The House resumed from March 11 consideration of the motion that Bill C-250, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act and the Canada Elections Act (confidence votes), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this important private member's initiative. I congratulate the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster for bringing this bill forward. It is something the Reform Party has had as policy from its inception. We think it would lend more credibility to the electoral process. It is something Canadians would appreciate.

Recent public opinion polls indicate that although it is very likely we are going to head into a federal election within a week or so, two-thirds of Canadians believe there is no need for the government to call an election. The government is not cooking the books, it is cooking the agenda to get the most favourable conditions for which to call an election.

There is nothing unusual about that. Governments have been doing that for years. However, two-thirds of Canadians say it is unfortunate in a democracy such as ours for the government to wait until it feels it has enough things on the agenda to suddenly spring an election. We are all supposed to salute the flag, whether it is three years into the mandate or five. It gives the government a tremendous trump card going into an election.

The agenda which was given to the media today indicates the following: Mr. Bouchard to meet with the Prime Minister to sign an agreement, photo op to follow; the Minister of Natural Resources to sign a research project, photo op to follow; an agreement will be signed with provincial fisheries officials in British Columbia, photo op to follow. The whole agenda for this week is a photo op.

The government is able to control the agenda not only for photo ops but for the electoral agenda. It is no longer a case of whether we need an election, whether it is timely or whether there is an issue on the front burner of the nation, it is whatever the government thinks it can do to better its re-election chances and that is when it will call an election.

There is something wrong with that. People have to ask themselves what is going on in the country when the government can trigger a national election based on its needs. Would it not be better to level the playing field for all parties? Would it not be better to have the government go to the people during the fall of the fourth year of its mandate? Everyone would work off the same sheet. We would all sing the same chorus. We would not wait for a crisis to happen in a province or for the signing of an agreement to go to the people. The election would be called at a certain time. They could count on it. They could plan for it. That would be fair for everyone.

When we were considering this bill in committee I raised two things which the government has done to give itself an advantage. One it already has, the ability to call the election. The other is to shorten the election period itself. We are now down to a 36 day electoral period. We will likely be heading into it next week.

(1110)

The government, by knowing when it will call an election, has all the advantages. It knows exactly when it will call the election and therefore it knows when to have its advertising geared up. It can have its media buys prearranged. Its members can have their offices open. They can have literature ordered. They can know it all.

The back room boys over there have it all figured out. The rest of us just hope that we know what is going on. We think it will be next week. But money is spent, there is organization and all Canadians are wondering whether it will happen. That is too bad.

It should be on a four year rotation. The member for Kindersley-Lloydminster has detailed how that could be done, how it would be fair to all parties. This does not give an advantage to one side or the other. It is fair to the Canadian people. They do not have to wonder whether they will be put through this process. It is fair all around.

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That being said, this bill will not pass. I am sorry to break that news to the member for Kindersley-Lloydminister. This bill does not have a snowball's chance. It takes power out of the frontbench.

Every time there is a chance of any of the power being removed from that frontbench, every time there is a chance for free votes, every time-

An hon. member: Word comes down from the top.

Mr. Strahl: That is right. Word comes down from the top that this bill must not pass. Every time there is a free vote, every time there is power given to committee, every time there is any chance that we can take a little power out of that little group of people sitting in the Langevin Building, it is nuked. There is not a chance that this bill will pass. I am sorry to break this to the member for Kindersley-Lloydminister.

That being said, it is likely we will head into an election next week. Will this be an election issue? Will this be something that gets carried on the stump, as we talk about the issues facing the Canadian electorate?

This will not be the burning issue. However, this is symptomatic of two different visions of Canada when it comes to the role of Parliament and the role of members of Parliament representing their constituency.

It will be a vision carried by the Liberal Party which is that the Liberal Party knows best. Not only does it not have to listen to the Canadian people, it does not even have to listen to its own members.

The Liberal Party does not have to listen to people through referendums and free votes and representative democracy. What its members will tell Canadians is ``don't worry, be happy, we know best; the rest of you are cannon fodder in the great democratic process''. That will be an issue.

When we get on the stump and when we get talking about electoral and parliamentary reform, when we talk about the need to change things in this institution to give power to members of Parliament to truly represent the people who sent them here, that will be an issue.

We will be talking about recall. We will be talking about the right to referendums and citizens initiatives. We will be talking about free votes in the House of Commons, not just on private members bills but on bills in general.

We will be talking about committee power and the way committees are manhandled right now by the ministers to do their bidding instead of truly giving an opportunity for members of Parliament to initiate legislation and to bring citizens concerns to the table.

All those will be issues during the upcoming federal election. A fixed election date is part of Reform Party policy. Recent polling results say that people like that idea. They do not like what the Liberals are doing here, which is that they call it when they darn well feel like it, the Canadian people can put up with it and pay for it and that is just the way it has to be.

Although there is supposed to be a free vote, no doubt those members have been told on the Liberal side to vote against it. It is probably not going to pass, and that is too bad.

All that being said, the Liberals should know that if they have the guts to call this election on Sunday, as we think, then let us have at her. This is a good enough issue to mix in with the others. We will see what the Canadian people really think about a government that lords it over the people instead of listening to them.

(1115)

[Translation]

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the intent of the bill we are debating at this time is to propose holding a general election every four years on a set date.

A number of parliamentarians may be in agreement with this principle of setting a date on which there will be an election every four years. This has a lot of advantages, one of which is that all of the organizations can get their acts together, to be ready when an election is called.

Since the Prime Minister is the one who holds the power to decide when an election will be held, this gives his party a considerable advantage over the other parties, as far as the organizational aspect is concerned: fundraising, candidate selection, and how the business of Parliament will be conducted.

If, for example, it were known that the election would be on a set date, the government could set itself a four-year program. The first year, it would pass such and such a portion of its electoral program, the second year another portion, and so on for the third and fourth years, and everyone would know we were headed for an election on a set date.

We were elected in October 1993. Last year, around the same time, there was all sorts of speculation about an early election. Some people were even willing to bet that there would be an election last fall, so the organizations got themselves in gear and there were nominations left, right and centre. There we were, not even three years away from the last election, and already talking about an early election.

To a certain extent, Parliament has been paralyzed for the past year, waiting for the day the Prime Minister calls an election. Once again, everything points to his making the announcement this Sunday, which means we will be going into an election nearly a year and half before the end of the mandate given to us by the people.

What happens in such cases is that the government governs by survey. The government orders the polls, the polling firms conduct them, they conclude that the party is popular or not so popular, the public is losing interest, one of the ministers is low in the polls in his own riding, the Prime Minister is, the Conservative Party is going up, the Reform Party is going down, and they are so busy

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playing with all these cards that in the final instance they do not care about the public interest, only about the interests of the party in power.

The government can use the polls to set a date when it is likely to be reelected, or in certain other cases, as we saw with the Conservative Party in its last term, it can delay calling an election until the very end, in this case because it knew its popularity was dropping considerably and it were obviously headed for a defeat.

A fixed election date would help make public debates more transparent, more honest, better organized and at least we would know where we are going. It would be more democratic. The public would no longer have to cope with not knowing when the election would take place and it would not be in the position we are in now, when the government is accusing Mr. Bouchard of sending his request for a constitutional amendment at the last minute, although the government still has a year and a half to go.

Calling this a last minute request is rather exaggerated. IfMr. Bouchard had known when the election would be called, he would not have bothered to send a request at this stage. He probably would have waited until after the election or he would have set his agenda with the election date in mind. Organizing the democratic system in Canada in this way would be better for all the provinces, as a matter of fact.

One aspect is somewhat disturbing. We hear the Reform Party talking about referendums here and referendums there, about free votes and constituents voting by telephone or fax. This is a parliamentary system, a democratic system by delegation. We ask the public to elect us to represent them. Unless we change the very principle of the parliamentary system in Canada, we cannot accept all these fantastic proposals by the Reform Party, which wants to play poker by its own rules and not by the rules that suit everybody else.

(1120)

If a party is elected with a very clear promise that it will do something, the individual elected under the party banner necessarily endorses the party's objectives. So there is no reason for a decision in the House to be taken on the basis of faxes or phone calls received. It is taken along party lines.

When we discuss bills that are not in our programs, we will obviously consult our constituents. We will, however, always be the ones who have to decide, since we are not obliged morally or otherwise to vote in agreement with the 40 or 50 members of our party we consulted or the 50 electors, who are not members of the party but were invited to a public meeting, or according to the three faxes we received. We represent all electors once we are elected and we must use our wisdom and conscience as best we can and act in the best interest of the people in making a decision, because we were elected to represent them.

There are, of course, a lot of details in the bill before us. It would be worthwhile to have a committee consider it, because it could look at some of the problems in greater detail.

Personally, I find it difficult to agree with choosing the third Monday in October as a fixed election date, because winter comes early to many places, and the third Monday of October is surely a bad time for elections, particularly in Quebec where it would interfere with the campaign leading to the municipal elections, which are held on the first Sunday in November. Should the fixed date for federal elections be set in October, we would be in a difficult spot because we would be in a conflict of interest.

The committee would have to take the time to look at what happens in each province, in order to come up with a suitable date. The idea of an election when the days get longer and warmer, around the time of the summer equinox, holds much greater interest. It is much easier to go from door to door when the weather is good than pick a date like October when the days are getting shorter, it is rainy, and there are maybe even snowstorms that would perhaps make things difficult.

An hon. member: Unless we are not here any more.

Mrs. Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata): If the Bloc is no longer here, then Canada can obviously do what it wants about its election dates. They can opt for the third Monday of October and that will not conflict with our municipal elections.

Even if we are in favour of the bill in principle, there is another aspect that I definitely think should be looked at in committee and that is the problem of the ensuing byelections. Dates are also given for byelections.

What would happen if there were a minority government and a government could not be formed? Giving authority to the governor general does not appeal to me at all. This is a position the Bloc Quebecois would prefer to see abolished, not one to which it wishes to give greater authority. There would certainly be many points to examine in this bill, although the principle is interesting for most of the population.

Ultimately, in a democracy, it is much clearer if people know exactly what to expect, especially since this will now be much easier. We will have a permanent voters list. If there were a fixed date for elections, democracy would take on much greater meaning and would be better respected.

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It would also prevent abuses and irregularities, questionable practices or allegations of such practices, which have sometimes been made against people who were abusing their authority.

(1125)

This did not happen just under the Conservatives; it also happened under the Liberals. It is interesting to note that the public is not fooled by these governments that hang on to power because, generally speaking, governments that have remained in office almost five years have usually been defeated in the following election.

Another possible problem with a fixed date is what would happen if there were a non-confidence vote.

Mr. Speaker, you have signalled to me that I must soon wrap up so, as I was saying, we are in agreement in principle, but the bill is worth considering seriously in committee.

[English]

Mr. Jim Silye (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support Bill C-250 put forward by my colleague from Kindersley-Lloydminster. The bill proposes to have fixed election dates. For instance, this year the election date would be October 20 and elections thereafter would be held every four years on the third Monday of October.

In his opening remarks the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster said: ``Along with the Reform Party's other proposals for democratic reform such as recall, referendums and citizens initiatives, we intend to show how Canada's political system can be made more accountable, representative and fair''. Those are three points in favour of fixed election dates: accountability, better representation and fairness.

First, I will consider better representation. I very much believe in this bill. It is part of the Reform platform. When I campaigned in 1993 I felt there was something wrong with our political system because at any given time, on the spur of the moment, behind closed doors the Prime Minister and a few of his selected strategists could secretly determine when an election would be held. That is a great disservice to the Canadian public. It denies the opportunity for a lot of potential candidates who would be willing to run, who would otherwise be willing to seek nomination and become involved in the political process.

Some excuses used for not running are: inappropriate timing; an insufficient amount of time to prepare for entry into public life; insufficient time to raise money; insufficient time to become known in the community. These excuses would be eliminated with a fixed election date. This would affect the number of people who would consider running for election, including women. There is a big cry that there are not enough women in politics, that the ratio is not 50:50, that there is a lack of balance between male and female representatives.

This is the case because they cannot plan. If women knew there would be an election every four years on the third Monday of October, family planning could be a lot easier. Men and women could decide after an election that next time one of them would run. The quality and number of candidates who would step forward would greatly increase. There would be more respect for politicians.

The accountability point was put forward by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminster. Politicians who were elected knowing that the duration of their terms would be four years would be more interested in and intent on carrying out the responsibilities of their portfolios, including representing their constituents. They would do the best jobs they could and would let their records speak for themselves. Then they would not have to rely on the prime minister of the day prior to an election to fast track certain bills in order to improve their visibility or their standing in the polls. They would not have to rely on the prime minister to hand out goodies in weak areas where they wanted to reinforce their strength.

This bill and fixed election dates every four years would provide more stability in the political system. This factor of not knowing when an election will be called ends up causing more doubt and more debate about when is it going to be called. That causes more focus on elections than it does on the issues of the day.

(1130)

I have been here for close to four years and I have not read too much about the debt that faces this country. I have not read too much about the rising interests costs to service that debt. All I have heard is that the interest rates are the lowest they have ever been and the government has done a wonderful job.

The Canadian economy is not on as strong a footing as the finance minister and the Prime Minister would like us to believe. There is an underlying danger in that the real problem facing this country is not being addressed. I believe if we knew when an election would be called, all politicians would be more intent on identifying and solving the problems of the country instead of talking about those issues that make a party and the member as a representative more popular.

I feel Canada is behind the times. We are one of the few nations that does not have a fixed election date. By having a fixed election date we plan for it. A party or a government can be better judged and evaluated on what its real intent and purpose is.

We had an example this past week where the Liberal government closed more deals and did more in the space of 10 days that it had in the first three years. Even Premier Bouchard says the transfer of manpower training to the province of Quebec is nothing more than a pre-election ploy. He is going to sign the agreement today. He goes on further to say that he has to sign it as a provincial premier

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because he has a responsibility to the unemployed of his province and he feels that this responsibility at his level will help more people get work. I agree with him on that.

All provinces should be looking after manpower training, not the federal government. Why has it taken three and a half years to happen? Why has it been signed after no less than five days of political pressure?

Another pre-election ploy is the anti-gang legislation for Quebec. I am not making this up. The Bloc members have pointed it out. The premier of Quebec has pointed it out.

It is making a mockery and a joke out of our political system. The government of the day controls the agenda and gains an unfair advantage on an unsuspecting, trusting general public. If nothing else, Canadians generally trust their government. They expect their government to perform according to the platform that they get elected on.

We were hugely disappointed by the two Tory governments. When these Liberal members were in opposition, when they were trying to seek the confidence of Canadians to govern, the Prime Minister on January 20, 1993 talking about Canadians said: ``They have had enough of the abuses of Parliament and the arrogance of government''.

I would need another 30 minutes to talk about the abuses that this government, when it was in opposition, talked about. Now it is guilty of them as government. There has been the abuse of parliamentary committees, abuse of free votes, abuse of jobs, jobs, jobs, abuse of Pearson, abuse of Airbus, abuse of Somalia, abuse of Krever, abuse of devolution of powers, abuse of the GST, the broken promise of the GST, as well as broken promises of what it would do when it was elected. In a lot of cases it did exactly the opposite.

I hope the Canadian public has had enough of this. I hope they start to reward honesty rather than misrepresentation. I hope that they give a reward to truth in politics rather than the perception of politics.

This same man said that the Canadian public deserves good government. He talked about the abuses of Parliament, of which his government is even more guilty than the Conservatives, and the arrogance of government. Consider the arrogance of the Prime Minister who said: ``If you can't get a job, tough, move''. That is pretty arrogant.

We should consider the arrogance of the Prime Minister.

(1135 )

Usually we are here for five years and somewhere in the fourth year the government starts to hand out its goodies for an election. It is only 3.5 years. I wonder what it is hiding. It is hiding something with Somalia. It is hiding something with Krever. It is hiding, hiding and hiding. It is hiding something with Pearson airport. It is hiding in everything it is doing. What is it hiding about the economy? What does it know that we do not know that it has to call an election in 3.5 years?

This is the same Prime Minister who said: ``In politics perception is everything''. The government is trying to create the perception that everything is wonderful and that the Canadian public, when they go to vote, will stay asleep. Certainly the Reform Party candidates are going to say it. I am going to say it. I hope the Canadian public wakes up, demands more of their politicians, demands some honesty and truth in politics, rewards the people who have been telling the truth, rewards the people who have kept their promises and rewards those who vote in favour of fixed election dates every four years, which we will vote on today.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak for a few minutes on the bill of my colleague from Kindersley-Lloydminster on fixed election dates.

I did promise a constituent who takes an avid interest in this subject that I would bring up what he sees as a downside of fixed election dates and discuss that for a few moments.

He argues that fixed election dates will cause a slowdown in the economy from six, nine to twelve months ahead of the election date because businesses and people who are making investment decisions will hold off making those decisions until they see the outcome of the election.

He also feels that fixed election dates would not stop governments from playing politics because knowing when the election date would be it would save up its initiatives or its special plans until it was close to the election day so it would still be able to manipulate the agenda to suit its own interests.

There seems to be some credibility to his arguments if you take a look at the New Zealand situation last October. A few years ago New Zealand introduced a law that the government must notify the electorate six months ahead of the election date. In New Zealand it is now known six months prior to an election when that date will be. During the six months leading up to the election the government is required to release the public accounts. Incidentally, standard accounting practice is used for that so someone can actually tell what the state of the economy is instead of the manipulated sort of figures that we tend to get here.

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Because of all of that information coming out during that time an element of uncertainly develops. Quite clearly there was a slowdown in the New Zealand economy during that six month period. The number of jobs advertised dropped off, the amount of reinvestment dropped off and the dollar weakened slightly as well.

It did pick up after the election. The economy was rejuvenated and suddenly the job situation picked up dramatically. Last week there were 22.5 pages of jobs advertised in just Auckland city alone in one of the local newspapers. Everything picked up again dramatically right after the election but the point the gentleman brought to my attention seems to have been played out in New Zealand.

What we have to weigh, when looking at the overall situation, is whether the benefits of having a fixed election date outweigh any downside that might come from knowing that date in advance. My personal opinion is that they do because on balance certainty is always better for the economy than uncertainty. The New Zealand example may have been an aberration because the United States has fixed election dates. They know when things are going to happen and it does not seem from the evidence that I have that there is a major impact on the economy in slowdowns or speed-ups based on an fixed election date.

Perhaps the experience that was brought to my attention by my constituent may have been an aberration. As people get used to a new system where they actually know the election date, over a period of time it will not be quite as important. When you look at the balance, the opposite side of actually knowing that date, giving the certainty to business that a decision will be made on a certain date and they can get on with their plans, I think we still have to go for that fixed election date.

It also gives pressure groups and the electorate the opportunity to works toward that date with any projects that have to be completed, any political efforts or persuasions that need to be done.

(1140 )

As promised, I have put my constituent's point of view to the House today. On balance, I would recommend to my colleagues that they vote for this bill because I think the overwhelming evidence in speeches before me has pointed that there would be a tremendous benefit for the people of Canada.

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I want to begin with an aside. I want to thank my friend from Calgary Centre who will be leaving the House after this election. I also want to compliment him for bringing forward over the last several years many good ideas and for generally raising the level of debate in this place. I know that he will be extraordinarily successful back in the private sector just like he was before he came here.

I speak in favour of Bill C-250 put forward by my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster. I know my hon. friend would agree that the essence of this bill is accountability, as he pointed out in his press release. Accountability is so extraordinarily important today.

One of the things I found a little bit alarming is when we saw a recent poll that listed where politicians stood in the eyes of the Canadian public relative to all the other occupations. At the top it had teachers, nurses, doctors and people like that. It then went down the list to business people. The clergy was very high on the list. Then came journalists. Farther down the list there were lawyers. Just above arms dealers were politicians. In a way it is kind of funny but it is very sad as well because politicians are supposed to be the cream of the crop and are supposed to represent the best qualities of the Canadian people. However, for many reasons the public has lost faith in politicians.

I would argue that one of the big reasons for this is because so much power has been usurped into the hands of the government over the last many years. Now the public feels very sceptical when the Prime Minister and the government talk about letting the public have more say in issues.

This bill is a chance for the government to redeem itself. Bill C-250 would allow the public to know exactly when elections are going to be held and it would take power away from the government. That is a very good thing.

Last week I was back in Saskatchewan where my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster is from. He will be running in a new riding called Saskatoon-Rosetown Biggar. I grew up in Rosetown. We were out in that area talking to various people. Whether one goes to Rosetown, Milden, Biggar, Perdue, Fiske, D'Arcy, McGee or wherever it is, the people are out there are extraordinarily concerned that they get good representation and that they have a way to hold the government accountable.

My friend is a man of excellent character. He has tremendous qualities that he brings to this place. Unfortunately, for everybody here to some degree, all the good qualities that many members bring to this place are frustrated because the system simply does not allow for politicians to represent their constituents in each and every case. I will explain exactly what I mean.

When we vote later today, it is supposed to be a free vote. I know many members accept that there are good points in this bill. It makes sense to have fixed election dates every four years for reasons that my friends have pointed out. It just makes common sense. Who wants to see the playing field tilted in favour of the government? That is contrary to most people's sense of fair play.

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Canadians and most hon. members know that this bill makes a lot of sense but that will be frustrated later today, I predict, when the government will instruct its members to vote against it. That is sad because the bill makes a tremendous amount of sense.

It is ironic that on a bill that deals with something as important as accountability we will see the government members undoubtedly vote against. That is sad. Bill C-250 was very well thought out. If we look at what my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster has put into the bill, we come to understand he has dealt with all the possible problems that could arise from having fixed election dates. He has dealt with the problem of minority governments and other concerns members have raised.

(1145)

It points to the desire to have politicians on all sides of the House more involved in determining what are good pieces of legislation. Private Members' Business should be a more important part of what we do in here. We have a lot of talented people in the House who bring good ideas to the floor. I point out that this concept is part of the Reform Party's policy. It has long believed in fixed election dates.

The whole point of Private Members' Business is to gather the best ideas, no matter where they come from, even if they happen to come from my friend from rural Saskatchewan. I do not think that should stand in the way of bills becoming the law of the land. He brings a lot of good ideas to this place.

It is very frustrating to see good ideas such as this one get to this point after a lot of work, only to be turned down because the government does not want to lose power. As my friend from Fraser Valley East said, that is what this is all about. The government is afraid to give up any bit of power.

Power is a very funny thing. It is a fixed amount. There is only so much power to go around. When the government has a lot of it the rest of us have very little of it. That is precisely what we are trying to remedy to some degree with Bill C-250. It would take some of the power away from the government to set an election date that suits it based on when it thinks it can get re-elected.

My friend from Calgary Centre made a very good point. He said we spend a lot of time studying strategy. There are columns written in the media about how the government will use the election date to help it win the election.

I read a column in the Atlantic Monthly not too long ago by James Fallows who has made a study of how the media focuses on strategy. There are reams and reams of paper devoted to people trying to predict when the government will use its power to call an election to lever itself back into power. That is unfortunate. That strategy should not be the issue.

We should be debating issues such as the debt of over $600 billion. We should be debating the 37 tax increases the government has brought in over the last three and a half years. We should be debating the fact that disposable income for the average family has fallen by over $3,000 since the Liberals came to power. Those are the issues that should be the subject of analysis in the media. I do not think that there should be long columns in the newspaper and or entire programs devoted to the strategy of government having the power to call an election when it chooses.

I wrap up by saying that I support the bill. It puts power back into the hands of the Canadian people, a concept the Reform Party believes in very strongly.

Mr. Roger Gallaway (Sarnia-Lambton, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree this is a topic worth discussing. The member opposite who proposed the bill should be congratulated.

I listened to the level of the debate. Some members are railing at a shadow they do not appreciate, known as the House of Commons. They are not looking at its historical perspective in the sense that parliament is an old institution that has evolved with time. Change is necessary and change occurs in parliament, but change does not always happen in the way or at the speed we want. In the thousand years parliament has existed change has in fact occurred.

(1150)

I do not necessarily disagree with having a fixed date for elections. It is done in the United States-

The Deputy Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. colleague but the time provided for debate has expired.

Mr. Hermanson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wondered if I might take a minute before we proceed to government business to thank all members of the House who spoke on the bill. Many of them spoke in favour of it and I appreciate that. I also thank the Canadians who have communicated their support.

The Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?

Some hon. members: Question.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: No.

The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Some hon. members: Yea.

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay.

Some hon. members: Nay.

The Deputy Speaker: In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

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The Deputy Speaker: Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The Deputy Speaker: I understand there is unanimous consent among the parties to defer the matter until the end of Government Orders today. Is that agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

SUSPENSION OF SITTING

Mr. Kilger: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if we might suspend the sitting of the House until 12 noon.

The Deputy Speaker: Is there unanimous agreement to suspend the sitting until 12 noon?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

(The sitting of the House was suspended at 11.52 a.m.)

_______________

SITTING RESUMED

The House resumed at 12.02 p.m.

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GOVERNMENT ORDERS

[English]

BUDGET IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 1997

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-93, an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 18, 1997 as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Hon. Lucienne Robillard (for the Minister of Finance, Lib.) moved that the bill be concurred in and read the second time.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: No.

The Deputy Speaker: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Some hon. members: Yea.

The Deputy Speaker: All those opposed will please say nay.

Some hon. members: Nay.

The Deputy Speaker: In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

The Deputy Speaker: Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The Deputy Speaker: A recorded division on the motion stands deferred until the completion of Government Orders today.

* * *

[Translation]

CRIMINAL CODE

The House resumed from April 18 consideration of the motion that Bill C-95, an act to amend the Criminal Code (criminal organizations) and to amend other acts in consequence, be read the second time and referred to committee of the whole.

The Deputy Speaker: Is the House ready for the question?

Some hon. members: Question.

The Deputy Speaker: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Some hon. members: On division.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Kilgour in the chair.)

[English]

On Clause 1

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, it is very important through this committee of the whole and through the questions we have prepared for the minister that we determine the constitutionality and the enforceability of this bill and whether this clause and the allied clause which it creates, that is criminal organization and criminal organization offence, are enforceable and not hollow pieces of legislation. I have some concerns about the wording of this section and perhaps the minister can respond.

(1210)

The first clause refers to a criminal organization which means any group, association or body. But group, association or other body is not defined in the bill and I do not believe it is defined elsewhere in the Criminal Code. Could the minister please tell the committee what he meant by the terms group, association or other body in the bill? What did he mean when he placed these terms in the bill?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, we intended the dictionary definition of group, association or other body. We did not think it was necessary to define those terms. We intend them to have their ordinary meaning. We also added ``whether formally or informally organized'' so we would not need membership cards or a written constitution for a group or organization to meet this definition.

We are aware from our dealings with the police and others that organized crime takes many forms in Canada. It is sometimes in the nature of what we refer to as biker gangs. Sometimes it is far less visible, white collar crime or business crime. The conclusion to which we came based on the mischief we are aiming at through this legislation is that the words group, association or other body

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are sufficient to capture organized crime in the many forms in which it appears as long as the balance of the definition was satisfied as well.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I agree with the minister that the definition is broad enough to encompass the groups he is targeting like the biker gangs which probably prompted this bill. How will the minister ensure this definition does not include other groups that are formally or informally organized? It is a pretty broad definition. How do we ensure that someone who likes to tip a brown at a biker club is not included with the bikers? He may be guilty by association, which is something I am sure the minister does not want to happen.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, this is a definition and does not create an offence. To meet the definition a group would have to be an organization which has as one of its primary activities the commission of an indictable offence punishable by at least five years in prison and whose members, any or all, have within the last five years engaged in the commission of a series of such offences.

We are not talking about benign organizations. In the last few days I have heard the comment that this definition might sweep up well meaning groups like environmental groups or labour protesters who in order to make a point may break the law as an act of civil disobedience.

The section with the definition does not create an offence. It simply defines the term criminal organization. It is a group, one of the primary purposes of which is to commit serious criminal offences and whose members, or some of them, have within the last five years done just that. We are not talking about a sewing club or an environmental group that pickets to protest the government's policies. We are talking about people who are dedicated to crime and who have formed a group for that purpose.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if the definition would include such groups as the FLQ.

(1215 )

Mr. Rock: Again it is difficult to know what one knows about the FLQ. If the FLQ or any other group meets the definition, it would be included. If there is a group which is dedicated to the commission of serious criminal offences and has as one of its primary purposes to do that and has members who have done that over the last five years, then it would be included in the definition.

Do not forget that the definition does not create an offence; it is simply part of the framework that establishes access by the investigating police to certain techniques that might not otherwise be available. It creates a framework in relation to penalties for those who are convicted of offences that were carried out to benefit, or under the direction of, such organizations.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, what is meant by a primary activity as contained in clause (a): ``having as one of its primary activities the commission of an indictable offence''? What is a primary activity? How is it defined? What is meant by that term? It goes on to say: ``the commission of an indictable offence''. Does that mean that in order to have an organization declared a criminal organization there has to be indictable offences committed and convictions registered?

Perhaps we could deal with this one question at a time. Could the minister tell the committee what he means by primary activity?

We could then go back to the number five, where a criminal organization must constitute at least five people. Why was five chosen? What happens if one of them dies? Is the organization still classified as a criminal organization? If one of them goes to jail, what happens then? Why was the number five picked in this case? Perhaps if the minister could answer that question first, I will follow into clause 1(a) and the other questions.

Mr. Rock: Those are good questions.

I will deal with the number five first. When we were preparing the legislation, and indeed over the period of time when we were looking at the scourge of organized crime and trying to determine the best course for dealing with it, we looked at statutes in other parts of the world. Some of them were of no help because they were in countries with different constitutional traditions and they had approaches that would clearly not be appropriate for Canada.

In some American jurisdictions, we found some helpful precedents. When it came to defining what a criminal organization or what a criminal gang was, they almost invariably used a number, sometimes three and sometimes five. We inquired into it and concluded that the reason is that you have to start somewhere and pick a number.

At the end of the day there is an element of arbitrariness. It could have been three, it could have been five. At one time I was looking at the prospect of two or more. The concern with two or more is that it could be a husband and wife team who are engaged in a crime spree and might be considered a gang. That was not really intended.

We came to five as a reasonable accommodation in that we wanted to have a sufficient number so that there was a group, not so small that it could be a couple or a couple with a friend, but not so large in number that we were going to end up with groups creating subgroups in order to escape the definition. The number five is intended to reflect our policy objective of capturing linkages among people, more than just a couple of friends, so that there is a

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critical mass for a group but not so many that it becomes impractical to enforce.

The second question my friend asked had to do with primary activities. Again we did not define that term. We would be happy with the dictionary definition.

We expect that a court is going to require a prosecuting crown to establish on the evidence that one of the primary activities of a particular group was to engage in serious criminal offences and that is not going to be easy. The crown attorney is going to have to produce evidence of past criminal conduct, statements or circumstances which would lead the court to conclude that in the common sense definition of the term, one of the real reasons for the group, one of its fundamental purposes, one of its chief preoccupations and one of its reasons for being is to commit serious criminal offences.

(1220)

For example, members of a motorcycle gang might say that their purpose is to ride motorcycles and engage in discussions about the size and performance capabilities of their motorcycles. That is one primary activity. However on the evidence the judge would be invited to conclude that another of their primary activities was the commission of offences because of what they had been doing and what had been brought before the court. In each case it will be for the court to conclude on the evidence on a common sense test that it was one of their primary purposes.

The third question put to me by the hon. member has to do with whether one needs to formally establish a fact of conviction in order to satisfy the constituent elements of the definition, that is to say that in the preceding five years any or all of the members have engaged in the commission of a series of such offences. We used the term commission of offences rather than referring to conviction so that it would not be necessary to file a formal certificate of conviction.

It will be open to the prosecuting crown in each case where an effort is made to come within the definition to prove on evidence that there was the commission of such offences. That will not be easy either. The crown is going to have to establish to the satisfaction of the court, and because it is criminal offences we are talking about, on evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that indeed these people did engage in the commission of such serious offences during the relevant period. It is not an easy definition to meet.

That is why I have a degree of confidence in responding to people who express the concerns: Are you not casting the net too wide? Are you not going to catch up in this well intended legislation those who are not so bad and those who you never intended to catch but who might be committing acts of civil disobedience? I do not think so.

What we are creating here is a significant hurdle for the prosecuting crown in that exceptional case where we are dealing with organized crime and we have to prove on the evidence the elements of primary purpose, the element of numbers-five-and that on the evidence to the criminal standard of proof, they have engaged in the commission of a series of serious criminal offences.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Speaker, the minister has not answered the question about an organization and the consistency of a group of five. What happens if one of the group can no longer be termed within that definition and there are only four? That four then loses that definition. Does this not encourage organized criminals to break down into cells of four, cells of less than five and continue to carry on their nefarious activities?

We are concerned that we have not had witnesses to debate both sides of this issue and exhaust any flaws that they might see within the bill. Would the justice minister give us an example of how a criminal organization would be determined? What is the process? Do we wait until someone is arrested for a criminal offence or convicted of a criminal offence and then build the other four people around that individual? How is that done? Once that organization, whether it is Hell's Angels or some other organization, is deemed to be a criminal organization, is it or any group of five deemed to be a criminal organization forever?

I would like the justice minister to address these very significant aspects of concern. It is from the viewpoint of whether or not this particular definition is enforceable or applicable. It is so nebulous that we may have difficulty ever having the courts determine that an organization is a criminal organization.

(1225)

The Chairman: This is an unusual procedure and the member may wish to look at Standing Orders 100, 101, 102 and 103 which deal with amendments in committee of the whole.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, what must be remembered is that the objective is not to deal with groups on the margin who may have three or four people committing crimes. The objective is to get tools into the hands of the police so they can gather evidence in relation to organizations that pose a serious risk to the safety of the community and that are engaged on a systematic basis in the commission of serious offences throughout the country.

The hon. member asked me about groups subdividing into cells of four in order to escape the strict terms of the definition. In my view if any such thing happened, the court could and would simply look beyond the artificial subdivision to the existence of the larger group on the facts and would not permit such a ruse or artifice to interfere with the enforcement of this law.

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For example, just because a given biker gang which is internationally known and internationally active creates subgroups of four members each and gives them a different name would not protect them from this law. The court would be able to look at evidence of the reality behind the artifice and would be able to conclude that the group or association was broader than just the four members and would apply the law as such.

Let me get to the hon. member's broader question which has to do with how this law works. This law works in two fundamental ways.

First of all, for the first time it establishes a formal framework which defines organized crime. That framework provides access by the police, if they are investigating such a phenomenon, to investigative tools which would not ordinarily be available: wiretaps with a different standard; extensions of wiretaps which would otherwise not be available; prolonging the period after which notice of a wiretap has to be given, which in other cases would have to be given sooner. Access to income tax information is another investigative technique or tool which would not otherwise be available to the police.

That is the first thing it does. It establishes a new category of organized crime. If the police are investigating it, they can do things they would not be able to do if they were investigating other kinds of crime.

The second thing this legislation does is it establishes different consequences for organized crime as opposed to other kinds of crime. Penalties are more severe. If a person commits the same crime but does it in association with, for the benefit of, or at the direction of organized crime, then the consequences will be more significant than they otherwise would be.

The proceeds of crime legislation will apply to the crime. Beyond that, the court can not only seize the proceeds of the crime, it can also seize the instruments used to commit it. If a truck is used to drive explosives from point A to point B to plant them for the gang, the truck can be seized if the evidence shows it was an instrument used in the commission of the crime.

Those are the two fundamental things in the bill. There are others. The first is that it establishes something called organized crime. For the first time in our Criminal Code it creates that category. It provides for special tools for the police when they investigate this category of crime which is very, very difficult to do. There are also special consequences including harsher penalties and application for the proceeds and instruments to be seized. Those are the two items.

(1230)

There is another element my friend asked about which I would like to speak to briefly. He asked how we prove it or how it works. For example, if police forces thought they were investigating a gang and wanted to have access to these provisions, and say, for example, they were applying to the electronic surveillance board or wiretap board and wanted to be relieved of the obligation of proving it was a last resort as we proposed they should be able to, they would have to show reasonable grounds to believe that what they were investigating was an organized crime offence, that a criminal organization was involved and that these sections should pertain to that investigation. They would have to do that on proof. They would need to have evidence before the court to satisfy the reasonable grounds test and they would get the warrant under those circumstances.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, if in order to avoid being designated a criminal organization groups did break down into four, the onus of proof would still remain to connect the groups. The onus of proof as contained in this section is still there and is still in force. The onus upon the crown would be just as onerous or difficult.

With respect, my question has not been answered. I do not know what we do when we drop one of the five and it is now four. What happens to that designation?

Perhaps I could ask a straightforward question. How long does the designation of criminal organization rest upon an organization?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I should have said this earlier. I heard my friend last time talk about a declaration in relation to a criminal organization. Although he now uses the word designation, may I say that neither applies.

We are not saying: ``Judge, here is the Allan Rock group. Would you please declare it a criminal organization so that from now on any time we are investigating the Allan Rock group we can have access to these tools and penalties''. I do not want to hear my friend tender evidence that there is such a group, because I would claim that my privileges were being abused.

An hon. member: It is right behind you, Allan.

Mr. Rock: There is my Allan Rock group. It is not a declaration or a designation. It is a question of fact in each case. If there were only four members the act would not apply. If the group artificially subdivided to make it only four, as I said earlier I think the court would look past that artifice. If there really are only three or four people committing crimes, we have made the choice of five; it would not apply.

It is not as though we will ask the court to declare a certain group criminal and it is criminal for five or ten years thereafter. Every time someone brings an application for a search warrant, every time someone alleges the participation in a criminal organization, it will be necessary to prove afresh that there is a criminal organization involved. That depends on evidence. As a practical matter it may get easier the third, fourth or fifth time because the court will be able to look at evidence amassed on the earlier proceedings. Nonetheless, it will be a question of fact in each case for the court

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to be satisfied that we are dealing with a criminal organization. Then the consequences would flow.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, we have not gone further than subsections 1(a) and 1(b). I understand the whole thing is in clause 1, right down to clause 2. We are dealing with not only what we touched upon but the criminal organization offence and the offence related to property.

To what extent has the department gone outside to get advice and consultation regarding the constitutionality of what we have addressed so far, which is the criminal organization in subsections 1(a) and 1(b)?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, careful consideration has been given within the department to the constitutionality of the bill and each of its elements. It is difficult to answer about the constitutionality of subsection 1(a) because it is part of the whole.

(1235)

I am able to tell the hon. member that we looked very carefully at the constitutionality of Bill C-95, those sections which create offences and those sections which modify existing sections of the Criminal Code. We are satisfied it is constitutional as being consistent with the charter. That results from careful assessment of all elements of the bill.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, to what extent were crown prosecutors and defence counsels beyond the justice department consulted as to the viability of the bill in their opinion?

Mr. Rock: To a considerable extent. The process that resulted in the bill started in February 1996. At that time the solicitor general and I began looking at different available approaches to help the police investigating organized crime.

We conducted a seminar with police forces from across the country in February 1996 and received an extensive factual briefing about the nature and extent of organized crime in Canada, including biker gangs but not just biker gangs.

Through the period last summer and into the fall we in the department looked at possible approaches through legislation. In September of last year we had a national forum on organized crime to which we invited defence counsels, crown prosecutors, criminologists, business people, experts from the RCMP and representatives from other countries. Alan Borovoy was kind enough to come the conference as well.

We canvassed a wide range of people including civil libertarians. We canvassed a wide range of approaches trying to identify just what mischief we were after and how best within the Constitution to tackle it. That in turn gave rise to specific recommendations. Further work was done in the department over the winter.

When the government of the province of Quebec asked us in March for legislation to help with the biker gang problem in Quebec, that request accelerated work already under way. Indeed it had been under way for some extended period.

Since March we have had further discussions with representatives of various viewpoints in the criminal justice system. We took the concepts in Bill C-95, sat down and discussed approaches with defence lawyers, crown prosecutors, police officers, police chiefs, provincial attorneys general, provincial solicitors general and ministers of public security.

We were alerted to some concerns. We went to the Canadian Bar Association and to le Barreau du Québec. Sometimes we made changes or adjustments in the legislation because of what we were hearing. All the while we were conducting our own assessment of its constitutionality.

Is it possible to have further study? Of course. It is always possible to have further study. We do not have a monopoly on wisdom or on knowledge. I am sure the hon. member will bring to our attention today some useful insights with respect to the bill.

I assure the hon. member and committee of the whole that we have done a pretty thorough job in going to stakeholders in the criminal justice system to look at the bill through their eyes to anticipate objections and concerns that might be expressed. We have made changes to adjust to their concerns in some cases. Based on that overall survey we were satisfied it was good policy and good law and therefore we put it before the House.

Mr. Ramsay: I am looking for information concerning any objection or concern raised about either the constitutionality of the sections we have dealt with or the enforceability of them. I am primarily concerned about both issues, but enforceability is very important to me.

Bill C-27 deals with child sex tours. Renowned legal minds tell us that although it looks good and it sounds good it is practically unenforceable.

What objections, if any, did the justice minister receive with regard to concern over the constitutionality and the enforceability of what we have covered so far?

(1240)

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I do not know that concerns were exactly expressed about the sections we have looked at so far. Certainly concerns were expressed about the overall bill. It is not hard to find those.

Alan Borovoy, for whose views I have the highest regard, expressed concern about whether the bill is over broad, whether the definitions of criminal organization are too sweeping so that we will catch in our net those who should not be there and do not

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deserve to be called a criminal organization. I have answered that to some extent in my answers to the hon. member's questions. By the way, we took respectfully into account the views of Alan Borovoy and others who were concerned about over breadth.

For example, in one of the many drafts we added five-year minimum penalties for the indictable offences included in the definition of a criminal organization. We are elevating the seriousness of the crime, a series of which they have engaged in, by stipulating it is only crimes punishable by the maximum five years in prison that will qualify for the definition. We are getting past the trivial to the more serious kinds of crimes.

Speaking more directly to the hon. member's question about enforceability and whether it will be of practical benefit, police forces were very directly involved in the process I have described since February 1996. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police gave us its written proposal on what it thinks we ought to do about organized crime in Canada. We looked at it carefully. We concluded that at least in its present form it is not constitutionally valid, and we told the association that. We said we would keep working on it and that we regard Bill C-95 as the beginning of a process, not the end.

We will keep working on it. We also told police forces what we thought we could do in the short term based on the research done over the last several years, especially in the last 18-month effort. We sat down with them with these proposals. Last week the House could see for itself the degree and nature of support in the police community. It was very strong. Chiefs of police believe they will be able to use these tools.

The vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police, Jacques Duchesneau, is the director of the police services in Montreal. He was closely involved in the development of the proposals. We gave him an outline of the proposals. He responded with his ideas. We had a dialogue. Last week he welcomed them as a very good start in terms of helping police forces with practical tools in their difficult task of tackling organized crime.

If we ask the experts, the actual police chiefs in the field, that is where we get the best evidence on the question of whether the proposals are useful and effective. I am able to report the police community has been strongly supportive of the proposals and believe they will be of value.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, did the police chiefs indicate they would support reducing the number from five to perhaps three?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I do not recall that having been a matter of discussion. We looked at the possibility of three. The California statute refers to three. If the hon. member feels strongly about it I would be happy to have his views.

It will not make or break the bill. If the hon. member thinks it would be an advantage to say three, I find it difficult to argue strongly against him. Picking the larger number of five signals to my mind more clearly what we are after, the larger group starting to become a network. If the hon. member has strong views about it I would be happy to hear him and his rationale.

The Chairman: Does the member wish to make an amendment?

Mr. Ramsay: Not unless it will be supported by the government. I would be prepared if there were support. We do not have the testimony of the witnesses. We can only go on what the minister is able to recall in terms of consultation.

I am concerned about the enforceability of the section. If it would make it more practical in terms of enforcement to reduce the number to three, I would be prepared to make the amendment.

The Chairman: The member is asking the minister if the government would support the amendment.

(1245 )

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, yes. To the extent there has been public comment on these proposals, my impression is that some have been saying it should be more than five, not fewer than five. There may be witnesses before the other place when the bill gets there who will say that we should be increasing the number and not decreasing it.

At least for the moment I would like to reserve our position. Perhaps we can come back to this issue after we have had a longer time to think about it and I have a chance to speak to my officials about it.

The Chairman: Is the hon. member finished asking questions?

Mr. Ramsay: Yes, Mr. Chairman. Inasmuch as this section is not unlike the conspiracy laws that are on the books, I would be prepared to move an amendment to reduce the number from five to three.

The Chairman: Would the member be kind enough to provide that amendment in handwritten form?

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, once we move beyond this can we come back to these various sections to make amendments?

The Chairman: If the clause is approved as it is then it is too late to make an amendment. However, if the member wishes to make an amendment it can be debated and then voted on or perhaps there will be unanimity on the amendment.

We can defer clause 1 if that is the wish of both sides.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, then I will not make that amendment at this time.

Mr. Jim Silye (Calgary Centre, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, I have some questions for the minister. I have been listening to try to not cover the same ground the hon. member for Crowfoot has covered.

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I am concerned about a number of issues. It is from that perspective that I approach this legislation. I am concerned, as the minister is, about the impact of this legislation on law-abiding groups. I am also concerned about the importance of us passing a law recognizing there is an immediate problem in the province of Quebec with this issue. It is a serious issue. The police are asking for more powers to deal with group criminal activity.

I still feel that if it goes too fast, if a bad law is passed, it will be worse than no law. I have heard the minister say this on occasion, especially with reference to the victims bill of rights when answering the hon. member for Fraser Valley West. The minister explained why he would not proceed forward with that issue. There is that point of view.

The minister would like to avoid legislation that would allow for the following situation: Somebody from one of these groups commits a crime, the case goes before the courts and then either the person gets off scot-free on a technicality or the supreme court nullifies the court decision in six months or so. Time spent now is time well spent versus wasting taxpayers' dollars and a horrendous and embarrassing situation before a court somewhere down the road after this law goes through.

Starting with clause 1, the major issue the minister and the justice department want to cover is the definition of a criminal organization. That is a huge starting point. Personally I feel the definition is too restrictive and will avoid capturing those groups that sometimes tend to start criminal activities and then grow to huge numbers.

The minister may be addressing the problem from the wrong point of view. If we argue for larger numbers, by that time the groups have already committed a lot of crimes. It might be better to look at it from the point of view of the smaller number with the knowledge that a group has the intent to commit criminal activities. The group is associated for that purpose. I have no problem with the word association in this first definition.

I have a problem with the term group. I know that group means three or more. The minister said today in testimony to the member for Crowfoot that it is the ordinary meaning. The ordinary meaning of group is three or more, not five or more. If a group of four or more commits a crime this law does not apply. Therefore, the surveillance, the wiretapping and the income tax investigation cannot be done. That is restrictive if the purpose is to nip things in the bud.

(1250 )

I am submitting this argument for consideration for the amendment that may come later from the member for Crowfoot. He talked about lowering the number to three. I would argue and support three.

The Chairman: Would it be agreeable to defer clause 1 until later on?

Mr. Strahl: I think we may want to defer the amendments on clause 1 but there is further debate from several others here.

Mr. Silye: I have a comment and about three or four questions. I wanted to build the framework of where I am coming from, much like the minister has in his response so that we better understand what he is trying to do. I think that is important. I do not mean to be wordy like a normal politician is. I am trying to do my job effectively here. However, I happen to be a wordy individual so please bear with me.

First, that is my argument, rationale and reasoning to possibly look at lowering the number because if the minister says ``ordinary meaning,'' a group means three or more. In light of that and because the minister was a lawyer and worked in the courts, is there any previous precedent that would contradict any of those three words that he uses in his definition and that would exclude his five or more? That is one assurance I would like to have.

Second, in terms of the impact on law-abiding groups, about the Rock biker gang to which he symbolically referred, are we prejudging? Will this law prejudge the Hell's Angels and Rock Machine as criminal organizations de facto when this bill is passed? Are there people already known to the government and the police who have committed criminal acts punishable by five years or less within that group presently? If so, why have not one of the over 800 sections in the Criminal Code that are there to help police officers in the performance of their duties been used to put these people before the courts to try them for the acts that their group has done?

Mr. Rock: First, Mr. Chairman, I full agree with the hon. member, this is time well spent. I am very happy to have this interchange with hon. members about this bill.

The hon. member referred to a problem in Quebec as having inspired the bill. While the issue takes centre stage in Quebec because of the open warfare between certain gangs there now, it is a problem throughout Canada that we are addressing. I spoke with the chief of police in Vancouver in the course of consulting when we were drafting the bill and he was telling me about the problems in Vancouver with gangs and organized crime. Indeed, a serious criminal offence had been charged that very week involving a member of a biker gang in Vancouver.

I have spoken with attorneys general in Manitoba and Ontario, to the chiefs of police in Halifax, Toronto and Ottawa who have all told me the same thing. This is not just a Quebec issue. It so happens that the most spectacular aspects of the problem are evident there now with the bombs that have gone off and the lives that have been lost. However, we are dealing with a pan-Canadian issue, not just Quebec.

The Chairman: Does the hon. member have any further questions?

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Mr. Silye: Mr. Chairman, the minister did not answer the two questions.

Mr. Rock: I will answer those questions now. I should not pause. I should just keep talking straight through and not look as though I am going to stop.

There are two questions to answer in particular, the first one about lowering it to three. I am not aware of any court decisions that would bind us about the definitions of groups, organizations or associations. As I said earlier, we are happy to consider lowering it to three. Even as we speak there are people out there watching this and people in the justice department who are intensively examining the proposals that are being made to see if there are any other things we should say so we can add to this discussion. Before this process is over we will have a position for you on your suggestion that we lower it to three.

In your second question you asked us about the impact on law-abiding groups. I say that if there is a group out there that has as one of its primary activities the commission of indictable offences for which imprisonment of five years or more is provided in the code and which has as members people who have engaged over the last five years in the commission of a series of such offences, then they are not law-abiding groups and, by definition, law-abiding groups are excluded from the application of that section.

(1255 )

My friend also asks if we will prejudge certain organizations or gangs, the so-called clubs. No, we will not. The very thing that the attorney general of Quebec asked me for I simply could not give, which is to say that membership alone in a certain group called X is an offence and that there be a schedule to the act with the names of the groups on it which indicate that those people are all criminals and, therefore, they lose certain rights and we can do certain things. We said that we will not do that. We cannot do that.

Instead, we said that we would talk concepts instead of people. We will talk about teams and ideas instead of the names of groups. We will give a description in the criminal law. If there is a group which has as one of its primary purposes the commission of serious crimes and if that group has a membership which has engaged in the last five years in a series of serious crimes, that is a criminal organization. That does not create an offence, it just describes what a criminal organization is.

We then went on to say that if a person commits a crime to benefit a criminal organization, that is more serious than it would otherwise be because this is a particular mischief we are trying to root out of our society.

That is not to say that particular groups are automatically deemed to be criminal when we pass this bill. The reality is that the crown attorney will have to tender evidence in each case: that this person is doing this for the benefit of a criminal organization, that gang X is a criminal organization because it is borne out in the facts. The court will have to be persuaded that they fall within the definition.

The last question my friend asked was why is it that the 800-odd sections in the very thick and complete Criminal Code have not succeeded to date in achieving all of this?

Organized crime, as I have learned from the police, presents a unique challenge in investigation. The police techniques typically are that an informer is sent inside, an officer is sent in under cover or they try to persuade someone in the organization to turn and become their informer. Also they solicit bits of information from people who are prepared to talk. In organized crime, particularly some of the groups which are active in Canada today, the police cannot infiltrate because the groups require that in order to become a member or be admitted to the inner circle that person has to commit a serious crime to qualify. It is an initiation. Police cannot do that.

Second, those who are inside, who police sometimes try to turn to become informers, realize they will face the death penalty if they are caught. That is a serious disincentive to providing information to the police. Similarly, there is an element of intimidation of those who might otherwise give information.

The fact is that the police find it exceedingly difficult to investigate these groups based on the powers in the code. That is why the police have been asking for the kind of tools that are contained in this bill, which we believe will make a difference in these exceptional cases.

I hope that responds to the questions which my friend asked.

Mr. Silye: Mr. Chairman, the minister did address the questions I asked.

It is like I am acting as a director of a huge public corporation, the Government of Canada and, with due diligence, I am making sure as a director that the right questions are asked. I think that is what we are all trying to do here.

The minister said that this is not specifically Quebec related. We all know that the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and the justice critic for that party have been asking questions on this issue since 1995. March 1995 was the first time a question was asked in the House of Commons on this issue. At that time the minister indicated that the code had enough tools, as he has done until recently. A political perception might be that this is being rushed through for a pre-election purpose to build up and shore up popularity in a province in which the Prime Minister may or may not have the proper poll numbers.

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I did not create those stories. I did not allege those charges. They are very well documented in all the press and media. That has made me very concerned that we not rush this legislation through in such a way that we do not show the Canadian public that we are trying to provide good governance. It is the Minister of Justice and his department which has that responsibility. I make an analogy to the victims bill of rights where the argument used was not to proceed. That addresses the answer. I just wanted to make a comment on the minister saying it was pan-Canadian.

(1300)

With respect to criminal organizations consisting of five or more or three or more, they will not declare in writing their intent. It is like gun control. I hate to touch on it, but criminals who need handguns, rifles or shotguns for the purposes of committing crimes will not register them because it would lead to a quicker trail to them. They will get one illegally and commit the crime anyway. We will see if gun control will reduce crime. We will also see if this definition of criminal organization will reduce warring activities across the country.

With this preamble and setting the stage, if we now define criminal organization which up until now has not been defined in the Criminal Code, what different powers will it give police officers that they do not have now under the 800 sections?

As I understand the law, if they suspect somebody of committing a crime or they suspect somebody of being guilty of something, if there is suspicion and sufficient evidence, police officers can obtain warrants. Search and seizure are available. Surveillance is available. Wiretapping with a judge's permission is available, as is requesting tax records of somebody who has committed income tax fraud. I am the revenue critic. I know how heavy, hard and strong tax avoidance audit groups work. They do a darned good job. I know the powers they have.

Now we are defining criminal organizations. Will it give police forces that much more power when they already have the same powers on an individual basis?

Mr. Rock: I believe so but, more important, the police believe so.

It is helpful to have the advice of those who are actually in the field. It certainly was on gun control. We had the support of the chiefs of police and the Canadian Police Association. They believed it would make a difference in terms of community safety. I know the hon. member voted for Bill C-68. He must have come to that conclusion. I know how carefully he thinks through positions before taking them.

The member referred to this being our opportunity for due diligence. I do not want him to think for a moment that I do not welcome the opportunity to discuss these features of Bill C-95 with my colleagues. I welcome the chance to have their views. As I said earlier, I am sure we will learn from the incite they bring to the process. We need this kind of examination and I welcome it.

What will the bill give police forces that they do not already have under the existing Criminal Code? Why do they think it will be important to them in their fight against organized crime?

At the moment if police officers want to get a wiretap they have to prove a number of things to a judge first. Among those they have to prove on evidence that every other kind of investigative technique either has been tried and failed or if it was tried would fail because of the nature of the investigation. That takes police officers to the point of having to swear an affidavit or other form of particulars of what has already been done, go through the list of alternative methods and satisfy the court on evidence that it is a last resort in the investigation of a certain crime.

The bill would remove that burden. It would simplify the process of getting a wiretap if the police officer is investigating criminal organization offences. Similarly with warrants. Returning to wiretaps, it would relieve police officers of a paper burden. We are not saying we should allow free access to intrusive methods because it is administratively difficult for police. We are saying we should make that change because when investigating organized crime it is almost always obvious that it is a last resort for the reasons I have already given. It is very difficult to investigate.

We are taking a burden from the police which we think is undue in the circumstances of offences of this kind. Some say if it is all so easy to establish they can establish it to the satisfaction of the judge and nothing is lost. We are trying to recognize the unique character of these offences in the way investigative tools are available to police officers. If we have the courage to conclude on the facts that it is almost always the last resort, then let us say it in the criminal law and not have the police go through the empty process of establishing it. It sends a signal as well.

(1305)

Furthermore, police officers have told me that they get wiretaps and the day after they start the paperwork to prepare for the renewal because they only get it for 60 days. They tell me that in the context of an organized crime offence it is absurd because those investigations take an exceptional period of time. They have to put together bits and pieces of conversations and relate them to other information. It is a very complex process. They almost always need the wiretap for longer than 60 days.

In the bill we are permitting the court to provide the wiretap for an extended period so that the police will be using their resources investigating crime rather than busily working at paperwork for the extension application.

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Similarly notice of the wiretap has to be given after the wiretap is finished to people wiretapped so that they know it and can take proceedings. We have extended the period during which they can give notice in these cases because some of the investigations go on for an exceptional period of time.

At the moment there is a very narrow category of offences for which access to income tax information can be gained. That is as it should be. Income tax is filed on an undertaking with the Canadian people. It is implicit the information be kept absolutely confidential by Revenue Canada. We do permit it at the moment for a very few offences. Officials will know the sections. Basically they deal with drug offences.

What we have proposed is significant. It is to extend the category of access to tax information to assist in investigations into organized crime offences. They cannot just walk in and take the information out of a file. They have to go before a judge, get a warrant, establish to the satisfaction of the judge that a criminal organization offence is being investigated, and that they need the information and it relates to the investigation. Then the warrant can be given and can be limited to such information as the court thinks is appropriate. Nonetheless it is an important breakthrough in terms of giving police more information to fit the puzzle together as to who has what, what are the proceeds of crime, what money is being laundered or what illegal activity is taking place?

Similarly we are proposing for the first time to extend the proceeds of crime legislation beyond drug offences and the like to organized crime offences. It is not only the proceeds. Cash can be taken from their desks during the arrest. It can be instruments as well possibly including real estate if it has been fortified or modified to facilitate the commission of an offence. That is a very important point.

We spoke to the mayor of St. Nicolas or other communities where there are headquarters of organizations of great concern to the citizens. We can imagine a gang setting up in a municipality somewhere, taking over a house, fortifying it, setting up barriers so that the police could not raid it, putting concrete in front and surveillance cameras on top, modifying it and selling drugs out the back door or using it to store explosives or some other such thing. If the real estate is modified or fortified to facilitate the commission of criminal offences, the real estate could be regarded as one of the instruments of crime and could potentially be seized after conviction for an organized crime offence. That is an extremely important tool.

The bill includes serious increases in sentences for crimes committed in association with or for the benefit of criminal organizations. I could have explosives illegally on my person and I would be subject to a maximum of five years in prison. If I am doing it for the benefit of a gang, if I am delivering the explosives to a gang or have planted them for the gang, whether or not I am part of the gang I could face up to 14 years in prison. Why? Because we are targeting organized crime which in turn is targeting us, our families and our children. That is why.

That is not only important because it reflects society's denunciation of organized crime activity. It is also an important tool for the police that may be in a position of having picked people up, arrested them and charged them. Then they have a potentially serious sentence facing them. Police officers can say they are prepared to discuss with them the charge they will be brought before the court on or what submission they will make to the court in relation to the sentence if they co-operate by providing them with information they need. It is a very important tool for police that should not be underestimated.

(1310)

Then there is the so-called peace bond provision which is not there now. It will let police officers bring someone before the judge and say they have reasonable grounds to fear the person will commit a criminal organization offence.

They can ask the judge to look at the evidence, at the people he associates with, at what he has done in the past, at what the wiretap has turned up and at all the other circumstances. Then they invite the judge to conclude there is a reasonable basis to fear the person will commit a criminal organization offence. They can tell the judge that he has committed a number of them in the past and is still with the same group of people. They can ask the judge to look at what he has said publicly and privately.

In those circumstances the court can impose for up to a year conditions on the person's liberty such as prohibiting him from communicating with other members of the group. This would seriously undermine the ability of the leadership of groups to carry on their business. The police believe that is also a valuable tool.

I take the member's point. I should have to satisfy him that what we are proposing here is not only lawful but will be effective. I am able to report from my dealings with the police, the crown attorneys and the attorneys general of the provinces that we have a collection of measures. They are not enough in and of themselves but they will make a difference. They will make it that much easier for the police to tackle this dreadfully difficult problem.

We will be back in the future with more proposals. This is only the first phase of what we will do. Organized crime is a menace in the country. I do not think most of us have an appreciation for what a serious threat it is to the economy and future of the country.

It is a good start. These measures will make a difference for police and that is why we are here.

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Mr. Silye: Mr. Chairman, I have one final question. I would just rephrase a good start to a fresh start because I feel it is a fresh example of co-operation between all parties. In any event, because of the nature of the amendments to the Criminal Code the concern is that they not be thrown out by some future supreme court justice.

There is a lot more to discuss in the bill. Why does it have to be done by Friday of this week? Why can we not take two to three weeks? We fast track bills through the House at second reading, report stage, third reading, over to the Senate and back, with exception of the blood bill of last year. Why can we not take two to three weeks from today and do it a little more slowly for the sake of not infringing upon the civil liberties of honest, law-abiding citizens, groups, associations or other bodies?

Mr. Rock: We have asked for all-party agreement to deal with the bill now. My hon. friends have been kind enough to agree. We are dealing with, as I have said, a process that has been methodical. For some time we have been working at it, but it has been accelerated by reason of the request of the Government of Quebec for help in the present circumstances.

Over the last couple of years there have been almost 50 people killed in the gang war in Quebec. I met last week with Mrs. Desrochers, whose 11-year old son, Daniel, was killed in August 1995. He was walking down the street in Montreal on an errand for his mother. The police believe one of these gangs detonated an explosive that was intended as another offensive in their gang war. A piece of shrapnel blew across the street and took the life of the 11-year old boy.

I met with Mrs. Desrochers last summer in my office. The hon. member for Hochelaga was kind enough to introduce me to her. She asked how much longer she must wait before something was done about it. I told her we were working on it and the police were working on it. She met with me again last week. She said she wanted the bill in place and she wanted the police to have these tools. The most important thing to her was that the bill might help the police to find the people who are responsible for her son's death.

There are few more eloquent explanations of why we are moving quickly on the bill. I think of that grieving mother. I think of that 11-year old boy who lost his life. I think of a gang war that continues. We do not know from day to day where another bomb might be found or where it might be exploded. The criminal law is not something that can react on an hourly basis either to judicial decisions we do not like or crises that arise in terms of crimes in the country. It is an instrument that should be brought to bear in those circumstances where we feel as parliamentarians it can help in a lawful, practical way.

(1315)

This is a problem of long standing which is of significant concern to our second most populous province. It has asked for our help and our urgent action. We have produced a bill we think is lawful and which will make a difference. It is under those circumstances we have asked that its adoption be expedited.

I am sensitive to those who say that greater care should be taken and a longer look should be taken at this bill. It may be that the other place may have its own ideas too about when and how the bill is considered.

If it does become law in the next little while, I can see us saying that we will commit to monitoring its progress, to reviewing its operation, to seeing what we have learned from it in operation. I have discussed this matter with officials. They think it may need a period of a couple of years or three years before we are able to look meaningfully at what we have learned from it by the time the wiretaps are in place and there is some empirical data by police across the country.

I would be happy to say to the hon. member that the government will return within three years with a statistical assessment of how this bill has operated, what the effect has been, what judicial decisions have been reached under the bill, whether there have been challenges to its validity, what the police say about how valuable this is as a tool in their hands, what changes might be desirable from a policy or practice point of view. That would be useful. It should be done anyway, but I would be happy to undertake to the member that the government will do so if he would find it of assistance.

Mr. Silye: I respect the example the minister gave me about the 11-year old boy and his mother, and the need to move quickly. That is no different from the pleadings and representations made to the minister by Debbie Mahaffy in terms of having a victims bill of rights, victims impact statements and things like that being clearly identifiable in the law.

Is the minister sure that he is not being pressured by a pending election when he rushes forward with this bill?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, it is a good question. The Minister of Justice and Attorney General holds a place apart in any cabinet. He is a politician by definition but he has another responsibility as well: to be the guardian of the Constitution and the rule of law.

He or she is there to focus issues of principle on questions of politics, to borrow a phrase from Ian Scott who served with such distinction as Attorney General of Ontario for five years. I can tell the hon. member that I have considered that question at every stage of this process. I can tell him with honesty that in my view this is good law. It is needed. It is good policy.

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I can tell him that if the request from the province of Quebec had come under different circumstances at a different time, I would respond in the same way. Within two days of getting a call from the minister of public security, I was in Quebec City to meet with him and 14 mayors of the region because I was aware of the depth of their concern and the extent of the problem.

I promised to look immediately at the proposal they gave to me. I did and I concluded it was unacceptable, but I also put something else on the table. I said: ``Here are tools that we think are legal but that will make a difference''. I solicited the involvement of others in the process I have already described in terms of consultation.

What we produced is before members now in Bill C-95. It is an urgent response to a very difficult and serious problem. I believe focusing issues of principle on questions of politics is the right thing to do.

Two years ago, members were kind enough to look carefully at Bill C-104 which had to do with adding DNA testing to the criminal law. We went through a similar process. I was here in this chair in committee of the whole, on clause by clause study for Bill C-104.

We passed that bill in a day. It went on to the other place and was adopted very quickly. It became law. Again, it did not go through the long, extensive process that we associate with legislation. We did it because we came to the common view that here was something that was needed and was not already in the criminal law. There was a case to be made that it was going to make a difference to police inquiries so we went ahead and acted quickly. There was no election pending; it was not as though the House was going to rise and we were all going to go on the hustings. It was two years ago, in the middle of our mandate.

(1320)

My point is that there are times, quite apart from elections, when the need arises and circumstances require that we act quickly. I believe this is one of those cases. As a general rule, as I said in connection with Bill C-104, it is better to take the extended period. On this bill, with the facts and with this law we are in a position to act quickly and it is in the public interest to do so.

The Chairman: Would the member indicate whether he wants this clause deferred until the end of all of the clauses?

Mr. Ramsay: Yes, but there are more parts to this clause that I would like to discuss with the minister if that is in order, Mr. Chairman.

The DNA bill came about as a direct result of the member for Wild Rose assuring the justice minister that he would have our support if they moved forward on that bill. It was as a result of that initiative that the DNA bill came forward because it was clear, simple and straightforward.

With regard to this bill, a little 11-year old boy died two years ago. There is no question in my mind that we had enough time to bring this bill forward and give it the due diligence it should have had. I am still concerned that we have not had witnesses from both sides. I would like to hear from prosecutors and ask them some of these questions, those who stand in the courts each day and have to bear the weight of providing evidence to bring forward the conclusion that they want. I would like to hear what they have to say.

I appreciate the time we are taking but it is not the same as having witnesses come forward with the various perspectives that this bill should have before we go forward with it. We are here because we do support the thrust of this bill.

I am concerned with the vagueness of some of the terms we have dealt with. I want to deal with more of them. There is a vagueness that is left to the courts to interpret. We know what happened with Bill C-41 on the conditional sentencing issue. Even the justice minister himself admits that rapists should not be walking free, yet that is the manner in which that law is being interpreted and administered by judges across the country.

When we say we will leave some of these definitions or these words to be defined and interpreted by the courts, we have had unpleasant experiences in the past that I do not think are in the best interests of society.

Nevertheless, I would like to turn to (b) of that first clause at the top of page 3. It states:

any or all of the members of which engage in or have, within the preceding five years, engaged in the commission of a series of such offences;

There is another word without definition and that is ``series''. What does that mean? What did the justice minister mean when he placed that word within this statute?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, we intended it to have its ordinary meaning. I would be happy if a court would look at the ordinary dictionary definition of that term when it comes to interpreting it and applying it.

May I say it is quite common in legislation, not just justice legislation but bills in general, that Parliament does not define all the terms that are used. We could scarcely do that because we would never get out of the definition section. Even if we were to do so, the definition sections themselves are open to interpretation by the courts. The courts will have the last word on all legislation; that is just the way things work in this democracy.

What we intended was to communicate the idea that where members engage over the last five year period in more than one of these criminal offences and indeed a series, then it should catch the definition of criminal organization. We are not talking here about an isolated event. We are not talking here about an exceptional event. We are talking about a series of events and therefore we are

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giving the court the nature of the organization that we have in mind.

(1325 )

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, if the justice minister means that a series is more than one, that clarifies it in my mind, but I do not read that definition anywhere in the bill. What does a series mean to the various judges across the country? Would the justice minister be prepared to define ``series'' as more than one?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I said the dictionary definition should govern. Perhaps we should have that before us. I could ask one of my officials to provide me with a copy of the dictionary definition of ``series'' and we could read from that.

The Chairman: Does the member have a further question?

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I would like to wait until the minister has responded to that.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I have a question and a comment. Earlier, I was relieved when I heard the hon. member for Calgary-Centre, because I was afraid we were getting into something close to a filibuster. That would have been disappointing, I must admit. But the hon. member was most reassuring, and I know his reputation for style and fair play. I really had the feeling that the three parties had reached an agreement to ensure that the bill would be passed as soon as possible.

I am grateful to the minister for recalling what happened in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. The minister knows how concerned I am about the whole issue of organized crime. I have two comments, since I will not speak again on this bill because I really want us to proceed as quickly as possible.

I had an opportunity, for which I thank the minister and his officials, to ask some questions during a briefing session. I imagine the same opportunity was offered to our Reform Party colleagues. During this session I was able to discuss technical aspects of the bill.

So I would appeal to all members of the House to let us proceed as quickly as possible. I also want to explain to my Reform Party colleagues who are very close to the police community that three major demands made by police associations across the country have been documented in a report.

I would be delighted to table this report which is about the management of the proceeds of crime in Canada, if the House were to give its unanimous consent. One of the document's main recommendations is that there should be aggravating circumstances when an offence is committed in relation to organized crime. I understand why this provision found its way into the bill, and the minister can confirm my statement.

My question to the minister is as follows: Could he ask his officials to make a list of the offences covered by this bill, so that we have a better understanding of the legislation? I do not know whether departmental employees have already done so. I do know that there is a reference to all offences punishable by more than five years imprisonment, and these are mainly offences already included in the Criminal Code. However, to give all members of this House a better understanding of the legislation, it might be useful if the Department of Justice promised to distribute this list before we finish our business or by the end of this week. I think it would be very interesting for all members to have this list.

Finally, I want to make one last appeal to have this bill passed with all due dispatch, and I can assure the minister he will have our full co-operation.

[English]

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, in the definition the reference is to offences for which there is a maximum of at least five years imprisonment as a punishment. It is for indictable offences with that consequence. It is not only in the Criminal Code but in other federal statutes as well. I am not sure if it would be helpful to provide that list because it is very long.

In terms of penalties, the Criminal Code is divided into a series-to use a word-in which there are groups of offences punishable by six months, two years less a day, two years, five years, ten years, fourteen years, and life. Those are the distinctions in terms of Criminal Code penalties.

Those offences punishable by a maximum of five years on indictment make up a very considerable group both in the code and in other statutes. I do not know that it would be helpful to have that list. What we are trying to do here is give the court a sense of the degree of seriousness to which we are looking when we say that someone is involved in a criminal organization. Therefore we have picked those offences which have the maximum of five years, which are up on the scale. They are not six months or two years plus a day or two years, they are in the medium range of seriousness and beyond. These are significant offences.

(1330)

In response to the question put by my friend from Crowfoot on the issue of series, I am reminded as I look at the Oxford concise definition of series that the element that would be missing if we used two or more, rather than series, is the element of successive or the temporal relationship between the offences. In other words, if a person committed both offences in the same day, both having to do with the same event, for example, robbery and assault, that would be more than one but they would both be in connection with the same event and would not capture the notion of series in the sense that there would be successive occasions on which such events took

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place; a person committed a crime in February but also committed the crime in October and so on.

As we look back over the five year period the notion of series is to connote not only a number, more than one, but that they were successive, in temporal relationship, one to the other, and there was a pattern which demonstrated that on more than one occasion the person had engaged in that criminal conduct. That is what series gives us that two or more would not.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I do not know if that is going to make this any easier to establish without a definition more definitive than what I just heard from the minister.

The clause indicates what a criminal organization offence is. I ask the justice minister whether the criminal organization offence applies to youth gangs. I do not see that anywhere in the bill. I wonder why this bill is not applicable to youth and, in particular, why the definition of criminal organization does not apply to youth gangs.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, it does. It applies to anybody who is subject to the criminal law, anybody 12 and older. If there are 13-year olds, five or more of them, who formally or informally organize themselves into a group which has as one of its primary activities the commission of an indictable offence for which a maximum of five years imprisonment is provided by Parliament and any or all of whom have engage in a series of such offences over the last five years, regardless of the age of the participants, they could be found to be a criminal organization. A criminal organization offence could be committed regardless of the age of the participants so long as they are subject to the criminal law sanction being 12 years of age or older. There is no distinction here in terms of age.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the justice minister could explain why under the Young Offenders Act it is only murder that carries an offence greater than the three years. How would this new sentence apply without a transfer to adult court?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, the Young Offenders Act is only the jeopardy to which the individual young person is subject, but the offence itself is punishable in the Criminal Code by five years or longer. If the offence itself is punishable by a maximum of five years on indictment, then it meets the definition.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I would like to be clear on this. If the justice minister is saying that the definition of a criminal organization applies to young offenders and also that the criminal organization offence applies, that is different from the legal opinion we have received. It was on short notice, nevertheless it is different.

When I look at this, from my understanding there is no penalty under the YOA that exceeds three years. The person who was charged for manslaughter, the young offender who was involved in the torture death of Sylvain Leduc, received the maximum penalty that could be received under the YOA of three years. That means that individual, for that offence, does not fall within the category of having committed an indictable offence with a penalty of five years or more. That person, with that record, would not fall within the category or definition.

(1335)

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I do not agree. In reality if the offence carries under the Criminal Code a penalty that is indictable with a maximum of five years or more, then it falls within this definition. The fact that an individual offender, because of the Young Offenders Act, would be subject to a lessor penalty because of their own age is beside the point.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I want to make this clear. Is the justice minister saying that the young offender who was convicted of manslaughter in the Sylvain Leduc torture death and was granted or given a three year maximum penalty allowed under the YOA falls into one of these categories as a person who has been involved in an indictable offence with a penalty of at least five years imprisonment? Is that what the minister is saying?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, we have to unravel that and put it another way. I think I have the member's point but I do not think we can relate it to that particular crime. It was not alleged that there were other crimes.

If there is a group of five or more persons, formally or informally organized, having as one of their primary activities the commission of indictable offences under the Criminal Code punishable by a maximum of five years or more, and any or all of whom have engaged in a series of such offences over the last five years, they do not fall out of the definition for reason only of their age, that they would personally be subject to a maximum of three years under the Young Offenders Act. My officials take that view and I do as well.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, in order to make it clear for the record as well as for those who may be listening, for this young individual who was sentenced to three years maximum for manslaughter under the YOA, if it could have been established and this bill had been in force prior to the death of Sylvain Leduc, could he have been charged under this new criminal organizational offence?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, this statute is for criminal organizations. I do not know enough about the facts of the case. The member keeps referring to that one case. I would prefer not to talk about a case that is still before the courts.

We are not dealing here with one person committing one offence on an isolated basis. We are talking about criminal organizations which are five or more people dedicated ruthlessly to a life of crime and committing a series of such offences over the last five years.

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Then we are talking about criminal organizations and criminal organization offences.

One person committing one offence on a specific occasion is not intended to be caught by this bill.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, this person is alleged to have been a member of Ace Crew, a gang, involved in drug trafficking and in the kidnapping of at least two people, one of whom was tortured to death. If this bill predated the commission of that offence, could that young individual have been convicted and sentenced under this new charge, this new offence that has been created, the criminal organizational offence?

Mr. Rock: No.

Mr. Ramsay: Why could he not? If the minister is saying these two new definitions, criminal organization and criminal organization offence, would apply to youth gangs, and it was alleged this person was a member of a youth gang, why would it not apply to this young individual who got only three years for manslaughter if this bill had predated the offence? He has said that it would not apply. I do not understand.

(1340)

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, the first thing I will do is expressly decline to discuss the case of Sylvain Leduc. I think it is wrong to talk about that case because it is before the courts.

Let me then go to a broader level of generality and talk about a gang of youths engaged in a series of criminal acts over time. As I have already said to the member, if there is a group, association or other body consisting of five or more persons, whether formally or informally organized, one of whose primary activities is the commission of indictable offences under the Criminal Code or any act of Parliament punishable by a maximum imprisonment of five years or more, and whose members, any or all, have engaged over the last five years in a series of such offences, then that would be a criminal organization and it would not fall short of the definition only because members were below the age of 18, so long as they were 12 years of age or more. The determination of the predicate offences would be in reference to the penalties provided in the Criminal Code.

The fact that the Young Offenders Act put a cap of three years as the maximum for any individual because of their age alone would not disqualify them from the definition if the other elements were present. I said that earlier and I cannot say it more clearly than that.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, the justice minister has certainly confused me on this issue. Would a young offender have to be raised to adult court for the indictable offence that has been committed before this new bill is applicable to him?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, if the crown were seeking the 14 year penalty then it would have to seek transfer to adult court. If it were content to seek a maximum of three years, the matter could be dealt with in youth court.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, there seems to be an anomaly here that youth gangs could still be sentenced under the Criminal Code and that this additional sentence which will be served concurrently under this new section can be applied only if the individual is tried in adult court. Am I correct in saying that? Is that my understanding of what the justice minister has told the committee?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, as with all young offender matters, if the crown wants penalties under the Criminal Code to apply, it has to seek transfer of the young offender from youth court to adult court. It does not change the nature or the character of the organization. It permits the police to make use of the provisions. But if a person is going to be sentenced as an adult they first have to be transferred to adult court.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, if I gather what the minister is saying, at least the penalties cannot apply to young offenders unless they are transferred to adult court. Is that true?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, yes, as in every other instance.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, if the court decides on this reverse onus that the justice minister brought in with Bill C-37, that the individual should not be tried in adult court, then they are immune to this law.

(1345 )

Mr. Rock: No, Mr. Chairman, but the penalties that can be given are limited to those provided in the Young Offenders Act.

Mr. Ramsay: If we want to split hairs, then I will put it this way. If the judge says that the young offender has to be tried in youth court, then he is immune to the penalties provided in this new section. Is that right?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, as in every other case, if the court decides not to transfer the young person out of youth court, then the Young Offenders Act penalties apply.

As the hon. member knows, in Bill C-37 we took the most serious crimes of violence and changed the transfer provisions. We said in Bill C-37, which is now the law of this land, that if one is 16 or 17, namely at the upper range of the age limit covered by the Young Offenders Act, and is accused of one of the most serious acts of violence-and we included murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, aggravated sexual assault-then that person will be tried in adult court unless the person can satisfy the burden of showing to the satisfaction of the judge that it is consistent with the public interest that they be tried in the youth court.

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That was to demonstrate that we are not going to tolerate serious crimes of violence from young people and we are going to react to it with swift and certain punishment.

If the youth is transferred to adult court, then that youth is of course subject to all the adult penalties. In connection with Bill C-95, that is the 14 years for explosives, for example, the 14 years for the participation in the criminal organization offence, that is the extended period where the youth cannot apply for parole, that is consecutive sentences if the youth is sentenced for other offences as well. If the youth is transferred to adult court, that youth faces those very significant sanctions. But as in any other case, if the prosecuting attorney does not seek a transfer-of course, that is up to the provincial crown attorney-or if the court says it will not transfer the youth, then that youth is subject to the Young Offenders Act in youth court and the maximums under that statute apply.

Mr. Ramsay: It is pretty clear that young offenders who are gang members, simply because of the transferability of some of these offences-and it is a narrow series of offences that Bill C-37 covers-that this new offence does not apply in youth court. It only applies in adult court. On the penalty, what difference does it make? Unless it applies to adults who are using youths, as they did in the Ace Crew organization, that gang that led to the torture and the death of at least one individual, and the individual was left in youth court and received only a three year penalty for manslaughter, which would have been much higher had he been transferred to adult court.

It is very clear then that this new penalty and by and large the act itself, does not apply to anyone heard in youth court.

I would ask the minister this question. If an adult was charged for committing an indictable offence, and the punishment was more than five years, and it could be proved that the individual was a member of a group, association or other body, and the other four people that made up the organization were youths, would the definition still apply?

Mr. Rock: Yes, in my view it would.

Mr. Ramsay: All right. Then I will move on to the offence related property which is the final grouping. The justice minister touched on it in his earlier testimony. I would like him to advise the committee the difference that this will make over the laws that presently exist. Could he enlighten the committee on the change that this new bill brings in.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, is the hon. member's reference to offence related property?

Mr. Ramsay: Yes.

(1350 )

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, at the moment the criminal law provides that in certain categories of crime, the court can seize and forfeit the proceeds of crime. Indeed, in some circumstances the court can make an order, even before conviction, that the property be tied up or suspended, that the accused person be deprived of its use or operation in the period pending trial.

We have taken over such things as ski chalets under the provisions of that law where it has been possible to prove that the proceeds of the crime can be traced into assets.

In Bill C-95 the ambit of the proceeds section have been extended so that they cover criminal organization offences as well as the offences to which they apply at present. However, we have done something else and this is the first time it has been done. We have extended the powers of the court to include the instrumentalities of crime. This has been under discussion for many years in Canadian law. It has never before been done.

This means that you can not only seize the money that is made from the crime or the property to which you turn it but you can also seize the property used for the purpose of committing the crime. If an organized crime syndicate is using boats to take contraband across the border, using trucks to drive explosives to the scene of the crime, using a building, especially fortified or modified, to facilitate the commission of a crime, then the court will be empowered to order the forfeiture of that property as an instrument of the crime as well as the proceeds which would be in keeping with the practice in Canada to date.

We believe this is going to give the authorities an important new tool to take from the criminal organizations those assets which they use to commit their crimes and to provide a way of shutting them down by depriving them of the very tools they need to carry on their nefarious trade.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, I have one final question. I want to go back to the youth application. In light of what the justice minister has told the committee with regard to the manner in which this new bill is applicable or not applicable to young offenders, would he consider an amendment to the YOA that would extend the transfer to adult court of any offence the penalty of which holds a maximum penalty in the code of more than five years?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I would want to see that in detail to consider it. Perhaps the hon. member would be good enough to let me have that proposal over the period we take for question period so that we can look at it and consider its implications. I am not quite sure that I understand what the hon. member has in mind but I am sure that by discussing it with him over that period we can

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develop a better understanding of it and provide him with an answer.

The Chairman: Further questions? With respect to clause 1 again?

Mr. Strahl: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I do thank the minister for this opportunity to question him. I quite enjoy this kind of give and take. I think this committee of the whole is a very useful provision. People watching on television and going through the Hansard proceedings will see that there is a lot of value in the give and take between the minister and opposition members.

I want to reiterate a problem we have. The Quebec chiefs of police asked for legislation like this back in 1994. We are probably five days away from an election call and now, because we want to be good folks here on this side, we find that we have to pass the bill in a day because if we do not the bill will not become law before the election. That is unfortunate because it taints an otherwise honest attempt by the minister to address a serious problem. It also taints it with that feeling like this is another one of those photo ops in the last week before the election, which is too bad.

However, I take the minister at his word that this has been in the works for a long time. It is just too bad that we are forced to deal with it at the 11th hour. I believe it is going to throw out a lot of questions and comments on this bill that were unnecessary. I have all kinds of newspaper articles that state that politics are coming before good legislation. I am sure the minister does not need that on his resume. It is unfortunate that it has happened.

(1355 )

To continue on that same line, I remind the minister that 10 days ago some amendments on sentencing provisions of Bill C-41 and Bill C-45 had to be brought in. Things slip through when we are in a hurry. Again we agreed to do that in a hurry to allow the minister to correct some imperfections in the bills. Even Bill C-68-about which we consistently chastised the minister-the first set of regulations that came down were all withdrawn and reintroduced.

All those are signs of things done in haste. I hope the minister is right that this bill will stand the constitutional challenge and will do what he wants it to do. But things done in haste this close to an election run the risk of not being done properly.

This is not a huge and long bill but it amends many sections of the Criminal Code. Some received the bill Friday or even this morning. We had people who worked on the weekend. Many of us tried to find out exactly what the bill would mean with consequential amendments and all that stuff. It was very difficult to do.

I have a couple of questions for the minister about this. Am I right that in the first part of the definition of criminal organization where it consists of any body consisting of five or more persons that persons refers to anybody older than 12 years of age? Is that what I heard the minister say?

The Chairman: The time for question period is upon us. We will have to continue again with clause 1 after question period.

(Progress reported.)

The Speaker: It is almost 2 p.m. We will begin statements by members.

_____________________________________________

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STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

[English]

GRANTHAM LIONS CLUB

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Grantham Lions Club of St. Catharines was given its charter on May 2, 1952 and is celebrating its 45th charter night later this month.

Since 1952 the club has worked to promote the principles of good government and good citizenship, to be of service to those less fortunate, to provide a forum for discussion and to encourage service minded citizens to serve their community.

The results of these worthy objectives include the development of one of the finest sports parks in the city of St. Catharines and assisting programs and organizations like the Cubs and the Beavers, local hospitals, the Ina Grafton Gage Home, support and assistance for the visually and hearing impaired and much much more.

The Grantham Lions Club has been a key community organizer and supporter over the last 45 years in helping our youth, our aged and our less fortunate. As we celebrate this important milestone for the club, two club members are of special mention. Charles Boyagian and Lee Nichols are charter members of the club. I congratulate them and all club members on their excellent work, their dedication to the community and their true spirit of giving.

* * *

NATURAL HEALTH PRODUCTS

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Comox-Alberni, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the health minister explicitly stated in the House that Bill C-7, then reintroduced as Bill C-8, was a narcotics bill and that it did not deal with natural health products.

However, the Liberals then declared vitamins, minerals and herbs with any therapeutic value to be drugs. Now, without any evidence that these products are unsafe, the Liberals are actively removing vitamins, minerals, herbal and natural extracts that have been on our shelves for years. In addition, Canada Customs is

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arbitrarily seizing natural health products at the border or refusing their entry into Canada.

(1400 )

Under the new rules, companies must provide these products are safe beyond a shadow of a doubt. Only the big pharmaceutical companies can afford to market their products under these rules.

The bottom line is that what is taken off the shelf in the public interest is put right back on in an official bottle at double or triple the price.

The issue is not about safety; it is about money and power. Under the Liberal government, consumers and small businesses are losing to big corporations.

* * *

NATIONAL TEXTILES WEEK

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to bring to the attention of this House that April 21 to April 27 is National Textiles Week in Canada.

The textile industry is an excellent example of a sector that has restructured and has aggressively pursued new product markets worldwide. In fact, industry exports have almost tripled since 1989.

National Textiles Week, which is organized by the Textiles Human Resources Council, is an excellent example of partnership at work. Companies, unions, suppliers and industry organizations have all come forward to sponsor this week of important events which opens with FUTUR*TEX, a major conference in Montreal. Other events during the week will feature open houses, school visits and press conferences.

[Translation]

All these activities will make Canadians more familiar with the textile industry and ensure it a promising future in Canada's economy.

* * *

GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the federal government is ahead in its fight against the deficit, but it has not been as successful in reducing its own expenditures.

If we look at the figures we see that, between 1994-95 and 1997-98, Ottawa cut its internal expenditures by only 9 per cent and not the 19 per cent promised in the 1995 budget.

According to Treasury Board's latest release, federal expenditures, excluding transfer payments, will reach $50.2 billion in 1997-98, or $8 billion more than predicted two years ago.

In the meantime, 54 per cent of spending was cut by reducing transfers to the provinces. Cash transfers for health and social programs dropped by 35 per cent.

Federal government revenues and departmental expenditures exceed forecasts, while the debt service is lower than predicted. In fact, the only prediction of the Department of Finance that has come true is the one concerning transfers to the provinces. The federal government has definitely reduced its deficit on the backs of the provinces and the unemployed.

* * *

[English]

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina-Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr. Speaker, later today I will be presenting a petition with over 1,700 signatures opposing the cutbacks to the CBC. This is a small part of a petition which was started by a single individual in B.C. and now has over 36,000 signatures and continues to grow. There has been a groundswell of grassroots support from every province and territory.

The petition started from the outrage over the Liberal Party's failure to honour its 1993 red book campaign promise to maintain stable long term funding for the CBC. It also started from an anger against the Liberal Party's shortsightedness in dismantling the single most effective institution supporting Canadian unity by promoting communication and celebrating the unique values, strengths and aspirations of Canadians.

Another $100 million in cuts are scheduled for next year. For the sake of the future of Canada as a free, independent and democratic nation, they must be stopped.

* * *

YTV ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have heard the words that the future is so bright we need to wear shades. This morning, I saw the best and the brightest of our young Canadians when I had the honour of attending a breakfast for the YTV achievement award winners from all across this great country.

The eighth annual YTV achievement awards are sponsored by the YTV Network and CIBC. Unlike any other awards, the YTV achievement awards give a glimpse of future Canadian stars and hometown heroes.

It is my pleasure to congratulate the following achievers: Soup from Halifax, N.S. for the best musical group; Sabrina Perri from St. Leonard, Quebec for innovation, science and technology; Benjamin Bowman from Toronto, Ontario for instrumental music; Nava Mizrahi from Vancouver, B.C. for public service; Travis Knight from Dollard-des-Ormeaux, Quebec for specialty performance; Joseph Radmore from Kemptville, Ontario for sports;

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Kimberly Richard from Pierrefonds, Quebec for the Terry Fox award; Michel Irving from Moncton, New Brunswick for visual arts; Holy Heart of Mary Chamber Choir from St. John's, Newfoundland for vocal; and Jérôme Gariépy from Montreal, Quebec for writing.

(1405 )

The Speaker: My colleague, you might be interested to know that I will be formally introducing these young people to the House at the end of question period.

* * *

RESPONSIBLE DRINKING CAMPAIGN

Mr. Harbance Singh Dhaliwal (Vancouver South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have with us in the gallery today the national finalists in the Stand Up, Speak Out, and Be Heard program sponsored by Canada's brewers.

The program asked young Canadians to submit ideas and concepts for an ad campaign designed to promote awareness of the importance of responsible drinking.

I would like to congratulate my constituent, Brad Swaile of Vancouver; Scott Robertson of Yellowknife; Brian Brintell of Brighton, Ontario; Justin Antippa of Trois-Rivières; and Anthony Slade of Timberlea, Nova Scotia.

More than 5,000 young Canadians from across the country sent in videos, computer animation, short stories, poetry, music and posters. Their efforts are a testament to the creativity of Canada's youth.

I praise all the young participants who contributed to the responsible drinking campaign. I recognize the brewing industry for sponsoring this important initiative.

* * *

[Translation]

PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA

Mr. Michel Guimond (Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans, BQ): Mr. Speaker, last Saturday, on Radio-Canada's Raison passion, Aline Chrétien spoke about her famous husband. One of the topics raised in the interview was his unpopularity and Mrs. Chrétien said: ``Of course it hurts. I would be happier if he were more popular in Quebec''.

I have great sympathy for her, but it hurts me too to see the Prime Minister, a Quebecer, making a career of walking all over Quebec, something he has been doing for the last 30 years. How can he be popular when his friends are Clyde Wells, Howard Galganov and Guy Bertrand?

Do you remember the night of the long knives, his pride in having been Pierre Elliott Trudeau's hatchet man when the Constitution was patriated in 1982 without Quebec's agreement. Last week marked the 15th anniversary of that sad event.

Yes, Mrs. Chrétien, Quebec remembers.

* * *

[English]

TRAIL, B.C.

Mr. Jim Gouk (Kootenay West-Revelstoke, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the city of Trail has a long history of contributing to the sports culture and the economy of this country. This small West Kootenay community has weathered good days and bad as Cominco, its primary employer, went through some difficult times.

Now nature has thrown a devastating flood at Trail and some other nearby communities. They need the help of this country to get back on their feet. A flood of this magnitude is disastrous for any community and more so for a town the size of Trail and the other surrounding communities.

The flood also claimed the life of Ken Plotnikoff Jr. while he toiled to help save the family business. I am sure that the entire House joins with me in offering condolences to the family and a pledge of financial support for Trail and its neighbours in their hour of need.

* * *

SIR JOHN, EH?

Mr. Peter Milliken (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of welcoming a very special guest to the House of Commons, Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.

My predecessor as the member for Kingston has returned to Ottawa after a 106 year absence. He has asked me to invite all members of the House to visit Kingston this summer to watch actor John Blackwood portray him in the musical ``Sir John, Eh?''

This musical, written by Jim Garrard and Grant Heckman, takes place in Cataraqui Cemetery where Sir John is buried. In the musical, the Macdonald family visits present day Kingston and their story-triumphant public achievement set against personal adversity and heartbreak-is told.

The show also tells the story of Canada and how the acts of Sir John continue to affect our nation today. It is a fascinating, engaging and truly entertaining play with great music. It opens, appropriately, on Canada Day.

On behalf of Sir John, I invite all Canadians to visit Kingston this summer and take in this imaginative and humourous piece of theatre.

The Speaker: Sir John, welcome to your House. It is good to have you back.

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PARKINSON'S DISEASE

Mrs. Bonnie Hickey (St. John's East, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, April is Parkinson's awareness month. Over 100,000 Canadians, 1,500 Newfoundlanders, are suffering from symptoms of Parkinson's which affects one in every 100 adults.

The symptoms, which typically strike people who are over the age of 55, include: muscle stiffness, slowness of movement, tremor in limbs at rest, difficulty with co-ordinating movements, loss of volume of speech.

The cause of Parkinson's is still unknown and currently there is no cure. The St. John's regional chapter of the Parkinson Foundation of Canada is making a special effort this month to increase awareness of Parkinson's disease. Knowledge about its symptoms, medication, exercise and therapy is the key to give sufferers the power to maintain control over this disease.

(1410)

I would ask my colleagues in the House to join me in the effort to raise awareness of this disorder today.

* * *

[Translation]

MANPOWER TRAINING

Mr. Ronald J. Duhamel (St. Boniface, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday, the Prime Minister of Canada and the premier of Manitoba signed the Canada-Manitoba agreement on labour market development.

This agreement, the fourth federal-provincial agreement signed, is extremely important for my province, and includes important differences in services in the language of the official minority, in this case French. The province of Manitoba will provide these services where numbers warrant, in accordance with the Official Languages Act.

[English]

In addition, the province is committed to making best efforts to maintain support of the French language community of Manitoba by using its own policy in French language services.

[Translation]

This agreement shows that the federal government is committed to working in partnership with the province in order to improve services to Canadians, and the province appears ready to do its fair share for its citizens.

[English]

JUSTICE

Mrs. Sharon Hayes (Port Moody-Coquitlam, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, our homes, our schools and our streets echo with voices demanding changes to our justice system.

Three years ago thousands marched in Port Moody-Coquitlam to demand changes to the Young Offenders Act, changes which have been ignored by the Liberal government.

Community anger again erupted recently over government inaction that allowed a serial killer who walked our streets to revictimize the families and communities of those original victims.

Tragically last month a brutal home invasion in Coquitlam robbed a new Canadian family of their parents within weeks of becoming citizens.

Along with my colleagues in the Reform Party, I commit on behalf of all Canadians to press for legislative changes to recognize our victims bill of rights and restore a system of justice that makes the rights and safety of law-abiding citizens a priority in the criminal justice system, including the repeal of section 745.

* * *

[Translation]

MONTFORT HOSPITAL

Mr. Pierre de Savoye (Portneuf, BQ): Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Canadian Heritage have all voiced their support of SOS Montfort in preserving this francophone hospital which is unique in Ontario. Yet the past actions of this trio contradict their words.

The Prime Minister closed the sole francophone military college in Canada, in favour of the one in Kingston, an anglophone bastion.

Moreover, the President of the Treasury Board forced numerous francophones to work in English, by neglecting to enforce the Official Languages Act, which entitles francophones to work in French in the national capital region.

Finally, by imposing upon CBC the worst cuts in its history, the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for the fact that CBC French-language services to francophones outside Quebec are only a shadow of their former selves.

The moral of this sad story is this: Mr. Harris, please do what they say, and not-we beg of you-what they do.

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[English]

RED RIVER

Mr. Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, day by day the Red River continues to rise. It will continue to do so for the next 10 days, threatening people throughout the Red River Valley. We are prepared and are hoping for the best, but no one will relax until the crest has passed.

We are so prepared because of the activities of thousands and thousands of volunteers. They have worked throughout the last two weeks preparing dykes, sandbagging homes, organizing volunteers, feeding volunteers, transporting volunteers. I particularly want to note the efforts of city councillor John Angus, who has worked incredibly hard to make sure that this whole activity is co-ordinated in the south end of the city.

* * *

[Translation]

BILL C-95

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Cochrane-Superior, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Justice announced the key legislative measures aimed at helping those involved directly and indirectly in the battle against crime.

Most of the stakeholders agree that this bill responds in large part to the needs expressed of late, and provides the tools required for the fight against crime.

(1415)

Among these reactions was that of the Director of the Montreal Urban Community Police Department, Jacques Duchesneau, who was unabashedly enthusiastic in stating that this bill was a good start.

Many have been pleased with the speed with which the Minister of Justice responded to the pressing needs of the community. His work reflects our government's desire to enhance Quebecers' quality of life.

_____________________________________________

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ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Translation]

MANPOWER TRAINING

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister.

After years of discussion between Quebec and Ottawa on the important issue of manpower training, an agreement in principle has finally been reached and was signed this morning by the two governments.

For 32 years, premier after premier in Quebec made the same request, over and over again. Ottawa dragged its feet until an election was imminent and has now, for the second time, signed a manpower agreement, as it did in 1993, when the parties were Bourassa and Campbell.

Could the Prime Minister tell the House what has changed since the famous statement in which he said Quebec was being capricious when Premier Johnson asked for the patriation of manpower training? Is it because he almost lost the referendum or because an election is imminent that the Prime Minister has suddenly become so flexible?

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I wonder why there is such a difference between the position of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois and that of the Premier of Quebec on this issue. I think the Premier of Quebec and the Prime Minister of Canada were very pleased when they signed this very important document on manpower this morning.

So I wonder why the Bloc Quebecois House leader is complaining about this great achievement of the federal government and the Government of Quebec.

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata, BQ): Mr. Speaker, with all due respect for the hon. member, he may not be talking about the same agreement. Perhaps that is the problem.

In July 1965, Premier Jean Lesage, who was not, as far as I know, a sovereignist, already wanted Quebec to have full constitutional authority over manpower training, not an administrative agreement, but full constitutional authority.

Will the Prime Minister admit that an administrative agreement is only a first step, that Quebec is not getting back its jurisdiction over manpower training and the agreement in principle signed this morning in an almost friendly fashion is far removed from the initial request made by Premier Lesage in 1965?

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I just want to repeat the facts. What the Premier of Quebec said this morning was the exact opposite. He accepted this agreement with great pleasure, and I wonder why the position of the Bloc Quebecois in this House is at odds with the position taken by the Premier of Quebec.

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Témiscouata, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I am astonished that someone with the hon. member's experience is surprised that Quebec members do not take exactly the same position. In Quebec, we are used to watching the federalists, and they do not necessarily take the same line they do in Quebec City. This has happened before.

He said he was surprised, but I am not sure he listened to the same press conference. Of course Mr. Bouchard is pleased, of

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course he signed the agreement, and of course it is a first step, just a first step in the right direction. But a very small step.

(1420)

We can hardly say this is a great step for mankind, as they said when they walked on the moon. This is a small step. So we should get the facts straight. The jurisdiction remains with Ottawa. We are still bound by an administrative agreement. We are not sovereign in this respect.

Could the Prime Minister tell the House why Ottawa did not, as requested by Quebec, do a full transfer of jurisdiction over manpower training, which after all would only reflect the Constitution?

Hon. Herb Gray (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Solicitor General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois in the House just made a very important admission. She admitted that she does not want to separate from Canada but only wants to amend the Constitution. That is an important point.

* * *

ANTI-SMOKING LEGISLATION

Mrs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.

For weeks, the official opposition and event organizers have asked the Minister of Health to change his anti-smoking legislation. Each time, they met with refusal. On the eve of federal elections, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health are promising that by the end of 1997 they will introduce a bill to amend the anti-smoking legislation, which would meet international standards on sponsorships.

How does the government explain its decision now, on the eve of elections, to promise amendments to the legislation on tobacco industry sponsorships, when these amendments were proposed by the Bloc Quebecois and all rejected by the government in committee and in the House?

[English]

Hon. David Dingwall (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have to keep in mind that the tobacco legislation is a very comprehensive and very effective piece of legislation. It puts restrictions on the price, on the product, on the place and even the promotion. This will be effective in curbing smoking in this country.

With regard to the letter that I have provided to the individuals she has referred to, the hon. member is very much aware that both in the House of Commons as well as in the other place I have indicated to groups across the country that I am prepared to consult in a very meaningful way and if necessary, as I indicated in the letter, changes will be made.

I do not think the hon. member should prejudge what those changes might be.

[Translation]

Mrs. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): Mr. Speaker, everyone remembers the broken promise to scrap the GST.

Now that we know the worth of this government's promises, could we also know, before the elections, the amendments the minister intends to make to this legislation?

[English]

Hon. David Dingwall (Minister of Health, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am sorry that members of the Bloc have decided to be partisan on this issue.

Let us keep in mind that on second reading members of the Bloc were in favour of the bill. But when it came to third reading they voted against the principles of this bill, thereby doing a flip-flop in terms of their position as it relates to tobacco.

I suggest to the hon. member and to others that one should not venture into the field of prejudging amendments, whether they be in the form of regulation or thereafter.

We have to embark on a period of consultation. That is part and parcel of the bill and it is part and parcel of what I will do in the future.

* * *

THE ECONOMY

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, according to the finance minister, record high bankruptcies in Canada in January are a good thing.

If he thinks it is such a good thing he must be laughing himself silly over the 78 months in a row of unemployment over 9 per cent in this country. The 800,000 people out there who are moonlighting just to put food on the table must be a real knee slapper for the finance minister.

Can the finance minister explain to Canadians his hare brained theory of how record high bankruptcies, record high debt, record high unemployment and record high taxes are good for the Canadian people? Let us hear the Liberal logic on that one.

(1425 )

Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it would probably advance the cause of the Reform Party a bit more if it were able to cite people accurately and not create straw men on the premises of its questions.

Of course nobody ever said that bankruptcies were a good thing. What I did say was that business bankruptcies were down and the normal procedure is that personal bankruptcies decline following

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business bankruptcies. As a result of that, it may well be that we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

I have also said very clearly that the high number of personal bankruptcies in Canada, the United States and in most western countries is in fact a source of considerable concern. Most people think they are due not to high levels of unemployment, as the hon. member is alleging, and the same situation exists in the United States, but that they are due to a very high use of credit.

The member opposite clearly did not understand what I said. That normally happens with this member. The member is incredibly eager but I will give him an opportunity because I must say that there is nothing I enjoy more than responding to his questions.

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am happy to contribute to the minister's pleasure.

The finance minister says that Canadians should be managing their debt better. That is what he said. Do they really need to take advice from a minister who has added $100 billion to the Canadian debt in the past 3.5 years, someone who has sprinkled armouries around the country like Johnny Appleseed over the past week and who has doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in pre-election goodies?

How does the minister have the nerve to lecture Canadians on their debt levels when after this past week he has practically worn the numbers off the national credit card? Where does he get the nerve?

Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the very high level of household debt that exists in Canada is a direct result of the recession, 1989 to 1992. What we saw was that personal debt rose, disposable income dropped and Canadians found themselves, as a result of policies largely recommended by the Reform Party, in rather deep difficulty.

Since 1993, when we took over, the levels of household debt have dropped. The levels of household net worth have risen. The levels of household income have stabilized.

However, there is one level of bankruptcy in this country that shows no sign of getting better, the degree of intellectual bankruptcy in the Reform Party.

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the fact is under this government we have record high levels of personal debt, record high bankruptcies, record high levels of personal taxes and record levels of unemployment. That is the Liberal record.

Canadians know why that has happened. One of the big reasons we have all these problems is the government has driven tax levels through the roof.

After 3.5 years of doing diddly, after 3.5 years of shrinking incomes and after 3.5 years of rising debts, can the finance minister explain to voters why they should be masochistic enough to have that done to them for another four years?

Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I think it was two weeks ago that the hon. member's expression was rinky-dink, now it is doing diddly. I want to congratulate the Reform Party on its extensive vocabulary.

If the hon. member would like to know the Liberal record perhaps I could remind him. In the month of February manufacturing shipments rose. In the month of February housing starts rose 24,700 units. Real merchandise exports increased by 1.3 per cent. The nominal merchandise trade surplus increased by $2.5 billion. The real net worth per household rose 2.7 per cent. Gross domestic product up again, unemployment down, employment up and retail sales increases. That is the Liberal record and we will stand behind that.

The Speaker: I remind hon. members not to use props during question period.

* * *

[Translation]

DECONTAMINATION OF MILITARY SITES

Mrs. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence.

(1430)

According to national defence department estimates, it will cost $242 million to decontaminate 21 of the 42 American radar bases on the DEW line. It is therefore likely that it will cost $484 million to decontaminate all the sites. We know that the United States will pay $100 million in damages to Canada for decontamination of these military sites.

By burying the waste, as the Inuit claims it is doing, instead of decontaminating it, which would eliminate all toxic substances, but which would also be more expensive, is the government merely trying to save money?

Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the work that was to be done following the departure of U.S. military forces was considered, at the time, to be normal and reasonable. Obviously, the Government of Canada recognizes its obligations with respect to the environment and we recognize that we must take all means necessary to try to clean up the sites to which my hon. colleague is referring.

I would like to point out, however, that as a general rule the American government has never paid any compensation for problems that may have occurred following its departure from military installations.

As for the situation involving Canada, we have succeeded in negotiating an agreement whereby the American government will

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pay US$100 million, which is a considerable amount and which is a first. Regardless of what the Americans do in this connection, the Government of Canada will respect its environmental obligations.

Mrs. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Speaker, by burying PCBs or other toxic substances, Canada is creating a veritable time bomb, which, very soon, will contaminate the water table and the fragile habitat in northern areas.

Should the minister not immediately impose a moratorium on burying wastes until his department has made a complete and exhaustive assessment of the environmental situation at military sites and found an ecological manner in which to destroy these contaminants?

Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, this is a phenomenon that several sectors of the government and of the private sector must address. It is now recognized that situations that were acceptable in the past are no longer tolerable.

The Government of Canada has undertaken to do as much as it can to protect the environment, both in the north and elsewhere in the country. The agreement signed with the United States, which has not yet been approved by Congress, will make it possible for us to do some of the work.

There is no doubt that the sites to which the hon. member is referring are not the only locations where there is a problem. The Department of the Environment, the provinces and the federal government are aware that there are several locations in the country facing the same problem.

While it is not just up to the Department of National Defence, I would like to reiterate that the Government of Canada will do its utmost in all circumstances to ensure the integrity of the environment in a contemporary situation such as the one with which we must contend and in the situations she has raised today in the House.

* * *

[English]

QUEBEC

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, last week the separatist government and the Liberal Party of Quebec affirmed or claimed that Quebec alone can determine its future regardless of English, aboriginal or other minorities in that province, regardless of what the rest of Canada thinks and regardless of the rule of law as stated in Canada's Constitution. Mr. Johnson went so far as to say: ``It is our right in Quebec to take over ourselves, our development and our destiny''.

During debate on Bill C-95 earlier today the attorney general stated that he is the guardian of the Constitution and the rule of law. Has he communicated to Mr. Johnson and to the separatist government in Quebec that last Wednesday's rhetoric is unacceptable to the government and will not be acceptable in the coming election campaign?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have shown over the period of the last period of years that to this government, actions speak louder than words. We have done better than talk about this. We have referred to the Supreme Court of Canada fundamental questions about the constitutionality of the position taken by the Government of Quebec which claims that it can proceed entirely without reference to the courts and the Constitution.

We believe that is wrong. As a result we have put to the Supreme Court of Canada in a reference questions to determine the answer: Can the Government of Quebec unilaterally act to separate from the rest of the country without reference to the Constitution?

(1435 )

We believe it cannot. We have put our position before the court. We have done the responsible thing with respect to the Constitution. We have asked the Supreme Court of Canada to rule that the Constitution applies throughout this country.

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, perhaps the minister should get his Quebec counterpart to join in the intervener stage to see if he could come to some agreement on that plan.

We are promised by the leader in Quebec that by 1998 we will have another referendum and that he will be going to the people at that time. Has the justice minister decided what he will do if such a thing occurs to ensure that the question is fair and that the unilateral declaration of independence does not have any weight in Canadian law?

We are unwilling on this side of the House to let the Quebec separatists manipulate the question, set the agenda and destroy the country-

Some hon. members: Sit down.

The Speaker: I find the question to be hypothetical. If the hon. Minister of Justice cares to address it he may.

* * *

[Translation]

CHILD ABDUCTION

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Terrebonne, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

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On April 10, the official opposition brought up the tragic case of Suzie Robitaille, whose children are still in Egypt, having been abducted by their father nearly two years ago. In this case, as in many others, the government is dragging its feet, even though one of the children is seriously ill. We have learned that Canada is currently involved in negotiating a bilateral agreement with Egypt concerning child abduction.

Does the minister commit to making signature of the bilateral agreement with Egypt conditional upon the settlement of cases in dispute, in particular the one concerning the children of Suzie Robitaille?

[English]

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, first let me clarify that negotiations are under way. Officials are in Cairo right now negotiating a new consular agreement with Egypt that would allow us to have a better set of rules, disciplines and initiatives to protect Canadian rights.

Unfortunately, Egypt does not adhere to the Hague convention with respect to the abduction of children. It has not signed that covenant. Therefore, we have no standing in international law that would require Egypt to return the children.

We will continue to work as actively as we can with Egyptian authorities and impress on them the necessity to give Mrs. Robitaille her rightful place in court, to make sure that she has access to the children and, if at all possible, to adhere to the Canadian judgment, which is to return the children.

We will continue to do what we can, but we are limited by the fact that Egypt has its own laws and we must work within that legal framework. However, I can promise the hon. member that we will continue to work very closely with Mrs. Robitaille to do whatever we can to help her in this very difficult situation.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Terrebonne, BQ): Mr. Speaker, there is a law. Egypt is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is not respecting that convention.

Given the health status of Mrs. Robitaille's eldest child, which continues to deteriorate, can the minister, at the very least, implement emergency repatriation measures for this seriously ill child?

[English]

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I intend to be in contact with my counterpart, the Egyptian foreign minister, within the next day or two to make these representations.

GUN CONTROL

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the justice minister has advised Mr. Sheppard of Calgary, Alberta that he will not be compensated for the loss of his private property. The justice minister's order in council which prohibited Mr. Sheppard's firearm forced this Calgarian and thousands more Canadians to turn over their property to local authorities without compensation.

How can the Minister of Justice seize property that was legally acquired and lawfully held without compensation?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in Bill C-68 the government took steps to take off the market those handguns which are small, easily concealed and cheaply manufactured. They are called Saturday night specials in the United States and they account for more police killings than any other form of firearm in that country. We also took off the market some military type assault weapons.

The government does not believe that Canadians want a country in which people can have access to military type assault weapons and Saturday night specials.

(1440 )

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the justice minister failed to answer the question. Yes, he has taken this property from Canadians, but the question was why he has not compensated them. That property was legally acquired and lawfully held.

How can he say that he stands for the rights of Canadians when he takes their property from them without compensation? How can he do this? Will he answer the question?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows full well that, when we passed orders in council which took guns out of the hands of people, we compensated them for the cost.

For those that were prohibited, they were grandfathered. People were allowed to keep them and use them for the rest of their lives and to sell them to others in the same class of ownership.

The real difficulty this hon. member has is that he and his members are against gun control. The Reform Party, the Conservative Party and the NDP are against gun control.

The time will come in the not distant future when the people of Canada will have the opportunity to express themselves on the subject. On that occasion, this member, the other members of the Reform Party, the Tories-wherever they may be-and the NDP

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are going to find out the cost of opposing what Canadians want: gun control.

* * *

[Translation]

ST. HUBERT MILITARY BASE

Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.

On a number of occasions, we have called for the federal government to set up a fund to compensate for the negative effects of the closure of the St. Hubert military base and we have insisted that the region be treated just like other Canadian communities, where bases were closed, like Cornwallis, for example, which received over $7.5 million.

Could the minister confirm today his government's intention to provide compensation for the closure of the St. Hubert base?

Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, when the military bases were closed or reduced, in certain regions, evaluations and analyses were done to assess the economic impact on the region.

Obviously, there were a series of closures that had significant impact. The hon. member mentioned Cornwallis, for example. In my province, however, the military base at Chatham was closed at a cost of 1,000 civilian and military jobs.

I think that, in all the reductions we have faced at national defence and in the Canadian forces, we have been as fair as possible and have applied similar criteria, as circumstances dictated, across the country, including in St. Hubert.

Mrs. Pierrette Venne (Saint-Hubert, BQ): Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the minister does not intend to use the upcoming campaign to announce the payment of compensation, which we estimate at several million dollars, for the loss of 1,400 jobs, when all we want is for the government to give St. Hubert what it is entitled to.

Hon. Douglas Young (Minister of National Defence and Minister of Veterans Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is true that a number of communities were affected by the restructuring, and reduction in the number of military facilities across the country.

However, I think the Government of Canada made a major contribution in the St. Hubert region. I was there about ten days ago, and I saw the facility the Government of Canada set up in St. Hubert. We would have much preferred to have that, in northern New Brunswick, rather than limited economic spinoffs as the result of the closure of the Chatham base.

MANPOWER TRAINING

Mr. Mark Assad (Gatineau-La Lièvre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, in Montreal a few hours ago, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Human Resources Development, signed an agreement in principle between the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec on manpower development.

Can the parliamentary secretary explain to the House what this agreement in principle means for the men and women of Quebec?

[English]

Mr. Robert D. Nault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, today is a very important day for Canada and the Government of Quebec.

As my colleague has said, today we have officially announced the historic labour market agreement in principle with Quebec.

(1445 )

We must consider how many years the discussions have been going on. There is a consensus in Quebec on labour market development. The importance of the agreement is considerable in that some $3 billion will be transferred to Quebec over the next five years. It will have immediate benefits for workers in Quebec.

I think we can say this is an historic occasion. We hope the agreement will be completed very soon and the active measures of the employment insurance system will go toward helping employees and employers put people back to work in the province of Quebec.

* * *

RIGHTS OF VICTIMS

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice knows very well the Reform Party is not against gun control. We are against the confiscation-

Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

Mr. White (North Vancouver): We are against the confiscation of lawfully held property by the government without compensation.

Now the government is falling over itself to pass anti-gang legislation for Quebec before the Prime Minister calls the election this Sunday.

Could the Minister of Justice explain why the victims bill of rights has languished in his office for more than a year when it could benefit all Canadians? Why has that bill not received the same high priority he is giving to the anti-gang legislation?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I hope the hon. member heard the

9994

peals of laughter extending across the country from sea to sea to sea as he tried to change the lamentable position of his party at the last minute. His party is against gun control and always has been.

The hon. member asked about victims. I can do no better than to point to the record of the government time after time, whether it is through amendments to the code on sentencing or the gun control bill. I well remember the day when the victims came to this building, having lost loved ones to crimes of violence committed by firearms, guns in the hands of people who should not have had them. They asked us to pass Bill C-68 to provide for the registration of all firearms, a bill and a plea to which his party turned a deaf ear.

I say to him, his colleagues in the Reform Party, the Conservatives and the NDP that they will have to answer to the Canadian people in coming months why they did not listen to the pleas of victims and join with us to adopt meaningful gun control.

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, there is nothing wrong with asking the government to compensate people for confiscated property that was lawfully obtained. The minister can stand there and say people are laughing about that. People are upset the government would take their property without compensation.

In terms of the anti-gang legislation, if the minister would give the same priority to the victims bill of rights it would have much greater impact not just on gangs but on everybody across the country.

Why will the minister not admit he is playing election politics prior to the election and has no intention of ever passing the victims rights bill?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, what draws laughter is the pretence by members of the Reform Party that they are not against gun control. We all know they are and they are going to pay the price for it, as are the Tories and the NDP.

As for the hon. member's question, he talks about victims rights as though they are something that can be achieved by writing out something on a piece of paper and calling it a bill of rights.

Let me tell him something about victims and their rights. Last week I was in Montreal and I met a woman whose 11-year old son was killed by a bomb explosion on the streets of Montreal. The Reform Party does not like to hear this because it is truth and reality as opposed to rhetoric and superficiality.

That woman whose 11-year old son had been killed in the gang war asked me as the Minister of Justice to do everything I could to get Bill C-95, the anti-organized crime bill, through Parliament so that the police would have more tools to try to find the people who killed her son.

(1450)

That is what we should do to achieve victims rights and that is what the government has done to achieve victims right. We have passed meaningful legislation that makes a difference instead of just talking a good game.

* * *

[Translation]

SINGER

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice.

On December 3 of last year, the Minister of Human Resources Development made the following statement: ``I would like to reassure the House that, if the former Singer employees take their case to court, our department will proceed with all due speed. I have asked my colleague, the Minister of Justice, to act accordingly, in order to facilitate matters''. Notification of the lawsuit was given on December 13, and these pensioners continue to suffer from inhumane delays.

What has the Minister of Justice done, in concrete terms, to settle the situation of the former Singer employees?

[English]

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, that matter is in the hands of the Minister of Human Resources Development. I am sure everything possible is being done to carry the matter forward as quickly as possible.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ): Mr. Speaker, judging by the minister's response, it is perfectly clear that he is not up to date with the case in the least. Yet, four months ago, he said: ``I will proceed with all due speed, as will my colleague''. This is not the case at the moment. The average age of these people is 80 years.

When does the Minister of Justice intend to produce his defence? Normally, a defence takes a while to produce, and the federal government's lawyers have not yet produced one. When does the Minister of Justice intend to come up with it? How, once and for all, is he going to settle the case of the former Singer employees?

[English]

Mr. Robert D. Nault (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Human Resources Development, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as is normal in this place when former employees are in front of the courts presenting a lawsuit, it would be inappropriate for us to get into the lawsuit per se.

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We can say we are willing and we are aware. We are trying to minimize delays. Once we deal with the delays and the court case is through, we would certainly be willing to look at the results of the court case.

* * *

GRAIN

Mr. Elwin Hermanson (Kindersley-Lloydminster, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have bungled their responsibility for grain transportation. Grain shipment delays have cost prairie farmers almost $100 million this year alone due to demurrage charges and lost sales. The Liberals have created a cash crunch on the prairies.

Tragically the best the minister can do is announce he will merely start to probe the problem sooner rather than later, knowing that we are on the verge of an election call.

In light of his failure to create a more efficient and accountable grain transportation system, and given current world prices for wheat, does the minister intend to increase the interim prices paid by the Canadian Wheat Board?

Hon. Ralph E. Goodale (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as the Canadian Wheat Board indicated a short time ago, it has made certain recommendations with respect to initial payments. Those recommendations are in the normal course under consideration at the present time.

The hon. gentleman will know that under this government we have dramatically shortened the response time to that kind of recommendation from the Canadian Wheat Board. Under our predecessors recommendations sometimes took several months to be acted upon. In the case of this government we have shortened the time to a matter of a few days when the consideration is completed.

The Canadian Wheat Board will announce the result in the ordinary course taking into account the very important consideration that one would not want to put the guarantees in jeopardy, which is a matter of very significant concern to the Minister of Finance.

Mr. Elwin Hermanson (Kindersley-Lloydminster, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, in light of the fact the Liberal government is currently attempting to paper over 3.5 years of failures in a frantic pre-election flurry of deal making and vote buying the minister of agriculture has the cloak of secrecy around which the Canadian Wheat Board operates, allowing him to use the timing of increases and interim prices for political purposes.

The crop year is nearly three-quarters complete. Will the minister of agriculture announce any increases in interim prices prior to the pending election, probably this week? Or, is he saving his announcement as yet another Liberal election goodie for during the campaign?

Hon. Ralph E. Goodale (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman should know-he may have missed it in his dramatic search for hyperbole and overblown rhetoric-that I do not make these announcements. The Canadian Wheat Board makes these announcements in the ordinary course of events. As rapidly as the Canadian Wheat Board is in a position to do so and taking into account all relevant circumstances the announcement will be made, election or no election.

* * *

(1455)

IMMIGRATION

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Don Valley North, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the minister of immigration.

Considering the fact that we are approaching the 11th anniversary of the imposition of the visa requirement for Portuguese persons wishing to travel to Canada, considering the fact that the Portugal alone among European Union countries is subject to the restrictive visa requirement policy, and considering the policy's negative impact on business between our two nations, could the minister indicate to the House the government's position of visa requirements for Portuguese persons wishing to travel to Canada?

Hon. Lucienne Robillard (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that on May 1 citizens of Portugal will no longer be required to obtain a visitor's visas to visit Canada.

We all know the Portuguese community has contributed enormously to the social and economic development of the country. We hope the decision of visa free access will improve business, economic and cultural exchanges, as well as promote tourism between the two countries.

* * *

[Translation]

CHINA

Mr. René Laurin (Joliette, BQ): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Only a few months before Hong Kong is returned to China, the latter has announced that it intends to tighten up the regulations for public demonstrations, in addition to banning all contacts abroad in the case of political parties. The situation is disturbing, to say the least, as regards the freedoms the Hong Kong Chinese will enjoy after China takes over.

Could the minister tell us whether Canada intends to take action against China to prevent the erosion of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Chinese living in Hong Kong after the changeover?

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[English]

Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, we have made consistent representations. As late as today at lunch the secretary of state for Asia and myself met with Mr. Lu Ping, the Chinese minister responsible for the transition in Hong Kong. We brought to his attention our concern about the proposed changes. Those changes have not been made yet. They are still being considered by the Hong Kong legislature.

We have certainly made our views known. We think a maximum amount of consistency must be maintained in terms of freedom of the press, the right to demonstration and the right of political parties to maintain their autonomy.

We are making all efforts to ensure that both the Chinese authority and the Hong Kong authority know exactly where Canada stands.

* * *

TAXATION

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Comox-Alberni, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised to scrap and abolish the GST.

Instead of scrapping the GST as it promised, the government has not only expanded the GST into the harmonized sales tax in the Atlantic provinces but is now charging Canadians outside Atlantic Canada the expanded tax as well.

Effective April 1 the new Liberal postal tax grab means that Canadians across the nation will now pay Atlantic Canada's harmonized sales tax, an additional 15 per cent surcharge, on parcels and courier mail sent to the three Atlantic provinces with the harmonized sales tax.

My question is for the minister responsible for Canada Post. Why are all Canadians being forced to pay the 15 per cent HST on parcels and courier mail sent to Atlantic Canada?

Hon. Paul Martin (Minister of Finance, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member ought to know, a sales tax has always been paid by recipients in provinces where the tax is imposed. There is no change in this.

What change has been brought in is that Atlantic Canada has been given a tremendous opportunity to lower its costs so that its small and medium size business can create jobs. At the same time Atlantic Canadians have been given a lower consumer cost on a vast range of goods from refrigerators to automobiles. It is very clearly an important part of the rebuilding of the Atlantic Canadian economy.

That is why Atlantic Canadian premiers are going across the country. It is something Atlantic Canada and its premiers can be proud of.

(1500 )

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina-Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Later today I will be introducing a petition signed by over 1,700 people. This is part of a larger petition signed by over-

The Speaker: No props, please.

Mr. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, the government in the red book in 1993 promised multi-year funding. What kind of long term stable funding results in hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts? How can government members face voters and claim that the red book commitment has been honoured without at least blushing?

Hon. Hedy Fry (Secretary of State (Multiculturalism)(Status of Women), Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the minister announced recently that there will be stable funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is an opportunity for the CBC to start looking at how it fulfils its mandate, to look at how it does things more effectively and efficiently.

* * *

[Translation]

BULGARIA

Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of International Cooperation.

[English]

Some of my constituents are concerned about the lack of food, medicine and affordable energy in Bulgaria. The country recently elected a coalition government to replace the previous unstable communist regime. Can the minister tell me what Canada is doing to help alleviate the humanitarian instability in Bulgaria?

Hon. Don Boudria (Minister for International Cooperation and Minister responsible for Francophonie, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, since 1992 the federal government has provided some $2 million of assistance to Bulgaria. As well, a few weeks ago Canada agreed to activate a $10 million untied line of credit which can be used for the purchase of, among other things, Canadian wheat and other commodities. We feel this would be truly beneficial to the people of Bulgaria. Canada has also supplied election observers to Bulgaria and we intend to continue to do so.

As of yet the Government of Bulgaria has not made an international appeal for humanitarian aid. Nevertheless we have extended the line of credit I have just described.

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PRESENCE IN GALLERY

The Speaker: Colleagues, that brings to a close our question period.

[Translation]

It is a pleasure to welcome to our gallery a group of young Canadians who have done so much for their country.

[English]

They are young men and women who have distinguished themselves in many fields. They are talented and very hardworking young Canadians who have made a difference and they are symbols of excellence.

Please welcome the winners of the 1997 YTV Achievement Awards.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear.

_____________________________________________

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ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

[Translation]

COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE

PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

Ms. Marlene Catterall (Ottawa West, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 64th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, on the business of supply.

(1505)

[English]

The work on the business of supply was undertaken by a subcommittee which I had the privilege of chairing. I want to thank the members of the subcommittee for their dedication and hard work on an issue which has very little public profile and not much more in this House but which touches on the very core of Parliament's responsibility to tell the government how and how much money it may raise and spend.

I also want to strongly recommend to the House that this report be brought to the attention of the members of the 36th Parliament for consideration. The procedure and House affairs committee has already agreed to ask House officials to draft amendments to the standing orders based on this report.

* * *

CANADA ELECTIONS ACT

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.) moved for leave to introduce Bill C-407, an act to amend the Canada Elections Act.

He said: Mr. Speaker, I am introducing a bill to amend the Canada Elections Act to address the situation I encountered last fall in which a private company tried to launder its corporate contributions to the Liberal Party by asking its employees to donate directly to the party and promising to reimburse the employees the full amount of their donations.

This practice hides the donations of companies which have a lot of influence with the government. It puts unethical pressure on employees who do not wish to support the political party of the company's choice and it rips off the taxpayer because donations from individuals receive higher tax exemptions than corporate donations.

Elections Canada agrees that this practice needs to be prohibited in the act and I hope to receive the support of all members for this proposal.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed.)

* * *

PETITIONS

TAXATION

Mr. Leon E. Benoit (Vegreville, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present on behalf of my constitutions.

In the first the petitioners are asking for the federal government to remove the GST and other tax on reading materials. They urge Parliament to remove the GST from books, magazines and newspapers. They ask the Prime Minister to carry out his party's repeated promise to remove federal sales taxes from reading materials.

AGE OF CONSENT

Mr. Leon E. Benoit (Vegreville, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from constituents who are upset with some recent court decisions on the age of consent. They are asking that the age of consent be raised to 18. They say the majority of Canadians believe that the age of consent laws are designed to control adults who want sex with minors.

Therefore the petitioners pray that Parliament will amend the Criminal Code of Canada to set the age of consent at 18, with the exception of husband-wife relationships, so as to provide protection from exploitation and abuse.

TAXATION

Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from almost 50 people in the riding of Peterborough who are concerned about the immigration tax.

Whereas the federal government has imposed an immigration tax of $975, whereas this tax is discriminatory with respect to perspective immigrants from developing countries where the average annual income is sometimes even less than the amount of the tax, and whereas this tax is particular odious when it applies to refugees who are among the most destitute of our immigrants, the

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petitioners call on the government to appeal this immigration tax immediately, particularly in the case of refugees.

I know there have been changes in this tax very recently but even so I support this petition.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken): I caution hon. members not to refer to whether they support or oppose a petition.

(1510)

EMERGENCY PERSONNEL

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the first petition comes from Delta, B.C. The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that our police officers and firefighters place their lives at risk on a daily basis as they serve the emergency needs of all Canadians.

They also state that in many cases the families of firefighters and police officers killed in the line of duty are left without sufficient financial means to meet their obligations.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to establish a public safety officers compensation fund to receive gifts and bequests for the benefit of families of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

TAXATION

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the second petition comes from my riding of Mississauga South.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that managing the family home and caring for preschool children is an honourable profession which has not been recognized for its value to our society.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to pursue initiatives to assist families that choose to provide care in the home for preschool children, the chronically ill, the aged or the disabled.

ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the final petition is from Amherst, Nova Scotia.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House that the consumption of alcoholic beverages may cause health problems or impair one's ability, and specifically that fetal alcohol syndrome and other alcohol related birth defects are 100 per cent preventable by avoiding alcohol consumption during pregnancy.

The petitioners therefore pray and call on Parliament to enact legislation to require health warning labels to be placed on the containers of all alcoholic beverages to caution expectant mothers and other of the risk associated with alcohol consumption.

CRIMINAL CODE

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary North, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition on behalf of my constituents in Calgary North requesting Parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their own conscience and beliefs and to retain section 43 of Canada's Criminal Code as it is currently written.

CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION

Mr. Simon de Jong (Regina-Qu'Appelle, NDP): Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege of introducing a petition with some 1,700 signatures.

The petitioners point out that effective April 1, 1997 about 33 per cent of CBC radio and TV programming, both national and regional, will be lost. This is because of insufficient financial resources due to the Liberal Party's failure to honour its 1993 red book commitments.

Therefore the petitioners call on Parliament to immediately restore CBC funding to the promised level of financial support which existed as of January 1, 1994 so that the cutbacks and the layoffs at the CBC can be rescinded.

TAXATION

Mr. Joe McGuire (Egmont, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of 60 of my constituents who are concerned about the GST on reading material.

The petition reads that the GST is the first federal tax in Canadian history to apply to the bible and other reading material.

Taxing reading material is unfair and wrong. Literacy and reading are critical to Canada's future. Removing the GST from reading material will help promote literacy in Canada.

Therefore the petitioners urge Parliament to remove the GST from books, magazines and newspapers.

CRIMINAL CODE

Mrs. Sharon Hayes (Port Moody-Coquitlam, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition dealing with section 43. I have in my hand petitions from over 175 individuals from Manitoba, 350 from the New Market-St. Catharines-Beamsville area, 25 from the Calgary area, 125 from Beamsville, Ontario, and another 25 signatures from Calgary.

These people draw to the attention of the House that section 43 recognizes the primary role of parents in raising and disciplining their children, that the federal government is under pressure from various sources including the UN to change section 43, that the removal of section 43 would strengthen the role of bureaucrats and weaken the role of parents, and that the government now continues to fund research by people opposed to its removal.

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These petitioners request Parliament to affirm the duty of parents to responsibly raise their children according to their own conscience and beliefs and to retain section 43 in Canada's Criminal Code as it is currently worded.

AGE OF CONSENT

Mrs. Sharon Hayes (Port Moody-Coquitlam, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, as well I have a petition regarding the age of consent.

This is from 185 individuals from Maple Ridge, Burnaby and White Rock in British Columbia. These citizens call on Parliament to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to raise the age of consent for sexual activities between a young person and an adult from 14 to 16.

(1515 )

NATIONAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Mrs. Beryl Gaffney (Nepean, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions on the same topic. One petition has 54 signatures, the other has 28, and most of them come from the Ottawa area.

The petitioners state that the national highway policy study identified job creation, economic development, national unity, saving lives and avoiding injuries, lower congestion, lower vehicle operating costs and better international competitiveness as benefits. They call on Parliament to join with the provincial governments to make the national highway system upgrading possible.

TAXATION

Mr. Ted White (North Vancouver, Ref.): Mr. Speaker, I wish to present a petition on behalf of my constituent, Helen Hawthorne, and 24 others who are concerned that paying income taxes which go toward the Canadian military is an infringement of the freedom of conscience of those who object to participating in military activity.

The petitioners ask Parliament to establish peace tax legislation by passing into law the conscientious objection act which recognizes the right of conscientious objectors to not pay for the military but to apply that portion of their taxes that was to be used for military purposes toward peaceful, non-military purposes.

JUSTICE

Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, it is with great sadness that I table this petition.

The petitioners grieve that whereas Jacqueline Mariana MacLellan, born as a Canadian citizen, was kidnapped by her father on October 27, 1996 and taken to Bermuda; whereas the mother, Marguerite M. Kopaniak, holds a custody order awarded by the Supreme Court of Ontario which found that the father, Peter R. MacLellan, is in contempt of said court; and whereas Bermuda is not a signatory to the Hague convention, thus eliminating the generally adhered to rules to return abducted children to the country of original jurisdiction, the petitioners call on Parliament to take action to have the Bermuda authorities recognize and honour the Canadian jurisdiction over this child and cause for the child to be returned to Canada into the care and custody of the mother.

NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition which I wish to present concerning NATO. The petitioners ask that central and east European countries be allowed to enter an enlarged NATO, excluding non priori.

HOUSING

Mr. Jesse Flis (Parkdale-High Park, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I have a third petition which I wish to present concerning co-op housing. The petitioners call on the government not to cave into the Ontario government but to preserve co-op housing as it exists today.

NATIONAL PEDOPHILE REGISTRY

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, I rise to present petitions on behalf of hundreds of constituents and concerned citizens from across the country who have a number of issues which they would like Parliament to address.

First, over 600 petitioners pray that Parliament will enact legislation to establish a national pedophile registry.

VIOLENT OFFENDERS

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, other petitioners pray that violent offenders not be eligible for parole until their full sentence is served.

EUTHANASIA

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, another petition requests that Parliament make no changes in the law which would sanction or allow the aiding or abetting of suicide or active or passive euthanasia.

BREAST CANCER

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, another petition requests that Parliament provide core funding to ensure that all women diagnosed with breast cancer have access, through survivor list support groups, to information on the various treatments available in their community.

NATIONAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, another petition requests that the federal government join with provincial governments to make the national highway system upgrading possible in 1997.

NATIONAL UNITY

Mrs. Jan Brown (Calgary Southeast, Ind.): Mr. Speaker, the final petition requests that Parliament declare and confirm immediately that Canada is indivisible.

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QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Milliken): Is that agreed?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

_____________________________________________

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GOVERNMENT ORDERS

(1520)

[English]

CRIMINAL CODE

The House resumed consideration in committee of Bill C-95, an act to amend the Criminal Code (criminal organizations) and to amend other acts in consequence, Mr. Milliken in the chair.

The Deputy Chairman: House again in committee of the whole on Bill C-95. When the committee was interrupted at 2 p.m., clause 1 of the bill was under consideration. Is there a desire for further consideration of clause 1?

Hon. Allan Rock (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, when the committee rose at two o'clock, questions had been put to me by the member for Fraser Valley East. In fairness to his questions, it may be best that I record my responses now. I can do so very briefly.

The hon. member asserted that the chiefs of police have been asking for this legislation since 1994 and here we are five days before an election call with the bill.

First, I do not think that any of us knows when there will be an election nor should our actions in the House be based on those calculations. We should act as we see it in the public interest, and that is what the government is doing.

Since at least 1984, the chiefs of police and the police community in general have been asking Parliament to give them more effective tools to deal with organized crime. The fact that the government has listened to the police community saying it needs more tools is evidenced by this legislation which has not been developed over the last few weeks, but rather emerges from the last 18 months of methodical preparation and consultation.

On March 21, senior ministers of the Quebec government invited me to a meeting at which they told me in the presence of some 14 municipal mayors that they wanted us to accelerate the work which was already under way to deal with organized crime. It was in connection with that we completed the work we had started 18 months ago and produced Bill C-95.

The hon. member made reference to some newspaper stories about how law and politics may commingle. I dare say that these issues should not be determined on the basis of the volume of newsprint that is generated for one side or the other. Not only do I think that the hon. member might find that the volume is very much in favour of the government acting decisively to save lives through this legislation, I also think we should make our own judgment. As parliamentarians it is our duty to do so.

We are here today to consider in detail the clauses of the bill. I welcome the opportunity and I think we should use our time in that way.

The hon. member also made reference to some sections in Bill C-42, which he said had slipped through the House. I want to assure the hon. member that nothing slipped through in Bill C-41. Bill C-41 was a comprehensive reform of the sentencing laws in the Criminal Code. Among other things it provided for conditional sentences, another alternative available to sentencing courts in appropriate cases. It did not slip through. It was considered over many years and was the subject of broad public comment. It was concluded as a strategic decision by the Parliament of Canada to provide sentencing courts with a useful alternative.

The fact that the section has been amended through Bill C-17 ought not to discourage parliamentarians. A wide variety of legislation can be improved through amendment after experience is gained with it. That is exactly what happened with the conditional sentencing provisions of Bill C-41. We have now made it clear through an amendment, to which all parties agreed, that before the courts award a conditional sentence they should have regard not only to whether the person might be a danger to the community which was the original test, but also all of the principles that traditionally govern the determination of sentence, including repudiation, deterrence, denunciation and protection of the community.

Nothing has slipped through. Legislation was enacted by Parliament to achieve a purpose. I think it has now been improved with the amendment we all agreed on and which forms part of Bill C-17.

The hon. member then turned to the substance of Bill C-95, and he raised questions in relation to the definitions and whether the definitions are appropriate for the purpose we are trying to achieve with this legislation. I suggest that they are, that they have been designed and drafted to catch those who have dedicated their lives to the commission of serious crime as a career and who are acting in groups for that purpose. That is exactly what we are intending to achieve with the definitions that we have chosen.

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(1525)

The hon. member made reference to victims. As I said earlier today, if we really want to serve the interests of victims, not just talk about it with a so-called victims bill of rights-most of which deals with provincial jurisdiction anyway-but if we want to cut through the rhetoric and get to the results, if we want to set aside the slogans and get to the substance, if we want to go beyond the symptoms and deal with the sources of the problem, then we should look at what Bill C-95 does for us.

Last week I met with a victim, a woman who had lost her little boy to the gang wars in the Montreal area. He was an 11 year old whose innocent life was taken because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, walking down the street on an errand for his mother. She is a victim. She is asking Parliament for help. She met with me last week and asked me to do everything I could to have this bill enacted so that the police would have the tools they could use in an effort to find those responsible for taking the life of her little boy.

Here is something we can do for victims that will mean something. It is not just an empty rhetorical flourish to capture the newspaper headlines but substantive action that will improve the criminal justice system so that we might have fewer victims in the future. That is a much more laudable objective and it is for that purpose we have introduced Bill C-95.

[Translation]

Mr. Michel Bellehumeur (Berthier-Montcalm, BQ): Mr. Minister, I find it very refreshing to hear you in the debate on this bill saying that your department has been working on it for 18 months.

However, I find that rather strange, because barely four weeks ago the Prime Minister was saying that it did not come under his jurisdiction and that he was washing his hands of it. I am very glad though that the government changed its position and agrees that it is within its jurisdiction to legislate in this area.

I would like you to convince me about one thing, because I heard you speak on a number of occasions, and when I look at the definitions and the wording of the bill, I see that we do not perhaps agree on an important point. I wonder if you would tell me clearly what clause in this bill applies to the leaders, since you say to the press that the bill deals with the leaders?

I must say, at the outset, that this bill is a step forward and the government is going to do everything it can to get it passed. The step you have just taken is something we have been asking for since 1995. What the government realized just now, we have known since 1995. However the government failed to act.

Had it acted in time, we would not be considering this bill one week before an election call, even though you say you do not know the date. Let us not bury our heads in the sand, we are adults and we can see what is going on both in this House and outside it. I do not understand why the government did not act faster. That having been said, Mr. Rock, where exactly in the bill does it refer to the leaders, since, the way I understand it, according to the definitions in the bill, a crime has to be committed?

The Deputy Chairman: The hon. member will address the Chair, even if we are in committee of the whole.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, earlier the minister spoke directly to someone for 15 minutes and you did not call him to order. I will address my remarks to him through you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bélair: It is because you are a member of the Bloc Quebecois.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Yes, it is because we are in the Bloc Quebecois that we are called to order as the Liberal member across has said. However, I will address the Chair, because I am pleased to do so.

An hon. member: How sad.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Earlier we listened to the Liberals, and we made no disparaging remarks. I would ask you, Mr. Chairman, to ask the members opposite not to make any disparaging remarks either, and we will get along just fine.

(1530)

Mr. Chairman, I would like to have the minister tell me where in the bill the leaders are mentioned, because, according to the definitions in the clause under study and in the subsequent clauses, an individual must have committed an offence. We know perfectly well that the leaders are not the ones committing the crimes, but rather their subordinates.

I would like to know from the minister where the bill deals with the leaders and how he intends to implement these clauses, if it does.

Mr. Rock: Yes, Mr. Chairman. First, I must respond to the hon. member's comment that everyone has been waiting a long time for the government to take action on this matter. In fact, we have been working on it for a long time, for years. We have heard the views of chiefs of police and of police forces throughout Canada. We have studied the entire issue and we have acted in consultation with and with the backing of police forces.

A few days ago, here in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said that responsibility for dealing with this problem did not rest solely with the federal government. The provinces also have a responsibility, under the Constitution, for the administration of the justice system.

Everyone knows that there is no miracle solution. People know that an answer will not be found overnight. We must all do our part.

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With Bill C-95, the federal government has begun to do its part. Now, provincial authorities must ensure that they give police officers and counsel the resources they need, and do their part as well.

In my opinion, we will only be able to move forward if both levels of government work together. That is the position taken by the Prime Minister, to which the hon. member referred during oral question period here in the House.

The hon. member is asking me the following question: What clauses apply to leaders of gangs and of organized crime? My answer is that all the clauses in the bill have this objective. All aspects of the bill can be used to prosecute gang leaders. For example, we have suggested changes to augment and improve the methods of investigation used by police forces against leaders and members of gangs and of criminal organizations.

The same applies to the clauses dealing with the proceeds of criminal activities and the means used to carry out those activities. It also applies to the sentences proposed in the bill. They are tougher and are aimed at leaders as well as members.

Finally, one clause will deal with the order to keep the peace and will give the court authority to make an order limiting an individual's freedom if the court is convinced there is a reasonable fear that the individual might commit a crime described in the bill. This is a very valuable tool against leaders of organized crime.

(1535)

We discussed this particular aspect with police forces and I can say today, in response to the hon. member's questions, that they found this a very useful approach, particularly with respect to gang leaders.

So, this bill provides for a whole range of measures, and concrete and specific stages for improving the Criminal Code, for giving police forces very useful tools against organized crime in general, but in particular against leaders of organized crime.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, I think the minister either did not understand my question or could not find the clause.

I realize that according to the bill-and now I am going beyond clause 1, because this goes further than clause 1-the individual must have committed a criminal offence. As for ``possession without lawful excuse of an explosive substance'', we do not see the leaders going around with sticks of dynamite in the trunks of their cars. And as for ``possession in association with a criminal organization'', the person who manufactures explosive substances or has them in his possession is not one of the leaders either.

Among all the offences the minister included in Bill C-95, not one has a direct impact on the leaders, not one, otherwise the minister would have told me which clause. Even if we consider the definitions at the very beginning under ``criminal organization'', it says ``having as one of its primary activities the commission of indictable offence''-we know that the dirty work is not done by the leaders. We do not see the mafia bosses installing dynamite. Neither do we see the leaders of biker gangs installing dynamite and doing all these things that are harmful to society.

I do not understand the hon. member opposite who says it is not enough, who says he has the support of Canadian chiefs of police and all police forces in Canada and in Quebec and who tells me that in Quebec, people are very satisfied with this. Sure, we are very satisfied, but once the minister got going, he should have done more. It is not true that all chiefs of police and all police forces say that this bill mainly affects the leaders. This is a misrepresentation of the truth, because this is not what is happening in Quebec. It is not the opinion of the people who commented on this bill.

I realize this is a step forward, but that is not enough. I again want to ask the minister to show me which clause in the bill refers specifically to the leaders, to those who are responsible for the biker gangs, those who do the planning, who give the orders for jobs in Quebec or elsewhere in Canada.

The minister said in the House earlier that he met the mother of young Desrochers. According to this bill, the police is given additional powers to carry out investigations and to try and find out who installed the bomb and why. Unless I am mistaken, the person who ordered this particular job, the leader who was behind all this is not affected by Bill C-95, and correct me if I am wrong. So I am asking the minister where in Bill C-95 we can find the provisions that affect leaders.

Even so the bill is a step forward. Before, there was nothing. Thanks to the Bloc Quebecois, the government decided to act. The minister says he has been working on this for 18 months, but we have been asking questions for at least two years about this issue. He said there was no problem, that the police had all the elements they needed to conduct their investigations, and so forth.

And then all of a sudden, he told us he had been examining this aspect for 18 months, probably very secretly, because he never told us he was looking into this. He even said that the Bloc Quebecois was mistaken and that it wanted to make political capital with an issue like this. By the way, I think it is odd we are considering this bill one week before an election is called.

(1540)

So again I want to ask the Minister of Justice who he is very knowledgeable on the bill before us, to tell me exactly where this clause is. I also have legal training. I am a lawyer, and I will understand. Let him say which clause it is. I see no clause that deals specifically with leaders. And this is one of the weaknesses of Bill C-95.

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I am very anxious to hear the minister say specifically which clause concerns the leaders. Is it in a definition? Is it under a particular offence? Where is it? I wish someone would tell me exactly where we can find the clause that affects the leaders. After that, I may have another question for him.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, I do not claim that this bill represents everything we need to fight organized crime. It is just the first step. It is one bill to start things off. It is the first phase in our work. There is much yet to be done, but it is a very good start, a very valuable start.

The hon. member has asked which clause applies to leaders of organized crime. As I said, the entire bill can be used against them: wiretapping, search warrants, changes to regulations for obtaining search warrants, access to tax information-very important for the crime kingpins-the fruits and instrumentalities of crime, harsher sentences, reversal of the burden of proof for bail, recognizance to keep the peace. All of this can be used directly against the leaders. As I said, those on the front line, that is to say, the police forces, agree that these measures will be highly effective in attaining this objective.

Another important point is that these measures can be used indirectly against the leaders. In other words, if, using these investigative means, a person can be found who worked with a group in an act of gang violence or is associated with a gang and if that person can be accused of an offence under our bill, with a harsh sentence of 14 years to be served consecutive to all of the other sentences, we have an indirect means of obtaining evidence against the leaders. The police forces have told me that, with such a tool, they can get information out of an accused in exchange for a reduced sentence, if they act as an informant and help the police in their investigation.

Directly or indirectly, this bill gives us concrete and effective means to investigate and put an end to organized crime.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Mr. Speaker, what the minister just said about harsher sentences, bail and peace bonds clearly applies to gang leaders. That is not the issue.

The issue is: Where, in the bill, are the additional powers given police authorities so they can get to the leaders of these biker gangs or criminal organizations?

If it makes the other side react, it is usually because we hit a nerve.

(1545)

Once these leaders are grabbed by police, they will indeed be subject to the provisions on harsher penalties, bail and peace bonds. I agree and I have no problem with that. However, the bill does not give police officers more power to go after these leaders.

Let me go back to the example provided earlier by the minister himself, the case of the Desrochers boy. It is not the leaders who went out and put the bomb under the vehicle that exploded. The leader simply told one of his henchmen: ``Mr. X is starting to get on my nerves. I want him out of the picture. Do what you have to do''. The leader gives the order to his henchmen who then go out and set off the bomb. However, under this bill, it is the person who sets off the bomb who will face the harsher penalty, who will have more difficulty getting bail, who will be slapped with a peace bond or what have you. It will not be the leaders.

I will ask the question for the third time, and I promise it will be the last time. If the minister does not mention the specific clause, then it is because the clause does not exist. I will be convinced of that beyond a reasonable doubt. Will the minister tell me exactly where in the bill are these additional powers given the police to go after the leaders? Because if we do not go after the leaders, we may end up having more hit men in jail, but the leaders will always be able to find others to do the job for them.

For the last time, I ask the minister: Where, in this bill, are the provisions that specifically target gang leaders? All the provisions on offenses clearly stipulate that they must have committed the offence. So before the minister tells me which specific clause of the bill provides for such powers, he must answer this question: Does he agree that those who commit such offenses are usually not the leaders, but their henchmen?

If the minister answers yes to that question, maybe he can tell me where in the bill are the specific provisions targeting gang leaders.

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, since the question was repeated, I have to repeat the answer. As I have already pointed out, we have taken all the measures needed to deal with gang leaders. Even in the question he put, the hon. member provided us with an example. He said that the explosive charges are not set by the leaders, but by those who help the gangs.

As the hon. member mentioned, it is necessary for gang leaders to communicate with others to let them know where to set the explosive charges. So they must be able to contact their members or their associates.

First of all, we improved the Criminal Code provisions concerning electronic surveillance to make it easier for the police to monitor and record communications between gang leaders and their members. So the changes relating to electronic surveillance can be used to catch the leaders.

Then we have a peace order that can prohibit a gang leader from contacting another person. If the leader does so anyway, he may be charged for violating the order. The bill provides for a prison term in such cases. So, all of these clauses and all of these measures can be used against gang leaders.

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(1550)

We do not need one specific clause dealing with leaders. All of the bill's provisions empower the police. So, I have to repeat myself, because I already have answered this question. It is the same question, so I have to give the same answer as before.

[English]

Mr. Chuck Strahl (Fraser Valley East, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, just before question period I posed a question to the minister and probably as a classic mistake gave him and his department all kinds of time to put together a long political type of an answer in which he charged back that the Reform Party was not interested in specifics. He knows full well that if the Reform Party had not agreed to go to this procedure of committee of the whole, if we had not agreed to fast track this bill, it would not have a snowball's chance of becoming law.

Of course we are interested in specific proposals. The minister knows that. I am interested to know how he picks one bill over another.

This bill will likely become law tonight. I am not thrilled with the process. I still think it is a lousy process not to have a day or two in committee to hear witnesses and consider amendments.

That being said, I am interested to know how the minister chose this bill for fast tracking. He has our agreement to do it. We are here today to do that. Why for instance did the minister not choose to fast track the DNA legislation also or instead of this bill? What was his criteria in picking this bill as the premier bill to get through before the election?

Mr. Rock: First, I undertake that the answers I give will be no more political than the questions I receive from the party opposite. Before two o'clock I had to listen to a question that was steeped, that indeed was suffused in partisan rhetoric and so it was necessary for me to respond by setting the record straight.

This bill will not be law tonight because it has to go to other place. It may be passed in this House today and if it is, I think we will have done a real service.

The hon. member asks about the priority of bills and why the DNA bill is not going forward at the same pace. As the solicitor general made clear when he tabled that bill, the DNA legislation, Bill C-94, covers some matters which are still truly controversial. There are real debates in policy and in law about the better course to pursue. The solicitor general has chosen to ask the committee to consider that bill after first reading and before adoption in principle by the House so as to leave open to parliamentarians the opportunity to question the basic approach suggested on the main issues in that legislation.

The Canadian Police Association has its own viewpoint as to how the bill should operate and when samples should be taken and the rules of access to samples in the data bank. If we speak to civil libertarians or women's groups we receive very different responses. Questions arose the very first day when the bill was tabled that demonstrate the extent to which there is controversy on those subjects. In relation to the DNA legislation, Bill C-94, there are still important policy issues to be canvassed and resolved.

In relation to this legislation, the proposals are of a different order. Here we propose specific, concrete, practical changes to the Criminal Code that will take existing investigative techniques which have been part of our criminal law for generations and change access to those techniques in the unique circumstance of investigating organized crime.

We also have a definition of organized crime which has been carefully crafted to encompass the most serious offences committed over an extended period of time and a group which is dedicated to that serious kind of crime.

We have resorted to traditional criminal law techniques such as increasing sentences, providing that membership or association in organized crime is an aggravating factor in determining the sentence.

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There is also an elaboration of an existing peace bond provision, through proposed 810.3 in a way that builds upon sections that are already in the Criminal Code and which have been tested for some time. The same can be said of the fruits of crime and the instrumentalities of crime.

Whereas in DNA we are embarking on a brave new world with a technique which has been in place in only three other countries that we know of, with Bill C-95 we are building upon existing mechanisms and existing laws, elaborating on them to meet a specific threat, the threat of organized crime.

I think this is far more appropriate for the disposition of the House. It could very well be that the other place will hold hearings. As far as I understand it, it intends to hold hearings. If the hon. member wants an occasion to hear other voices, I believe the other place will provide that.

Mr. Strahl: Mr. Chairman, this is a free question which the minister can bat out of the park.

Some people will say that once again this is a bill that is catering to the headlines: ``Liberals under attack on Quebec''. They must do something and therefore they are responding with this bill today because it is a Quebec issue and that is the reason for the bill coming forward now in its present format.

What does the minister say to those critics? Does he say that this bill is not a Quebec bill? Does he say that it is a Criminal Code bill? I am practically putting the answer in his mouth. Is that the answer? Is this a Quebec bill, or is this just a bill whose time has come?

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Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, perhaps the best way to respond to that question is to use an example that the hon. member will find relevant from his own personal experience.

Three weeks ago I spoke with the chief of police and the mayor of Vancouver. I told them of our intensified work in seeking to craft legislation which would provide police with better tools in their fight against gangs and organized crime. Chief Canuel and Mayor Owen enthusiastically encouraged me in my work and asked for an opportunity to comment on the proposals we had under consideration.

Chief Canuel told me of incidents in Vancouver involving gang activity, involving organized crime. He reminded me that the need for this legislation is as great or greater in other parts of the country than it is in Quebec. The mayor of Vancouver took the same position. When I spoke to the Attorney General of British Columbia, the hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, he was most constructive and enthusiastic. He encouraged me in this work. He asked me to work quickly, as did colleague attorneys general across the country.

I received a letter from the Vancouver police department proposing specific measures to be included in this bill. We were able to include five or six of the specific proposals that the chief in Vancouver said he would find very important in his work.

This bill does not concern a specific province. It does not concern a particular place. The bill seeks to address a problem which can be found in various forms throughout this great country. It is an affliction which we have to deal with in every province and in both territories. One of the enduring values of the legislation is that it will put useful tools into the hands of police forces throughout Canada.

Let the headlines say what they will. Governments are always either before or after elections. If something is introduced within six months of an election, it is branded as a cynical ploy. I would rather remember the image I have in my mind of the mother with whom I met last week in Montreal who lost her son in a gang war. She said to me: ``Put aside politics. Get this legislation in place. Give the police the tools. I want them to find the people responsible for taking the life of my son''.

(1600)

That has nothing to do with elections. It is doing something meaningful in criminal law to help a victim, to help police and to try to achieve a common objective, which is to rid the country of organized crime.

Mr. Strahl: I agree with the minister that the legislation needs to be passed. Of course we will support it. The minister knows that. We are happy to do that, except for the reservations I mentioned earlier.

I am interested, however, in the motion the House passed more than a year ago regarding distinct society. It might be called the distinct society motion. All legislative branches would treat Quebec as a distinct society and keep that in mind when they are drafting legislation. That was the instruction that came from the House, or words to that effect.

When the minister is drafting legislation does he take the distinct society clause into consideration? Did he have it in mind when he drafted the bill? The minister has been instructed to do so. I would be interested to know what impact it had on the legislation.

Mr. Rock: This is not one of those ways in which Quebec forms a distinct society within Canada. This problem is not unique to Quebec. It is found throughout the country. The legislation speaks to a problem which is pan-Canadian. I wish sometimes the problem of organized crime was confined to a particular area but it is not.

In February 1996 the police sat the solicitor general and I down and took us through virtually a full day's briefing on the state of organized crime. We heard from the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, the RCMP and the organized crime committee of the chiefs of police. They talked about the different forms in which organized crime is found whether it is in Atlantic Canada, in Ontario, on the prairies or on the west coast. It is remarkable the number of forms in which corruption, intimidation and violence can be found, all in a ruthless effort to squeeze profit out of innocent people and to victimize others.

This is not something distinctly associated with one province or one area of the country. It is a problem which is Canada wide and requires a Canada-wide solution if we are to deal with it. That is why the legislation is of general application.

I spoke with the chiefs of police in Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipeg. I spoke with the attorneys general of Manitoba and Ontario. In all those conversations I was encouraged in this work. The methods we were looking at struck a responsive chord because all those law officers know we are not dealing here with a distinct Quebec issue but with a scourge that afflicts the country as a whole.

Mr. Strahl: I do not deny that. I confirm that. I affirm the minister's statements. I am sure he would have support for that.

I was merely trying to establish whether that distinct society clause the House past more than a year ago had any effect on drafting legislation, especially when it was at the request of the Quebec government. I agree with the minister that it is a country-wide problem. Like most problems in the country it does not lend itself to the distinctiveness of any one province. It needs to be addressed in a Canada-wide way.

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The question I left with the minister just before question period concerned a clarification that criminal organization means any group consisting of more than five persons. If I understood his argument before question period, persons are anybody over the age of 12. Is that what will be applied in this case, or when is a person a person in this law?

Mr. Rock: Person will have its usual and ordinary meaning.

(1605 )

As I said before in the first segment of this committee meeting, the definition and the measures contained in Bill C-95 apply to any group of persons consisting of those who have engaged in the commission of serious indictable offences over the last five years and where the group has as one of its primary activities the commission of those offences. There will be no exemption from the definition by reason of age.

The criteria are dependent upon offences in the code which are indictable and punishable by a maximum of five or more years imprisonment. That does not disqualify young offenders. Anyone who meets that definition will be covered. As I said in answer to the questions put by the hon. member for Crowfoot, it may be that a particular accused because of the Young Offenders Act will face the jeopardy governed by the Young Offenders Act. That does not mean that Bill C-95 does not apply.

Mr. Strahl: That is the point people want to know about. Young offenders are being used as mules in the drug trade. It is commonly done in the west. People want assurances in that regard. There could be a group of five of which only one is of legal age. However it would still cover that person.

We could call it a gang. We could get the guy who is living off the avails of and corrupting youth. We could charge him under all kinds of jurisdictions. Even if no one in the gang is of legal age, we could still use the legislation for enhanced wiretap accessibility and all the other good things the minister mentioned.

I assure the minister that out west organized crime is often made up of largely under age people. That is the shame of it. Two or three kingpins frequently use young people because they get off with lighter sentences or with immunity if they are young enough. That has been documented on the west coast and I am sure across Canada.

People need assurances that it will cover groups even if they are not of legal age.

Mr. Rock: That is exactly what we intend. In relation to my interpretation of the act, I invite the member to look at section 20 of the Young Offenders Act as an example of what I am talking about. It relates to young persons being found guilty of offences for which the punishment provided by the Criminal Code or any other act of Parliament is imprisonment for life.

In other words, section 20 of the Young Offenders Act speaks about offences provided for in the Criminal Code for which the punishment may be more than that which can be given under the Young Offenders Act. It does not mean the offences do not apply to young people. They certainly do. It simply means that if a person of that age is charged, they are transferred and the maximum contained in the Young Offenders Act applies.

I know the situation described by the hon. member is true. I have spent evenings travelling with the youth gang section of the Winnipeg police force. I went out in their cars with them. I watched while they cruised the streets. I listened to their explanations of the kinds of crimes they investigate. I walked the beat with police officers of the Edmonton police force. I spent an evening on the streets of Vancouver with members of the Vancouver police force, sometimes driving and sometimes walking along the streets and the back alleys of downtown Vancouver. I saw for myself the extent to which young people are tragically caught up in crime and all too often at the direction of older people.

I spent time driving through the streets with the Calgary police force, seeing young people involved in unlawful activity and too often under the direction or encouragement of older people.

I well recognize the same could be said of Toronto, Halifax, Quebec City and Ottawa. In each of those places I have travelled with the police in their cars to watch them at work and to see for myself very troubling, very serious situations.

(1610 )

Our intention with this statute is to catch the kind of case to which the hon. member has referred. The investigative tools will be available to police officers looking into groups that involve people under the age of 18 to see if they are engaged in the commission of offences for which penalties are described under the Criminal Code. That is the intention and based on this wording I believe that is the effect.

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Mr. Chairman, we are talking about serious offences, offences that carry a minimum penalty of over five years.

The minister has provided that kind of penalty in Bill C-68. That means a group of hunters or a group of farmers or a group of people who own firearms like .22 calibre gopher rifles and do not want to register them fall within that category. I suppose they could be designated as members of a criminal organization if there were five of them.

If their primary activity could be determined to be failure to register their firearms and challenging the gun law in court, it could

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be considered to be a series of offences. Would they fall into the category of a criminal organization?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, it is remarkable, no matter what the subject, how the hon. member somehow finds a gun in it somewhere. Such is his dedication and his passion of commitment to opposing gun control in Canada. It is regrettable.

I happen to think the hon. member is completely out of step with the vast majority of Canadian people who want to see us take military type assault weapons off the street. I think the vast majority of Canadians support the fact that we banned the future sale and import of most cheaply made handguns called Saturday Night Specials that have killed so many police officers in the U.S. We do not want them in Canada.

The majority of Canadians support gun control which gives police officers the tools they need to take guns out of the hands of people who should not have them. It is regrettable that no matter what the subject, the bill, the measure or the objective, the hon. member will find some way to bring it back to his passionate commitment to oppose gun control which is so broadly supported in the country. It is odd and curious, but it is something I have to live with. In living with it let me do the best I can to respond to the question in which the hon. member has laboured to make firearms somehow relevant to anti-gang legislation.

I do not think the example given by the hon. member could possibly be. I suppose we could invent facts to make it happen, but he is talking about individuals acting on individual occasions and not respecting the law passed by Parliament. I hope all Canadians would respect the law passed by Parliament. He may know some people who do not or will not. That is interesting.

Let us get back to what Bill C-95 is all about. Let us get back to what the anti-organized crime bill is all about. It is all about those who band together in groups or associations to ruthlessly dedicate their lives and their efforts to profit at the expense of others and sometimes at the expense of the lives of others.

It is about giving police tools to deal with those who would put at risk the lives of families and of children by battling over turf for illegal drug distribution. It is about finding a way to deal with hardened criminals, career criminals who over the last five years have committed a series of serious criminal offences and are committing indictable crimes punishable by five years or more in prison.

This is the hard core of organized crime in Canada. They are at war right now in the province of Quebec. The cost has been measured in human lives, in the peace of mind of communities. I met people from towns and cities in Quebec who are not able to take their children for a walk down their own street, who tell me they are afraid to go to parks in their towns and who feel their communities are under siege.

(1615)

[Translation]

They live in fear in their communities. This is unacceptable in Canada. The conditions described by the people who live in these towns and villages in Quebec cannot be tolerated. I met with the mayors of some of these communities. They told me straight off that these conditions were unacceptable, and I agree with them. That is why we took action. We have now done our share to amend the Criminal Code and to propose measures that will help our police forces fight these offences.

[English]

That is what this bill is all about. As much as the hon. member might use his creativity to imagine ways to make his opposition to gun control relevant to an organized crime bill, it is interesting, creative and mildly amusing. It is even charming in a way because the hon. member has made such a career out of it. However, it is hardly relevant, not helpful and it is broadly off the point.

Mr. Ramsay: Mr. Chairman, what is regrettable is that the justice minister, in creating that bill, placed the maximum penalty of 10 years for a person knowingly failing to register their .22 gopher rifle. That is what he has done. He has gone to great lengths in his answer to suggest that this is not an issue that should be raised and overlooks the fact that he has created such a severe penalty that it makes anyone who chooses to challenge that law in a court, like the three provinces and the territories are doing, come under at least the eaves trough of this bill.

That is what is regrettable as far as the justice minister's response is concerned. Some concerns were indicated in some newspaper articles about how the bill may be applied in such a way that it was not meant by the justice department or justice minister to be applied. We have good evidence of that kind of legislation going through the House and Bill C-41 is a good example. He, by his own admission, did not expect the conditional sentencing to be used in the manner that allows rapists to walk free.

We have to look at the minister's rationale in this when he suggests that we do not have to worry about this. Maybe he does not have to worry, but as representatives of the people of this country and as the guardians of their rights when it comes to legislation like this, it is very appropriate that not only do we examine this bill but its ramifications as may occur through the interpretation of the very clauses of the bill and the terms that lie undefined.

I would like to ask the justice minister the following question. There have been over 60 gang related murders in Quebec since October 1994 to 1995. Eighty gang members were arrested and charged for some 200 offences. Outside of the extension of the wiretap laws which may help the investigating peace officer to investigate a murder, how is this bill going to help those investigating police officers apprehend those responsible for these murders, including those who set the bomb off that killed the little 11 year

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old boy? How is this bill going to help other than perhaps the extension of the wiretap laws?

Mr. Rock: Mr. Chairman, the hon. member has told me that he and his colleagues in the Reform Party support this bill. I hope he has a better understanding than he has indicated of how the bill is going to help.

When you have a medical problem you go to a doctor. When you have a legal problem you go to a lawyer. When you want to know what will help the police in what they are doing to combat crime on the streets you go to the police. That is what we did. We went to the police.

(1620)

[Translation]

I spoke with Chief Duchesneau, the director of the Montreal Urban Community Police Department. I met with Chief Richard Renaud from Quebec. I met with a dozen chiefs of police and directors of police departments three weeks ago in Hull. I talked with police forces about their needs and about the changes that could be made to the Criminal Code to give them better tools to fight organized crime. Most of the measures contained in Bill C-95 were proposed by police officers. They have been working with us for months to find ways to deal with this problem.

The police themselves think that these measures will improve the law and help us arrest and prosecute those responsible for the murders referred to by the hon. member.

[English]

We did not develop these proposals in a vacuum. We did not develop them in the absence of practical advice from the police on the street. We worked very closely with the police community in devising these measures. We have given the police tools that will help them.

The hon. member asks how and he referred to wiretaps. Far more than that is given by this bill. It is permitted to seal up information on which warrants are obtained in order to protect the confidentiality of informants, in order to protect the lives of informants, in order to make it easier for police to derive information from third parties to help them in their war on organized crime.

It is provided that, under certain circumstances, with court order, investigating officers can get access to income tax information in the course of investigating organized crime. That is a rare event. To the present, Revenue Canada and Finance, because of the traditional confidentiality of income tax information, has permitted access to investigating officers only in a limited category of cases. We propose to expand that to include the participation offence in organized crime.

The legislation will permit the seizing not only of the proceeds of crime but any property used to help commit organized crime, including real estate if it is fortified or modified to enable or facilitate the commission of those offences.

The legislation provides for stern, stiff prison sentences for those who engage in organized crime. Let me make that point clear so that the hon. member sees the full force and effect of these provisions.

Not only the leaders that the hon. member for the Bloc was asking about, but members and even strangers to the group who are enticed for cash, for example, to transport, to store or to place explosives on the part of a criminal organization, these stiff sentences will stand in the way of anyone who is complicit with organized crime.

The onus on bail applications for those arrested on organized crime offences are reversed. The court in sentencing for organized crime offences and for explosives offences committed in connection with organized crime are required not only to impose the stiff sentence but required that it be served consecutive to any other sentence the person is then serving or to which they may be required to serve as a result of other infractions.

The police, with the authority of the attorney general of the province, will be given the powerful tool of seeking a judicial restraint order where there are grounds on which a judge can conclude that there is a reasonable basis to fear that someone will commit an organized crime offence.

(1625 )

That is determined on the civil balance of probabilities and not the criminal beyond a reasonable doubt. The court will be empowered to make an order limiting the liberty of that person, requiring that person to comply with conditions that are appropriate, that may, for example, prohibit one member of such a group from communicating with others.

These are powerful and important tools that the police welcome. If the chiefs of police believe that these tools will assist in their efforts against organized crime, if those who are on the ground dealing with these problems day after day who have developed expertise, who have experience, believe that these tools are powerful and useful, to be a first step, to be the first phase, establishing a framework to which can be added more in the months and years ahead, then I say we should conclude that not only in our own judgment but based on the advice of those who know from their own experience that this bill is going to make a difference out where it belongs, in the real world.

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Before I conclude, in answer to the hon. member's question, he referred to registering guns. In a pattern that has become all too distressingly familiar over the years, as he has returned with his remarkable attachment to his opposition to any form of gun control, the hon. member seeks to instil the hysterical reaction which he seeks in others by overstating his case.

The hon. member knows full well that if someone fails to register the garden variety .22, we have provided not in the Criminal Code, but in the firearms act, for a remedy which falls far short of the draconian consequences to which he has referred. The hon. member takes a hypothetical case and attaches to it the most extreme result.

I think the country is on to his pattern of activity by now. Just in case there is anyone out there who has not seen the hon. member at work in the past on this subject, for the record it should be noted that he has once again misstated the case in order to encourage over reaction to legislation that he has been opposed to from the outset because he just does not like gun control.

As I say, it is regrettable he is so out of step with the vast majority of Canadians. I guess that is something he is going to have to live with.

[Translation]

Mr. Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to reassure Reform members. Everyone in the House knows that the distinct society motion agreed to has never been used to pass any legislation whatsoever. It is a meaningless motion, and Quebec as a distinct society is in no way at issue in Bill C-95. In this regard, I must say that the minister is right. The problem of gangs does not exist only in Quebec, but is spreading and is also very present in Ontario and in the other provinces of English Canada.

That having been said, my other comment concerns the answers the minister has given to a number of questions. Several times, he said it was unacceptable that people should be afraid to walk on the street in towns in Quebec, that, in Canada, mothers should be afraid to let their children go outside, and so on.

I am very pleased that the minister has said this in the House, and that he has also admitted that it was urgent to act in such a situation, given that, I remind you, we have been asking the minister to act for two years now. I congratulate him on having seen that what the Bloc Quebecois was calling for made good sense and on introducing legislation along the lines of what we have pointing out for at least two years.

But what strikes me is that the minister said several times that this is a first step. It is a step in the direction of what police forces have been calling for. It is a first step. He has repeated this at least ten times since oral question period.

My first question, and later on I will have another, is that, while they were drafting such a bill, why did the minister not take more than that one step?

(1630)

Why did the minister not go a bit further regarding leaders, among other things, and regarding the demands made by Quebec City and certain mayors as well that the minister met with? I am very happy that he met these demands because, once again, it was the Bloc Quebecois that really backed him into a corner, so he decided to go to Quebec City. The air in that city did him good, because when he came back it was an urgent matter. Before he left for Quebec City, there was no rush. So this is an extremely important point. The air in Quebec City did the Minister of Justice a lot of good.

Given that he himself admits it is a first step, and it seems to be a small one because he has mentioned it so many times, why did the minister not decide to take more steps in the fight against crime?

Mr. Rock: First of all, Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out that, as a government, we have acted promptly and effectively in response to the demands, not only from the Government of Quebec, but also from police forces throughout Canada, with respect to organized crime.

Not only have we reacted with Bill C-95, now before us, but we have also passed Bill C-17. When I was in Quebec with my counterpart, Quebec Minister of Justice Paul Bégin, he asked me to act to fight organized crime in the Criminal Code, and also to get C-17 through rapidly, which we did. That bill is now in the other place.

We also passed Bill C-8 against the drug and narcotic traffickers. These are very valuable measures for the police forces, including the organized crime squads.

But with Bill C-95, we decided not to go with the option whereby mere membership in an organization would constitute a criminal offence. That proposal came mainly from Nr. Bégin and the Government of Quebec, who asked for an amendment to the Criminal Code making mere membership in a criminal organization a criminal offence. The idea, I presume, was to have a schedule to the legislation which would list the criminal groups and gangs

We looked seriously at that option. We studied the consequences and concluded that such an approach would be unconstitutional; it was neither desirable nor necessary to go beyond the law or the legal framework to have an effective and durable bill. We therefore decided on other measures, which are now in Bill C-95.

We are convinced that our approach is valid and constitutional. It is very important to me to avoid raising false hopes. For us,

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adopting a measure such as the one proposed by Mr. Bégin, only to have the courts toss it out in six months, would be an approach that would raise false hopes among Quebecers and Canadians. So we found a response or a valid approach to this situation.

(1635)

The hon. member asks why we went no further. In my opinion, this bill is the start, the first phase in our legislative response to organized crime. Without a doubt, we are going to find the other approaches in the months and years to come. For the moment, however, the measures before the House are valid, constitutional and also, I believe, effective.

Mr. Bellehumeur: Mr. Chairman, what I understand is that they are introducing the first phase because they do not know what to propose in the further phases. The minister has just said so. I understand.

What I do not understand however is when he says that it was quick and effective. Again, I remind members that we have been asking the government to introduce this bill for two years now.

The same thing can be said about Bill C-17. The minister spoke about it three or four times. I remind him that this bill had been introduced back in 1994. The Bloc Quebecois had to threaten the government to propose anti-biker amendments in order to get the minister to bring that bill back to the House and have it passed.

There is another point I want to raise with the minister. The government of Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois raised on several occasions the issue of crime proceeds and money laundering in Canada. Again today, a newspaper mentioned that legislation on money laundering is very difficult to implement because there are so many loopholes. Reference is made to Canadian policemen; they must be the ones the minister says he has met several times. I also met several chiefs of police and policemen in Quebec, who told me almost the opposite of what the minister has been telling this House for the last little while, in particular about the legislation on money laundering, about which they were almost unanimous. I have even talked to judges and attorneys general of Canada. So, we read in the paper this morning that the police in Canada would love to have half or even one quarter of the measures that exist in similar legislation in the United States.

As for the whole issue of anti-biker or anti-gang or anti-crime in general, we in the Bloc Quebecois have said repeatedly that stricter legislation is needed on money laundering.

I realize that Bill C-95 contains provisions concerning the seizure of real property or other property. I know that Bill C-95 is a step forward. However, this is nothing compared with what chiefs of police have been asking for years in the way of legislation on money laundering.

While the minister was at it, why did he not add some amendments on money laundering, in order to make this activity more difficult in Canada? Now we are known as the drug trafficker's paradise. We already knew that Canada was a tax haven for money laundering. The minister should realize there is some urgency in this case as well, and even the Bloc Quebecois would have liked to see him pass legislation to deal with this.

As far as money laundering is concerned, when we talk to the police, they say that between 20 and 30 billion dollars are laundered annually. A judge of the Quebec Superior Court told me it could be as much as 50 or 60 billion dollars.

Again, considering the urgent nature of these demands which, I think, we made very clear to the government, the same way we did in the case of anti-biker legislation, I want to ask the minister why, when he was working on this bill, he did not introduce legislation to make it well nigh impossible to launder money, an activity that is today a disaster for the economy? And tomorrow it will be even worse for Quebec, for a sovereign Quebec, but for Canada as well.

CONTENTS

HOUSE OF COMMONS

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ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

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