriginal fishery into the fishery. This is
what needs to happen, dialogue and conversation and not useless
rhetoric.
Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC):
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to
participate in the final dying moments of this debate.
I begin by congratulating the minister of fisheries who in a
rare show of interest and willingness to listen to opposition
members has stayed here in the House. Even against the advice of
some members of the House that he should be in New Brunswick or
in Nova Scotia, he has stayed here and has genuinely listened to
and participated in the debate. I and other members of this
party appreciate that effort and show of good faith.
I must take him up on a comment he made in his remarks that he
had acted quickly. We have to revisit the chronology of what has
taken place.
On September 17 the Marshall decision was handed down by the
supreme court. He said that he acted within three days. But
what happened? Within three days the Canadian public learned
that the House of Commons was to be prorogued so he did not have
the benefit of the wisdom of members who were very close to the
issue, like my colleagues from South Shore and West Nova and
other members of the House who have greatly benefited and even
enlightened the minister to a degree during the course of the
debate.
2355
From that point we know that on September 27 the minister spoke
of implementing some form of a response, a government action, to
inform all stakeholders of what the government intended to do.
That did not come about.
On October 9 the chiefs of the aboriginal communities stated
that they were willing to embark on the possibility of a
moratorium. On October 13, after meeting with the minister,
hours after he had departed the maritimes, the chiefs themselves
imposed a moratorium. It was a self-imposed pre-emptive move to
give the government time to respond and to formulate its
response.
Sadly, communications have now completely broken down to the
point where we know the moratorium is no longer in place. The
chiefs have decided they will not abide by the self-imposed
moratorium. That is problematic.
We can engage in all kinds of partisan rhetoric. It is very
easy for the Reform and the NDP to cast aspersions on current and
past governments, having never had the luxury of having to make
those tough decisions. It is a very easy thing to do, making
statements that are not true. It does not make them true simply
because they are said in this place.
The clock is ticking. There is more than just preservation of
stocks at stake; there is preservation of human lives at stake.
The potential for violence is real. It has already been played
out in certain communities like Burnt Church and it is also on
the tip of breaking out in parts of Nova Scotia, on the South
Shore in particular and in parts of Cape Breton Island.
In my riding of Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough there are many
aboriginal participants already in the commercial fishery. There
is the ability for peaceful entry into this industry. That has
been displayed in the past. That offer has been extended in the
past and I assume it will be extended in the future.
Timeliness is the issue now. I know the minister is sincere in
his efforts and in his words to find the solutions, but there is
little time to waste.
The minister must be proactive. We support him in his efforts
to find the solutions, but those solutions will only come from
the input of all stakeholders, including aboriginals and
non-aboriginal fishers who have an equally important stake in the
outcome. Given what the supreme court has handed down, given
this dark abyss that is now before us, it does not just pertain
to fisheries, as we have heard many times in the debate this
evening. This goes far beyond one single industry.
This is the tip of the iceberg and the government is steaming
toward that iceberg unless it acts quickly. With the closing
moments of the debate I implore the minister to continue on the
road he is on, but to do so in a very pragmatic and measured way,
and to listen to the stakeholders who are equally sincere and
have the greatest stake in the resolution of the matter. I
encourage him to do so with post-haste. We do support him in
that and I sincerely wish him the very best in finding the
solutions that will appease all of those who are looking for a
peaceful resolution to the matter.
Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the comments of my
colleagues who represent areas which are farther north of my
riding in Nova Scotia.
His previous colleague asked about the moratorium on the
aboriginal fishery and he just said that what we require are
peaceful negotiations in that regard.
Does he believe that if the government enforced a moratorium on
the aboriginal aspects of the fishery that it would lead and be
conducive to peaceful negotiations and dialogue with the
non-native people?
Mr. Peter MacKay: Mr. Speaker, obviously an even-handed
approach is needed. One approach being suggested, that we would
single out the aboriginals who have now been given this right by
the supreme court and attempt to enforce it in a way that is
unfettered, is unacceptable.
Obviously the minister is not about to single out one of the two
groups in the divide. That I suggest would only lead to further
confrontation and further violence. The difficulty is that this
is a tinderbox that is absolutely on the verge of an explosion.
I do not mean to restate the obvious, but the minister has to
act quickly. This is something that is going to get out of
control like wildfire in an instant.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland): Pursuant to order
made earlier this day, it being 12 o'clock midnight, the motion
shall be deemed to have been withdrawn and the House shall
adjourn.
It being 12 o'clock midnight the House stands adjourned until
tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).
(The House adjourned at 12.00 a.m.)