OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)

House of Commons Debates VOLUME 147 NUMBER 056 2nd SESSION 41st PARLIAMENT Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Speaker: The Honourable Andrew Scheer HOUSE OF COMMONS CANADA (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) COMMONS DEBATES March 4, 2014 DEBATES Edited Hansard * Table of Contents * Number 056 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 056 (Official Version) Compte rendu officiel * Table des matières * Numéro 056 (Version officielle) 147 056 04 03 2014 2014/03/04 10:05:00 House of Commons Débats de la Chambre des communes House of Commons Debates 41 2

The House met at 10 a.m. Prayers

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS Routine Proceedings (1005) [ English ] Canadian Human Rights Commission The Speaker : I have the honour to lay upon the table the 2013 annual report of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. [ Translation ] Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)( a ), this document is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

[ English ] Veterans Hiring Act Hon. Peter Van Loan (for the Minister of Veterans Affairs) Bill C-27. Introduction and first reading moved for leave to introduce Bill C-27,

An Act to amend the Public Service Employment Act (enhancing hiring opportunities for certain serving and former members of the Canadian Forces) . (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Committees of the House Liaison Mr. Dean Allison (Niagara West—Glanbrook, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 107(3), I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Liaison Committee, entitled “Committee Activities and Expenditures--April 1 to December 31, 2013”. The report highlights the work and the accomplishments of each committee, as well as detailing the budget's funded activities approved by committee members. It is the liaison committee's intention to present such reports to the House three times a year.

Via Rail Canada Act Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP) Bill C-577. Introduction and first reading moved for leave to introduce Bill C-577,

An Act respecting VIA Rail Canada and making consequential amendments to another Act . She said: Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present the VIA Rail protection bill. The bill presents a vision for the future of VIA Rail. It lays out a clear mandate and government structure. It gives it a larger say in determining its funding needs and frees the railway board from patronage appointments. By strengthening VIA Rail's position vis-à-vis CN and CP, delays for passenger trains would also be reduced. Currently VIA Rail has no clearly delineated rights, powers, obligations, or mandated targets.

Without legislative protection, it has suffered years of neglect and devastating service cuts. It is time to secure VIA Rail's role and responsibility through a federal law. (Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Committees of the House Foreign Affairs and International Development Mr. Scott Reid (Lanark—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, CPC) moved: Motion for concurrence That the First Report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Friday, November 8, 2013, be concurred in. He said: Mr. Speaker, the first report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development deals with the subject matter of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.

These are the Jewish refugees who were driven from their homes, often at risk to their lives and almost always with complete loss of all property, and the destruction of communities that had existed, in some cases for two millennia, since biblical times. This great series of tragedies occurred in many countries and took place primarily between 1948 and the early 1970s. The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development dealt with this subject matter and drew it to the attention of the House. I believe that we should concur in this report and in its two recommendations today.

I thought I might take the House through the background to this, as a starting point. I will quote from the first page of the report of the committee to give members an idea of what that subject matter is. It states: In the course of its hearings, the Committee learned of the discrimination and hardship faced by Jewish people living in the Middle East and North Africa in the twentieth century.

Much of this discrimination, which was practiced by governments in the region against their Jewish populations, surged over the years in tandem with the crisis moments of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in particular the 1948–49 and 1967 wars. As a result, almost all of the Jews in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen eventually left their homes and communities, which had existed in the Middle East and North Africa for centuries. The committee was anxious to ensure that this great human tragedy should be placed in its proper context.

It was not unique among refugee movements connected with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Two paragraphs later, on the first page of the report, the committee stated: The Committee would also underline its belief that recognition of the experiences of Jewish refugees does not diminish or compete with the situation of Palestinian refugees. I believe that the drawing of parallels is a key component to any proper understanding of this particular series of human tragedies. The committee went on to make two recommendations.

It is a lengthy and thoughtful report, but I want to quote from the two recommendations because I believe this is also important when giving a proper context. Recommendation No. 1 states: The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada officially recognize the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948. I would say that this language suggests that the committee meant “including 1948” and the subsequent years. That is perhaps a quibble, but I would make that point.

Recommendation No. 2 states: The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada encourage the direct negotiating parties to take into account all refugee populations as part of any just and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts. Those are the recommendations that were made by the committee. There was a supplementary report put out by the New Democrats. I will also quote from that in order to provide some context.

It states: New Democrats are in support of Recommendation 1, which calls on the Government of Canada to officially recognize the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948.

I have to assume that means that the New Democrats are not in accord, and dissent from, recommendation number two, which, again, states that the Government of Canada ought to encourage the direct negotiating parties, meaning the Israelis and the people representing the Palestinians and their Arab states, to take into account all refugee populations as part of any just and comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts.

(1010) I assume that the New Democrats are arguing that the situation of Jewish refugees ought not to be taken into account, unless they are also suggesting that Palestinian refugees should also be ignored. They are making a divide between Palestinian refugees and Jewish refugees, the former group being worthy of recognition, the second group worthy of being ignored. That is a position with which I must say that I strongly disagree. Today I am moving concurrence with the report and its recommendations in its entirety, not one recommendation and not the other, which would be the New Democratic position.

I will turn to the rationalization later. When I first saw it, I was frankly taken aback. However, I think there is a mistaken, but well-meaning, belief behind the New Democrat position, to which I will return. If I am wrong about my supposition as to what they are thinking, then they will have a much harder time defending their point of view as being worthy of a group that, at least on paper, is in favour of the equality of all human beings, and the normal recognition of the human rights of all humans as being equal. Let us go to the extent of the issue that we are discussing here today.

In the period that we are discussing, starting in 1948 and progressing to the present, but primarily consisting of the period between 1940 and the early 1970s, 580,000 Jewish refugees fled countries in North Africa and the Middle East and went to Israel. There were 260,000 who fled their homes and went to countries other than Israel. For the numbers I will be using today, I rely on two sources, which I take as being quite reliable: one is Sir Martin Gilbert's atlas of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and the other is Sir Martin Gilbert's, The Jews of Arab Lands: Their History in Maps .

Sir Martin Gilbert is Sir Winston Churchill's official biographer. Among his other accomplishments, he has been in the process, over the course of half a century, of building the definitive biography of Sir Winston Churchill. He has gone from being a very young man, serving as Sir Winston's secretary, to being an elderly man doing this work. He has also done extensive work on providing objective background information relating to the conflict in the Middle East. He says that in 1945 there were 870,000 Jews living in the Arab world, in communities that go back as far as biblical times.

He noted that 580,000 Jewish refugees went to Israel and 260,000 found refuge in Europe and the Americas, meaning that there was almost a complete depopulation of the Jewish populations in these countries. To give a sense of how complete this depopulation was, I will return to the stories of three countries, Tunisia, Yemen, and Aden, which are now one country, and finally, Libya. He gives these numbers. In 1948, there were 110,000 Jews in Tunisia; by 1974, there were 2,000. In Yemen, in 1948, there were 55,000 Jews.

That is a community that dates back to well before the time of Christ, before the time of the Romans. By 1974, there were 500 Jews. In Aden, which is South Yemen, in 1948 there were 8,000; in 1974, there were zero, not one left. In Libya, there was a population of 38,000 in 1948; by 1974, there were 20 Jews left in Libya. The conditions were not the same in all countries. I chose those countries because they demonstrate both the best and the worst of reactions in the North African and Middle Eastern world to their Jewish minorities. There is a parallel.

According to the United Nations, there were 725,000 Palestinian refugees who left what became Israel, that is, Israel within its 1948 boundaries, pre-1967 boundaries, as a result of that conflict. The UN estimates it was 725,000. The Israelis estimate that between 550,000 and 600,000 Arabs fled from there. I assume that we would probably take the United Nations estimate as being the more reliable of the two.

(1015) It is worth noting that 160,000 of these individuals, of the original or indigenous Palestinian Arab population of Israel within its 48 boundaries, either remained in Israel during the conflict or returned to their homes during 1949, the very next year. That gives us a bit of a sense of the extent. Of the people who fled, most fled to countries in the immediate surrounding areas, such as Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Others went to what is now the West Bank. Some went to the Gaza Strip. Others went further afield and left the Middle East entirely.

A fairly small number went to places like Canada, the United States, and Europe, where they have integrated very well and have become a productive part of our populations. That is just like the Jews, who left and went to Europe, Canada, and the United States to become a well integrated and successful part of the local population. However, the key ex post facto difference between the Jewish refugees and diaspora in these countries and the Palestinian diaspora from Israel is the way in which they were received in their Middle East host countries.

The Jews who fled from Yemen, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, and elsewhere were very successfully integrated into Israeli society. They became full status citizens. They have contributed prime ministers and presidents, captains of industry and military leaders. They are, in fact, the majority of Israeli Jews today, and a very successful majority, I might add. In contrast, the Palestinians, in their host countries, were not given citizenship rights. The first generation, those who left in 1948, have almost all passed away now.

Their children and grandchildren, and in some cases great-grandchildren, remain, deprived of citizenship rights in their host countries. They are in refugee camps that are actually cities by now, but with none of the normal citizenship rights, including the right to own property, the right to freedom of movement, egress, and other obvious political rights. All of these things are denied them. That distinction is the key fact on the ground that is different between the Jewish refugees of 1948 and the Palestinian refugees of 1948.

It is an important distinction, but it is not an important distinction in terms of the injustice of what happened in the first place. It is a reflection of the fact that Israel adopted a much wiser policy toward its incoming population. Of course, it encouraged that influx as well, as compared to the response of the surrounding Arab countries. Let me now turn to a very important question relating to the nature of the flow of populations. I said I would come back to the NDP's response. To some degree, the NDP's response is governed by its reaction to one of the disputes that historians have in this area.

I am now going to quote to summarize what this dispute is, from the Wikipedia article, “Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries”. Wikipedia is frequently a very good place for summarizing these fundamental disputes in the historiography. It says: When presenting the history, those who view the Jewish exodus as equivalent to the 1948 Palestinian exodus, such as the Israeli government and NGOs such as JJAC and JIMENA, emphasize “push factors”, such as cases of anti-Jewish violence and forced expulsions, and refer to those affected as “refugees”.

Those who argue that the exodus does not equate to the Palestinian exodus emphasize “pull factors”, such as the actions of local Zionist agents who encouraged Zionist ideology, highlight good relations between the Jewish communities and their country's governments, emphasize the impact of other push factors such as the decolonization in the Maghreb and the Suez War and Lavon Affair in Egypt, and argue that many or all of those who left were not refugees. By implication, perhaps, this would include economic migrants or those who were making Aliyah for religious or ideological reasons.

The pull argument summarizes the New Democratic position. Let me now give some examples of different countries. I mentioned that I would look at Tunisia versus Yemen versus Libya as examples of different treatments of Jewish minorities in countries that effectively lost their entire populations as a result of the post-1948 conflicts.

(1020) I will start with Tunisia and, again, I am quoting Sir Martin Gilbert. Sir Martin Gilbert points out that Tunisia had a Jewish population in 1948 of 110,000, and by 1974, that population had declined to 2,000. Anybody can do the math: this is a drop of 98%. Therefore, 98% of the Jews either left or perhaps simply died. However, he gives an interesting example of the kind of force that caused Jews to leave Tunisia. He says that “on June 5, 1967, there were anti-Jewish riots. The Great Synagogue was burned. The Scrolls of the Law were destroyed. One Jew was killed”.

What happened afterwards was that President Bourguiba of Tunisia “publicly condemned the riot, apologized to the Chief Rabbi, and ensured that the rioters were punished, compensation paid, and the synagogue rebuilt”. Jews massively left Tunisia anyway, but clearly it was not a case of an anti-Semitic regime or a president trying to make that happen, which is the best of the examples. However, there was a voluntary transfer of population, and I suspect it was a reluctant population transfer. Of course, there was widespread anti-Semitism, including violent anti-Semitism, within Tunisian society.

Between Yemen and Aden, Yemen had by far the larger of the two populations. The Jewish population in Yemen was withdrawn through an operation which was code named “Operation Magic Carpet”. Over the course of time between June 1949 and September 1950, there were 47,000 Yemeni Jews, 1,500 Jews from Aden, and a further 500 Jews from Djibouti and Eritrea—which is just across the Red Sea in the Horn of Africa—who were flown in transport planes provided by Israel, the Royal Air Force, and the United States air force to the new State of Israel. This was effectively the entire population of this area.

A while later, there was an effort coordinated by the British to remove the entire population from Aden, which at that point was a British protectorate. As I said, the result was a complete depopulation of the area. This happened after a series of increasingly brutal and vicious attacks on the Yemeni Jews, many of which were informal or popular, but not coordinated by the government. The rationale that was given by Yemeni Jews for leaving is summarized by a later scholar. Basically, the Yemeni Jews were driven by a number of factors.

One factor was an idealistic belief that they would have a new and better home in Israel. A second factor was the kind of discrimination, often murderous discrimination, they faced back home in Yemen. Another consideration was that if the rest of the community was leaving, what does one do? Is one's community the building one lives in or is it the people one lives among? These were the forces that brought them to Israel. I will now turn to the last example, which is the clearest case of people being refugees in the absolute formal sense. This is Libya's story.

In Libya, the population went from 38,000 Jews in 1948, to 20 in 1974. In November 1945, more than 100 Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish riots across Libya. In 1951, with Libya's independence, all Jewish ties were cut with Israel and Jewish organizations abroad. In 1963, the Jewish right to vote was rescinded, there were mass arrests, and Jews were forbidden to hold public office. Finally, in 1970, Colonel Gadhafi announced the seizure of all Jewish property, without compensation.

(1025) Over 100 Jews were killed. Homes, shops, and synagogues were looted and destroyed at the time of the Six Day War in 1967. Sir Martin Gilbert provides a useful map of towns in which more than 100 Jews were murdered, some tortured, some burnt alive, in the 1945 riots. In this case, these were former refugees and they fled. Their situation may not be the situation of every Jew who arrived from the Middle East to Israel, but clearly, many of these people were genuine refugees and therefore it seems reasonable to treat them in the same manner as the Palestinian refugees when looking for any settlement. Mr.

Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, my colleague has often referred to himself primarily as a parliamentarian. We have had some discussions about his respect for the House, his respect for democratic principles, and the role that we all play as members of Parliament. Therefore, he is well aware of the role that he is playing today in attempting to delay and obstruct the debate that the House was seized with over a Conservative member having been affirmed by the Speaker as likely in contempt of Parliament.

The member for Mississauga—Streetsville passed the three-point test set out by the Speaker, for misleading the House about something, ironically, as important as our own election laws. That is what the member for Mississauga—Streetsville misled the House about. That is what the debate was supposed to be about today.

My friend down the way has a great deal of respect and must be aware that he is being used by the PMO in order to delay the House for three hours through this tactic rather than discuss the merits of one of his colleagues who knowingly misled Parliament in order to justify and rationalize the Conservatives’ unfair election act. That is what this is about. I have respect for my friend down the way. I have respect for his memory and his love of this institution.

Therefore, he cannot be ignorant of the fact that in participating in this debate in the way they are, by obstructing Parliament's debate over a member of the Conservative Party having misled Parliament, is an affront to this place. The member for Mississauga—Streetsville was found in contempt and we need to pursue that debate, not any chicanery coming from the Prime Minister's Office. Mr. Scott Reid : Mr. Speaker, one of the consequences of being one of the lower-key members of the House of Commons is that I am regularly praised in the course of attacks on my party by the opposition.

I thought if I could decontextualize some of these comments, just so the party can say nice things about me, I would have a very impressive piece of campaign literature. I also respect the House leader of the opposition , and he is free to use that in his campaign literature if he wishes. I am really here to discuss the first report of the Standing Committee on International Affairs and feel best qualified to do that rather than to comment on any other subject.

(1030) Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I find it somewhat passing strange that the member would choose to bring the report to the House and provide those comments today, but that is not to take away from the important issue of Jewish refugees. This issue has been discussed for many years. We are all concerned about the plight of all refugees. Yesterday, I attempted to have an emergency debate on Ukraine brought to the floor of the House, in recognition of the possibility of refugees coming out of Ukraine.

I am sympathetic to many of the comments that the member has put on the record with regard to refugees. Given his role within his caucus, would the member provide some feedback on the situation in Ukraine and the impact on refugees? Issues have been raised within the Jewish community in Ukraine. Perhaps the member might want to provide some comment on that aspect too. Mr. Scott Reid : Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I can provide as much useful commentary as I would wish to this very interesting question. I would say something, though, about the Crimean situation.

It is an idea of the kinds of complexities that can occur. For what it is worth, by the way, I have a Ukrainian Jewish ancestor; my great-grandfather came from Ukraine and went to Russia and Poland in the early decades of the 20th century before the Russian revolution, and later on emigrated to Canada and thereby spared his descendants the Holocaust, which came about 20 years after that. I would just observe that this is the kind of difficulty we can have.

The Crimea in particular, which is the focal point of this, not only has strategic importance because Sevastopol is a naval port, but also has an ethnic mix that contains some Jews there as well, though it is a very small population. Also, my favourite Russian Jewish author, Isaac Babel, wrote the Sevastopol stories and they are well worth reading. There is a Russian population; we are told it is a 60% majority.

There is a Ukrainian population in the Crimea, as well as the Crimean Tatars, a Muslim group descended from the Mongols, who have lived in Crimea for their entire history and who were rounded up and sent away by Stalin to central Asia, deported with what I assume was permanent intent but allowed to return in decades since that time. Now one of the fundamental issues in Crimea is the issue of who has what land, given that it was redistributed from the Tatars to Russians long enough ago in the past that it is unclear how one could resettle the Tatars in their rightful lands without disrupting Russians.

This is the kind of vexed problem one sees by parallel with countries like Israel and the other countries in the Middle East where populations have been deported. It is unfortunately one of the consequences of mass non-voluntary population movements. Mr. Ted Opitz (Etobicoke Centre, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his remarks. Regarding my parents too, although my dad served throughout the Second World War, my mom was in fact deported to Nazi Germany as forced labour; so that type of a migration is very clear and very present in our family.

While my dad was a soldier, he was deported to a Siberian gulag for a time, but fortunately lived to fight another day. Those kinds of forced migrations, forced imprisonments, and totalitarian actions on individuals and groups of people are very clear within my own family history, recent history because it has all happened within the last 75 years.

As the hon. member drew comparisons between Crimea and what is happening in the Middle East and migrations over the last number of decades and the last century, I would like to ask him how the situation with the overall Middle East issue factors in, and how he might recommend that we here in this House and other Houses around the world approach the issues in the Middle East.

(1035) Mr. Scott Reid : Mr. Speaker, dealing only with the refugee issue, because that is the one before us, I will point out that the last century has been the century of mass refugee movements. One of the maps that Sir Martin Gilbert provides includes a list of the top refugee movements in the world in the 20th century. All of them are astounding catastrophes. This is probably an apocryphal quotation, but the story is that Stalin said that one death is a tragedy and a million deaths is a statistic.

When one reaches the level of 30 million people in the 20th century forced from their homes and forced to leave as refugees, one gets some idea of the kind of tragedy that has been involved. The Palestinians who had to leave Israel and the Jews who had to leave the Middle East are actually very far from the largest refugee movements. The very biggest movement was five million Jews who were driven out of what is now western Poland but, at the time, was an area of Germany that had been German ethnically for hundreds of years.

There have been Romanians driven out of Bessarabia; the Tatars, as I mentioned, were rounded up and driven out of the Crimea, only to return some five decades later. There are so many others that is hard to keep track of them all, but one gets the point. The India-Pakistan partition was another terrible example with millions of victims. In each of these cases, it seems appropriate to try to deal with the human tragedy separately from the geopolitical considerations of who was right and who was wrong.

There is no doubt in my mind that in the great war between the Soviet Union and Germany, the Nazis were in the wrong. That does not change the fact that those five million refugees were human victims. I think the same thing can be applied to any other situation, including this one. Let us deal intelligently with those human tragedies and say that the same standard of justice must be applied to all people from all countries who were affected by this, regardless of what political affiliation they had and regardless of the merits of those states that were involved back in 1948 and in the present. [ Translation ] Mr.

Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am not very happy, considering that this government's audacity and its arrogance with regard to democracy and our Parliament are incredible. Today we are holding a debate on a Conservative member who made a completely false statement to support a government bill aimed at completely amending the Canada Elections Act without any democratic process. He did so to support the Conservative Party.

That is really what this is about. [ English ] The Conservative disdain for our democratic principles is absolutely breathtaking, because today they have moved a concurrence motion to occupy three hours of debate in the House, and what the House was meant to debate today is of most interest as to the reason the Conservatives have used this tactic. Let us walk through the sequence of events, because it is important in the context of today. Mr. Randy Hoback : Talk about the motion. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives can continue to heckle if they want.

We will stay on point and support Canada's Parliament and the democracy that it is founded upon. When the Conservatives actually broke the law in the last campaign and the one before that— Mr. Robert Sopuck : You guys enabled Communists for decades. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, excuse me; there are now heckles of Communism coming from the other side. This is from a government that has complete disdain for our democratic values and for the House of Commons. I would ask the Conservatives to come to some level of order, rather admit to the guilt and disdain they have for this place.

When they broke these laws in the previous election— The Deputy Speaker : Order. The hon. member for Okanagan—Coquihalla is rising on a point of order. Mr. Dan Albas : Mr. Speaker, while my colleague seems to be on a bit of a roll this morning, unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand of refugees. He seems to be thinking that this debate happens to be about Bill C-23 . I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask the member to come back to relevance and the issue before the House. The Deputy Speaker : We all know that the issue of relevance has a very broad definition within the House.

The member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has been addressing, if I understand his comments, the motivation of the purpose for this motion, which is certainly relevant to the motion at hand. The member may continue.

(1040) Mr. Nathan Cullen : Thank you for the clarification, Mr. Speaker. The motivation for this concurrence motion today is in light of the fact that the Conservatives were caught. They got caught having written a law. Rather than comply with the laws that exist—with their dirty tactics such as the robocalls, the in-and-out scandals, all the rest that the Conservatives do to try to rig the election, and hopefully rig the next election—they wish to change the laws to permit their dirty tactics, to muzzle the Chief Electoral Officer, and to prevent him from talking and encouraging Canadians to vote.

Rather than comply with the law, the Conservatives change the law to fit their own needs. Then they put a time allocation on that very debate, rather than go with the traditions of Canada in which the opposition parties and the Chief Electoral Officer would be brought in, in an inclusive way. Canadians would be brought in when dealing with something so foundational as our electoral laws. That has always been the history, regardless the political stripe of the governance of the day-- Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Mr. Nathan Cullen: Mr. Speaker, Conservatives continue to heckle because they have nothing else to say.

The point of the effort today is to provide delay and distraction from what has happened, because in setting time allocation on a debate about our democracy, in refusing public consultations on our election laws, Conservatives have abandoned their basic Reform principles so far that it is breathtaking. The founders of the Reform Party have called it such, as Mr. Manning did this past weekend. To then add insult to injury, in order to then rationalize why this law is needed, Conservatives invent facts, mislead the House, and invent stories that did not happen, as the member for Mississauga—Streetsville did.

They can continue to heckle, only confirming their lack of ability to actually enter into a debate. If they want to have a debate about the election laws in Canada, we welcome it. If they want to have consultation with Canadians, we welcome it. The Conservatives do not. Why? It is because they have to invent things in order to rationalize their bill, to justify their election law. Then they were caught. What a shame. They were caught misleading the House.

The Conservative MP twice told something to Parliament and Canadians watching that was not true and then half admitted that it may have been a misstatement of fact. It is not a misstatement of fact. In common parlance that we are not allowed to use here in Parliament because it is unparliamentary, most Canadians call that a lie. Here we call it misleading the House. The member was found on a prima facie case of contempt. We all know how hard that is to do. It is not easy. A politician has to work really hard to be found in contempt of Parliament, but the Conservative member did.

Congratulations to him for such infamy. There are a few on the list—Bev Oda, Art Eggleton—but there are not many who have been able to do this. They get caught having disdain and disrespect for Parliament. Then in the course of the debate over that motion, they now seek to invoke closure over that. It is not good enough to have been caught; they want the thing to go away.

In the midst of all that, to further add insult to injury, they say they do not even want to debate that; so they are going to move a concurrence motion today to take up three hours of the House's time, rather than talk about a Conservative MP misleading the House. That is what is happening today. The Conservatives purport to be a democratic party of any notion. It is reprehensible that they continue to hold this place in such contempt. The word is an important word, and words matter for those of us who are engaged in this public service. Our words should matter.

The Conservative member for Mississauga—Streetsville was caught out. He told something that was not true in order to rationalize a bad election bill, an unfair election act that would deprive many Canadians of their right to vote and would muzzle the Chief Electoral Officer from talking to Canadians and encouraging them to vote. What modern G8 country would ever have such a thing, where the Chief Electoral Officer is banned from talking to the electorate about the importance and need for voting, particularly those groups who do not vote: poor Canadians, young Canadians, aboriginal Canadians?

That is what the Conservatives have done. In the midst of all that, they invent stories to justify their bill because they do not have anything else. They do not have evidence. They do not have facts. They have not consulted with anybody other than the Conservative Party of Canada, as if it were somehow the vehicle for all good things democratic.

This is the same Conservative Party of Canada that perpetrated the robocalls scandal, that used its database to go after Canadians and deny them their right to vote, that broke the election spending limit by the in-and-out scandal, by a bit of a shell game, passing money into a riding then out of a riding, thereby breaking all the election laws.

(1045) The Conservative Party was were found in contempt of court. It engaged in what the judge called “trench warfare”. Hon. John Duncan : You know that's not true.

Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, that is true. A sitting judge in Canada accused the Conservative Party of exhibiting trench warfare in defence— Hon. John Duncan : You know that is not true, Nathan.

Mr. Nathan Cullen : I know that is not true? Mr. Speaker, I absolutely know it is true? If the government whip would like to read a court document from time to time, he would know that is exactly what his party did. All of this the Conservatives have done to help rig the next election, to put a little more favour for the Conservative Party of Canada, and in the midst of this, the Conservatives move this concurrence debate.

In the midst of this, they say there is something more important to talk about than contempt for Canada's Parliament, that there is something else that needed to happen today and today only, as if it were somehow timely. This is extraordinary. These folks get us used to all sorts of deplorable tactics. It is an abusive relationship they have with Parliament. I move, seconded by the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie : Motion That the House do now proceed to orders of the day. Let us get back to the debate at hand. 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 five or more members having risen: The Deputy Speaker: Call in the members.

(1125) The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division: (Division No. 72) YEAS Members Allen (Welland) Andrews Angus Ashton Atamanenko Aubin Ayala Bélanger Bennett Benskin Bevington Blanchette Blanchette-Lamothe Boivin Borg Boutin-Sweet Brahmi Brosseau Byrne Caron Casey Charlton Chicoine Chisholm Choquette Chow Christopherson Cleary Côté Cullen Cuzner Davies (Vancouver Kingsway) Davies (Vancouver East) Day Dion Donnelly Doré Lefebvre Dubé Dubourg Duncan (Etobicoke North) Duncan (Edmonton—Strathcona) Dusseault Easter Eyking Freeman Garrison Genest-Jourdain Giguère Godin Goodale Groguhé Harris (Scarborough Southwest) Harris (St.

John's East) Hsu Hughes Jacob Jones Julian Karygiannis Kellway Lamoureux Lapointe Larose Latendresse Laverdière LeBlanc (Beauséjour) LeBlanc (LaSalle—Émard) Leslie Liu MacAulay Mai Marston Martin Mathyssen May McGuinty McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood) Michaud Moore (Abitibi—Témiscamingue) Morin (Chicoutimi—Le Fjord) Morin (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine) Morin (Laurentides—Labelle) Morin (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot) Mulcair Murray Nantel Nash Nicholls Nunez-Melo Pacetti Papillon Péclet Perreault Pilon Plamondon Rafferty Rankin Rathgeber Ravignat Raynault Regan Sandhu Scarpaleggia Scott Sellah Sgro Simms (Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor) Sitsabaiesan St-Denis Stewart Sullivan Thibeault Toone Tremblay Turmel Valeriote -- 116 NAYS Members Ablonczy Adler Aglukkaq Albas Albrecht Alexander Allen (Tobique—Mactaquac) Allison Ambler Ambrose Anderson Armstrong Ashfield Aspin Baird Bateman Benoit Bernier Bezan Blaney Block Boughen Braid Breitkreuz Brown (Leeds—Grenville) Brown (Newmarket—Aurora) Brown (Barrie) Bruinooge Butt Calandra Calkins Cannan Carmichael Carrie Chisu Chong Clarke Clement Crockatt Daniel Davidson Dechert Dreeshen Duncan (Vancouver Island North) Dykstra Falk Fast Findlay (Delta—Richmond East) Finley (Haldimand—Norfolk) Flaherty Fletcher Galipeau Gallant Gill Glover Goguen Goldring Goodyear Gosal Gourde Grewal Harper Harris (Cariboo—Prince George) Hawn Hayes Hiebert Hillyer Hoback Holder James Kamp (Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission) Keddy (South Shore—St.

Margaret'

s) Kenney (Calgary Southeast) Kent Kerr Komarnicki Kramp (Prince Edward—Hastings) Lauzon Lebel Leef Leitch Lemieux Leung Lizon Lobb Lukiwski Lunney MacKay (Central Nova) MacKenzie Maguire Mayes McColeman McLeod Menegakis Merrifield Miller Moore (Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam) Moore (Fundy Royal) Nicholson Norlock Obhrai O'Connor O'Neill Gordon Opitz O'Toole Paradis Payne Poilievre Preston Raitt Rajotte Reid Rempel Richards Rickford Ritz Saxton Schellenberger Seeback Shea Shipley Shory Smith Sopuck Sorenson Storseth Strahl Sweet Tilson Toet Trost Trottier Truppe Uppal Valcourt Van Kesteren Van Loan Wallace Warkentin Watson Weston (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country) Weston (Saint John) Wilks Williamson Wong Woodworth Young (Oakville) Young (Vancouver South) Zimmer -- 149 PAIRED Nil The Speaker : Motion negatived I declare the motion defeated.

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, if I pick up the thread of where we are, I can now address a question to the hon. House leader for the official opposition, who had finished his speech. This is not just a procedural question but a substantive one. Now that the motion has failed, what is his view on the value of the debate the government members have now insisted we pursue for the next coming hours?

(1130) Mr. Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and all Conservatives just now voted to delay a debate that was going on in the House about a Conservative MP who misled Parliament about the Conservatives' own unfair election act. This is what they have resorted to, because they do not have the facts on their side. They do not have evidence on their side. They have to make up stories about election fraud that they claim to have witnessed and then claim to have not witnessed.

The Speaker in this case found that the member had exhibited contempt for Parliament, one of the most serious accusations that can be made of a member of Parliament. Rather than discuss the merits of that, the Conservatives have attempted to take three hours away from that debate. The Conservatives also put us on notice, just last night, that they want to shut the whole debate down on a question of privilege over one of their members having misled Parliament.

Rather than trying to justify it and saying what they will do to prevent MPs in the future from doing what the Conservative member for Mississauga—Streetsville did, they did two things. First, they congratulated him. They said, “Well done, sir”, first for having been caught, “those things happen”. Then he came in and said that it was a misstatement of facts.

The Conservatives' reaction to the debate on a sitting MP being found in contempt of Parliament, or the very likelihood of that, is to shut down completely debate about an election act that is the foundation of our democratic principles, which Canadians have fought generations to sustain and maintain. In our history we have always found ways to come together when deciding the rules of the game, when deciding how Parliament should conduct itself, how elections will conduct themselves. However, this Minister of State (Democratic Reform) , and I use the term loosely, decided that he would make an exception.

They would only consult with Conservatives, not Canadians and not the Chief Electoral Officer. They would only meet with Conservatives about what the rules should be. Some of the rules in place in this election act are against misdeeds and actions by the Conservative Party itself in the last election. They are having to clean up their own mess, their own fraudulent behaviour. This debate today is only an attempt to delay the inevitable, which is one of the Conservative members being found in contempt of this place, joining the illustrious ranks of Bev Oda and Art Eggleton, who lied about Afghan detainees.

They should be ashamed of themselves and their dirty tactics. Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, the issue before the House right now is actually a report from a committee dealing with the fate of certain Jewish refugees in the Middle East and their treatment and the history there. It has probably escaped many people watching at home on television that it is what is being debated right now.

Since that is the actual item before the House, I was wondering if the hon. member, on behalf of the NDP, as their lead speaker on this very important item of public policy to many Jewish-Canadians and people who take an interest in the Middle East, could tell us the position of the NDP on the two recommendations in the report we are actually debating right now. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, this is what the Conservatives have come to. They did not move this debate yesterday. They did not think this debate was important enough to move last week or whenever this report was in hand.

They thought it was important to move this debate today and say that the plight of Jewish refugees coming from Europe is important to talk about today, not yesterday, not the week before, not when we were debating other things, but when we are debating a contempt motion against a Conservative MP. How dare the Conservatives use issues to cover over the fact of their own contempt for this place and suggest that Jewish refugees is the topic they would use and then say, “How dare anybody speak to a contempt motion against a Conservative MP?” That is the fact of the matter. The Conservatives know what they are doing.

Shame on them for doing it. Mr. Randall Garrison (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House leader for the official opposition whether he, like me, has started to hear from constituents about their feelings on someone who has deliberately misled the House on such an important topic as elections, a very fundamental part of our democracy. I have started to receive emails and phone calls in my office from people expressing their real concern about the direction this is headed and the real concern about what the Conservative Party is doing. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr.

Speaker, the traffic in my office has been incredible on this, and not just on the initial action of the Conservative backbencher MP who knowingly misled the House, according to the Speaker of the House of Commons . If that was not bad enough, the Conservative Party's reaction to this was to do two things. The first was to rationalize it and say that everybody does it. The Conservatives said that they do not justify or commend it, but everyone does it, so it is okay.

The second action by the Conservative Party, its natural reaction to one of its own members being caught having misled the House, was to say that he came forward, and what a good fellow he was. We asked why the member took two weeks to come forward and admit that what he said, twice, was completely untrue. He said it once during debate and then again a couple of hours later. The Conservatives said that it was a misstatement of facts. Why did it take him two weeks? The thing he claimed to have seen was electoral fraud. It was stuffing ballot boxes.

Lo and behold, Elections Canada seems to have some interest in a sitting member of Parliament having witnessed a crime. It wonders why a member of Parliament, or any citizen, having watched that, did not report it. He also claimed that he saw the ballots being taken out of the dumpster and used by a party. Which party's office would he have had access to, as a Conservative? I have no idea. They were used by a party to then illegally vote in an election. That is what he claimed to have seen. What an incredible statement by the Conservatives.

In reaction to one of their MPs being caught out, they rationalize it, congratulate him, and say that everybody does it, so it must be okay. That is shameful. Now we see this. Now we see the government being willing to invoke closure on the whole thing and shut it down.

(1135) Mr. David Anderson (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, the House leader earlier asked the NDP if it could explain its position on the two recommendations. I would just read the second one, which states: The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada encourage the direct negotiating parties to take into account all refugee populations as part of any just and comprehensive resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts.

I was just wondering if the member opposite could explain why he is avoiding answering why it is that the NDP cannot support that resolution. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, that is unbelievable. There is no shame on that side of the House. If the Conservatives want to go through the historical reference, I welcome the parliamentary secretary to stay and wait for the answer. If they want to go through the historical reference of which party in the House of Commons stood up for Jewish refugees when they were being expelled from European countries, it was the New Democratic Party, previously the CCF.

If the Conservatives want any lessons in history as to who stood up for the Jewish people, we welcome that type of debate. We welcome that type of observation of history, because it was his party, in a previous incarnation, that refused those same refugees, along with the Liberal Party. Let us get to the reason and motivation for the topic of this debate, as the leader of the Green Party asked about earlier.

The only reason, the only motivation for this, and the reason the Conservatives did not move it yesterday or find the urgency on Friday or Thursday or previous days, is that they wanted to move this concurrence motion today, because what we are talking about today? We are talking about one of his members of Parliament, whom he supports and whom he just voted to support, having been found in contempt of Parliament by the Speaker of the House of Commons . That is what they are deliberately doing today. It is contemptuous.

It is adding insult to injury for Canadians that they seem to so disregard the truth and have such ambivalence toward Parliament, the place we are all meant to support, regardless of our political persuasion. These folks have gotten to the point where it is campaigning all the time. It is total war all the time. They stand up and use the argument that some report from a committee, today of all days, and no other day, needed to be debated.

The coincidence suggests that what they are trying to do is what they always do: avoid accountability, turn their faces away from Canadians, and not do what they are meant to do as members of Parliament, which is hold government to account and hold this country in some modicum of respect. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, individuals who are viewing what is happening today in the House might be a bit confused. A report was tabled. The first speaker talked at length about the Jewish refugee factor, which I am going to comment on toward the latter part of my comments.

That was followed by the NDP House leader talking about the privilege issue, which we debated for several hours yesterday, and reading into it the motivation for having this bill here. I am going to add a bit more on the issue of priorities. Yesterday I raised the importance of what is happening in Ukraine. I will try to make all three issues relevant to the debate we are having right now. Where do I start? It is strange that the government, through the PMO, would have chosen today, of all days, to bring forward this particular report. Is the report important? Absolutely. It is very important.

We in the Liberal Party do not question that whatsoever. We find it strange that the Conservatives would bring it forward and have that debate today. Why do we say that? If we review what took place yesterday, it was a serious privilege issue that would be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee. We hope and trust that the Conservatives will do the right thing by voting in favour and allowing PROC to deal with the situation. The situation is that a member did intentionally mislead the House, which is a violation of the rules of the House and potentially puts this member in contempt of the House.

The only way that can be appropriately dealt with is if PROC is afforded the opportunity to call witnesses. Yesterday I even suggested a couple of witnesses, including the member for Mississauga—Streetsville . In a nutshell, the issue we talked about yesterday is that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville made a specific statement on February 6. I will cite an abbreviated portion of the statement.

He said: I have actually witnessed other people picking up the voter cards, going to the campaign office of whatever candidate they support and handing out these voter cards to other individuals, who then walk into voting stations with friends who vouch for them with no ID. The point is that the member witnessed an illegal activity. When he made that statement, he acknowledged that he witnessed an illegal activity. Did he go to Elections Canada? Did he report it to the police? Several weeks later, the member stood in his place in the House.

He did not necessarily apologize but said that what he said on February 6 was wrong. Mr. Costas Menegakis: It is not relevant. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, I indicated that I would bring forward all three issues to make it relevant. What motivated him from the day he made the statement on February 6 to when he made the retraction on February 24? When I addressed the issue, I suggested that maybe the member was contacted by Elections Canada. I had no way of finding out if that was true. I did not put in an inquiry, but someone did.

There was an alleged email that indicates that Elections Canada was aware of the member's statement. I asked the parliamentary secretary if he asked the member for Mississauga—Streetsville whether Elections Canada contacted him. There was no answer.

(1140) I believe that the member needs to come to the PROC committee to answer the question, was that the motivation that caused him to retract his statements? I would say that it is clear proof that the member did intentionally attempt to mislead the House and that there does need to be a consequence. At this point I will not say what type of consequence it should be, but we do need to recognize that it would be a contempt of the House and that it needs to be dealt with. That was the debate yesterday. Then we ask ourselves why they chose this motion or report today.

By having this issue reported today it prevents that debate from continuing. From the perspective of the Liberal Party, we want to get to the truth of the matter. It does not mean we need to have endless debate inside the chamber. Yesterday I stood in place on behalf of the Liberal Party and said there was a serious crisis in Ukraine and that we needed to deal with what was happening there. In the last 72 hours Russian troops have been mobilized in Crimea and are causing all sorts of issues.

We can think of it in terms of its impact on Ukrainians and Ukraine, but I would suggest that it has an even more profound impact on the whole region and the world. The financial markets have been responding to this. People of Ukrainian heritage around the world are concerned about what is taking place in Ukraine, and in Canada, as I indicated, there are 1.2 million people of Ukrainian heritage plus others. One does not have to be of Ukrainian heritage to care about what is taking place in Ukraine.

Yesterday I moved a motion that we have an emergency debate on the issue, given the mobilization of Russian troops and the impact that is having, and given what the Government of Canada has said in terms of the Canadian ambassador in Russia—

(1145) The Deputy Speaker : Order, please. The hon. member for Nanaimo—Alberni is rising on a point of order. Mr. James Lunney : Mr. Speaker, I want to draw to the attention of the Chair the fact that we had a vote to go back to a very important concurrence motion here. It is the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development recognizing the Jewish refugees in the Middle East and North Africa. With all due respect to the member, I know that Canadians are concerned about Ukraine. We had a delegation visit there just recently and we had an emergency debate a couple of nights ago.

I was wondering if the member would like to address the issue of the debate today, the concurrence motion. The Deputy Speaker : The hon. member for Winnipeg North on the same point of order. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux : Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. If the member had been listening to the NDP presentation, he would have found that almost the entire presentation was on what I was referring to. At the beginning of my presentation, I clearly indicated to the House that I would be talking about three issues, including the report, and then clearly demonstrating why all three are relevant to my comments.

Therefore, the member needs to be a bit more patient to understand the relevance to the issue at hand. The Deputy Speaker : The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley on the same point of order. Mr. Nathan Cullen : Mr. Speaker, you addressed this earlier in the day, not 30 or 40 minutes before this discussion. I understand why the Conservatives do not want to talk about one of their members being found in contempt of Parliament. However, they continue to disrupt the speeches of people in order to pretend that this has not happened and then hold up another important issue to avoid that conversation.

The points of order just help circle the stain around what is happening here today, which is that the Conservatives have interrupted an incredibly important conversation about one of their own members being found in contempt of Parliament.

We would think that the Conservatives, particularly those who come from the Reform branch of the party and thought that democracy was important and that Parliament mattered, would be interested in this debate, in either defending the Conservative member from Streetsville, as the government House leader and his deputies have done, or perhaps by saying that there is a problem and that the punishments should be greater because there seems to be little deterrence. The Conservatives have said that he should be congratulated, not condemned, for being in contempt of Parliament. It is fascinating. Mr.

Speaker, you just ruled on this point of order that because of the context, because of the intention and motivation behind this procedure by the Conservatives, there clearly is latitude for members of Parliament to speak to that motivation, as my Liberal colleague and I have done.

(1150) The Deputy Speaker : To the member for Nanaimo—Alberni , I made a ruling already this morning on the basis that the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley was raising what on the surface might have appeared to be a separate issue but was related and relevant to the motivation of the member who originally brought the concurrence motion forward. I have been following the discourse by the member for Winnipeg North and am not finding quite the same tie in.

I have heard the member for Winnipeg North say on two occasions now that we will soon see the relevance of his speech, so I would invite him to draw that relevance to the attention of the House. That noted, he can go ahead with his speech. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux : Mr. Speaker, I trust those points of order will not be taken off my time. As I was saying, the debate today on this particular report brings up a question of timing, something that is important for us to take into consideration.

That is why I started by saying that if we contrasted the opening speech on the report and the NDP House leader's comments, we would find that they were almost two totally different issues, unless we start talking about motivations. Motivation and the way in which we use time in this place are ultimately what cause the Speaker to allow a great deal of latitude on the relevancy of debate. I do not know for sure, but I do anticipate even more debate. Yesterday I attempted to bring forward an emergency debate on Ukraine and commented on why I thought that should be the case.

Earlier this morning I forwarded to the Speaker yet again another notice on this critically important issue, because significant changes have taken place, in particular, the mobilization of Russian troops, and other actions over the last 72 hours. A government backbencher even stood up and asked for unanimous support of a motion recognizing some of the changes. My point is that we need to look at the way we use time in the House. We need to give more attention to Ukraine given the crisis there. Three hours could be designated for debate on this important report from the committee.

Was it timely to discuss it today? That is somewhat debatable. I would rather have an emergency debate on Ukraine today and have this report tomorrow. However, the government has a great deal of say on something like that. Hopefully, we will get some indication from the government on the formal request for an emergency debate that I will be making to the House later today. I said I would comment on all three. The third is the actual report itself. I highlighted the importance of the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

The committee made a significant effort to better understand the situation of Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern nations and North Africa. We can appreciate why it was important for the committee to tackle the issue. Canada plays an important role around the world and if that is done properly, we can play a strong leadership role. It is interesting to note that the committee was made up of an all-party group of MPs. The committee listened to presentations.

One could contrast that with the last trip of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Ukraine, in which the government decided not to include representatives from all sides of the House. It would have been a better trip if there had been more unity, but I am a bit off topic. With respect to this report, people from our party, such as Bob Rae, our former leader, and our current foreign affairs critic, the member from Montreal, did a phenomenal job of ensuring that our party was represented. They had the opportunity to listen to many different presentations. I understand that at times these were very emotional.

(1155) Maybe what I should do is to read a letter that was provided to me by the member for Mount Royal , someone who is highly respected inside the House of Commons and throughout the world. I believe it is a good thing to get this on the record, and if members will forgive me, I will read it: The Forgotten Exodus ...It is sometimes forgotten that...[the UN Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947] was the first ever blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution.

Regrettably, while Jewish leaders accepted the resolution, Arab leaders did not, and by their own acknowledgement, declared war on the nascent Jewish state. Had the Partition Resolution been accepted, there would have been no Arab-Israeli war, no refugees and none of the pain of these last 60 years. Annapolis could now be the site of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of an Israeli-Palestinian peace. Yet the revisionist Mid-East narrative continues to hold that there was only one victim population, Palestinian refugees, and that Israel was responsible for the Palestinian naqba (catastrophe) of 1947.

The result was that the pain and plight of 850,000 Jews uprooted and displaced from Arab countries—the forgotten exodus—has been expunged from the historical narrative these past 60 years. Moreover, the revisionist narrative has not only eclipsed the forgotten exodus, but denies that it was also a forced exodus, for the Arab countries not only went to war to extinguish the fledgling Jewish state, but also targeted the Jewish nationals living in their respective countries.

The United Nations is preparing, yet again, to commemorate the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people on this 60th anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution, but will ignore the plight of Jewish refugees.

Indeed, evidence contained in a recent report, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries: The Case for Rights And Redress, documents for the first time a pattern of state-sanctioned repression and persecution in Arab countries—including Nuremberg-like laws—that targeted Jews, and resulted in denationalization, forced expulsions, illegal sequestration of property, arbitrary arrest and detention and the like. These massive human rights violations were reflective of a collusive blueprint, as embodied in the Draft Law of the Political Committee of the League of Arab States. This is a story that has not been heard.

It is a truth that must now be acknowledged. The UN also bears express responsibility for this distorted narrative. Since 1947, there have been 126 UN resolutions that have specifically dealt with the Palestinian refugee plight. Not one of these resolutions makes any reference to the plight of the 850,000 Jews displaced from Arab countries. Nor have any of the Arab countries involved expressed any acknowledgement, let alone regret. What, then, is to be done? The time has come to rectify this historical injustice, and to restore the “forgotten exodus” to the Middle East narrative.

Remedies for victim refugee groups—including rights of remembrance, truth, justice and redress—must now be invoked for Jews displaced from Arab countries, as mandated under human rights and humanitarian law. In particular, each of the Arab countries and the League of Arab States must acknowledge their role in the perpetration of human rights violations against their respective Jewish nationals.

Further, the peace plan currently being promoted by the Arab League should incorporate the question of Jewish refugees from Arab countries as part of its narrative for an Israeli-Arab peace, just as the Israeli narrative now incorporates the issue of Palestinian refugees in its vision. On the international level, the UN General Assembly should include references to Jewish refugees as well as Palestinian refugees in its resolutions. The UN Human Rights Council should do likewise.

The annual Nov. 29th commemoration by the United Nations of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People should be transformed into an International Day of Solidarity for a Two-State Solution, including solidarity with all refugees created by the Israeli-Arab conflict.

(1200) Furthermore, any bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations--such as those being promoted this week in Annapolis, which one hopes will presage a just and lasting peace--should include Jewish refugees as well as Palestinian refugees in a joinder of discussion. Where there is no remembrance, there is no truth; where there is no truth, there will be no justice; where there is no justice, there will be no reconciliation; and where there is no reconciliation, there will be no peace--which is what we all seek.

This is an editorial that was written by my colleague from Mount Royal, a fine, distinguished member of Parliament. [ Translation ] Mr. Robert Aubin (Trois-Rivières, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the first thing that is quite obvious when we listen to what my colleague from Winnipeg North said is that there are no trivial matters addressed in this House.

In the short time he had, he tried to draw our attention to three fundamental issues: first, the Conservative government's reform of the Canada Elections Act, in light of the discoveries made over the last few days; second, the situation in Ukraine; and finally, the report on refugees currently before us. I would like to ask my colleague from Winnipeg North how he thinks the government chose to prioritize these three important issues. If I had had to prioritize them, I would not have put them in the same order.

Indeed, we would not be discussing a committee report right now, but rather the Canada Elections Act, which affects all Canadians, or the conflict in Ukraine, which is a global issue. In what order does my colleague think these issues should be addressed? What basic principles should be considered to allow all these important issues to be properly taken into account and given the time needed? What order would best reflect their importance? [ English ] Mr. Kevin Lamoureux : Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question.

If I were a government House leader, maybe sometime in the future, and had these three issues before me, I would work with the opposition House leaders and indicate to them that this is a serious issue in terms of misrepresentation. I would allow for and encourage debate on the idea, upon which there hopefully would be consensus to limit the debate on the privilege issue so it would go to the procedures committee, where it would be dealt with in a more wholesome way and the matter would be positively resolved, whatever the outcome might be. We would have spent some time on that debate.

I would then allow for and encourage an emergency debate on Ukraine, because that is exceptionally timely. We need to have that debate. I genuinely believe that. This report is very important too. It is just not as timely. This report could have been accepted; whether that is today, tomorrow, or Friday, would not take anything away from the importance of the report. After all, we are talking about somewhere in the neighbourhood of 850,000 displaced refugees dating back to 1948. It is a very serious issue. Liberals do not question that. The timing of it is what we question.

In short, I would negotiate some sort of compromise that would have this matter of privilege sent to the procedures committee. The Ukrainian crisis has to be debated, which I would have at some point in the not too distant future, as early as Wednesday or Thursday, if I felt it was necessary this week. (1205) [ Translation ] Mr. Guy Caron (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, my question is very simple. It goes along with the question asked by my colleague from Trois-Rivières and it is a reaction to the member for Winnipeg North 's response.

We do not often have concurrence debates here in the House of Commons, but there is one before us now. I think that the relevance and timing of the motion is in question. I would like to know what the member thinks would be the most appropriate time to hold such discussions, discussions not only on the motion before us, but also on the various motions that have been moved that we must comment on, and on the content of certain committee reports that we must debate, such as the one we are discussing now.

What would the member for Winnipeg North propose as a basic rule for all parties to follow when it comes to these concurrence debates on committee reports? [ English ] Mr. Kevin Lamoureux : Mr. Speaker, it is important that we recognize the privilege issue supersedes other debates, and it should. It is very important that we follow the rules. On the surface, based upon the Speaker's ruling, based upon what the member for Mississauga—Streetsville said on February 6, and based upon some of the information that has been provided to us in between, this is an issue of a serious nature.

It is a potential contempt of Parliament. That is a priority issue, and it has to be debated. For me and for the Liberal Party, we recognize the importance of this issue. We would like to see the government say that it recognizes the importance of it and that it is going to allow it to go to the procedures committee now. Let us get it to the PROC committee where we can hear witnesses and deal with the issue appropriately, and then come back to the House to have some sort of permanent solution to it. That is what should happen. I am not going to, in any way, try to limit the debate on the privilege motion itself.

However, I can tell members that if the privilege motion were to pass, it is in our collective best interest for Parliament to get it out of the House and into committee, where committee members could deal with the privilege, get down to the truth of the matter, and find out if the member for Mississauga—Streetsville is in contempt of Parliament, and, if so, what the consequences should be. That is the way that I would deal with this issue. Mr. John Carmichael (Don Valley West, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to join this debate today.

This is with reference to a report from the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, recognizing Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Clearly this report, as we have heard from previous speakers, is an important one that is worthy of debate and discussion. I am delighted to have that opportunity today. The Middle East has been a profoundly complex region for centuries, and the Arab-Israeli conflict has been one of the most persistent issues on the global agenda for decades.

Today we have an opportunity to consider how Canada, recognized worldwide for our enlightened approach toward individuals and communities in need of refuge, can appropriately address the issue of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa in a principled way. In May 2013, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development heard the profoundly personal stories of Jewish people who were uprooted from their homes of many centuries in Egypt and Iraq, and their subsequent migration to Israel or Canada, for which they have never received appropriate recognition.

In my address today, I will be discussing the prevailing context for Jewish communities at the time of Israel's independence, the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the current state of the peace process as it pertains to the government's response to the committee's recommendations. Large parts of the over 4,000 years of history of the Jewish people is a history of exile, persecution, exclusion, and anti-Semitism. As we consider the questions in front of us today, it is important to recall the profound horrors endured by Jewish communities around the globe.

Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era, Jews have experienced persecution almost anywhere they have lived. It is for precisely these reasons that in the late 19th century, Theodor Herzl formalized the case for the establishment of a Jewish state. Amidst pogroms in the Russian empire and widespread anti-Semitism in Europe, Herzl's vision resounded with the Jewish diaspora, and thus began significant Jewish migration to Ottoman and Palestine in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

It is important to note that at the time, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities often lived together peacefully in the Middle East, in adjacent if distinct communities in the great cities of Damascus, Cairo, and Baghdad. However, at the same time as the momentum behind Jewish migration to the Holy Land grew, the geopolitical arrangements of the previous centuries were beginning to unravel.

As European alliances erupted into World War I, the weakening Ottoman Empire collapsed, after ruling over a large part of the Middle East and North Africa for half a millennium, including over 400 years in Jerusalem and the surrounding area. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Europe's colonial powers took control over remaining parts of the empire, with France claiming Syria and Lebanon, and Britain gaining a mandate over Transjordan and Palestine in 1920.

Increasing anti-Semitism in Europe following World War I accelerated Jewish migration to mandate Palestine, further building on the small Jewish community that had formed, some of which had been present for centuries. During the period of the British mandate, the Jewish population of Palestine grew from one-sixth to nearly one-third of the overall population, and tensions began to grow between the Jewish and Arab populations, resulting in riots in Jaffa and a massacre in Hebron in 1929.

A decade later, back in Europe, the Jewish people endured some of humanity's darkest days, and during the Holocaust, the Nazis systematically murdered over six million Jewish people. While not the subject of today's discussion, it is important to recall the sheer horror of the Holocaust, the impact that this dreadful experience has had on the collective Jewish psyche, and the guidance that this terrible sequence of events should provide to people of conscience everywhere when discussing the modern State of Israel.

(1210) After the Holocaust, the international community did indeed come to recognize the compelling need for the establishment of a Jewish state. Canada was proud to be one of the countries preparing the blueprint for peace as part of the 1947 UN Special Committee on Palestine, contributing the services of Sir Ivan Rand, a Canadian Supreme Court justice. That committee, with Rand playing an important swing role, proposed a two-state solution: a Jewish state and an Arab state, together with an international regime governing Jerusalem.

The committee's recommendation ultimately resulted, on November 29, 1947, in the passage of UN General Assembly Resolution 181, setting out the partition plan. Canada was proudly among the 33 countries that voted for that resolution to ensure it gained the two thirds of votes required to pass, despite pressure from Britain to abstain. Unfortunately, among the 13 countries that voted against Resolution 181 were a number of neighbouring states in the region that would not support the establishment of a Jewish state.

It was no surprise, then, that following Israel's declaration of independence in May 1948, a protracted state of war followed. Israel was immediately attacked by neighbouring Arab states. The Haganah, predecessor to today's Israel Defense Forces, successfully defended the newly established Jewish state, and by the time of the armistice in 1941, had in fact expanded its borders well beyond those envisaged in the 1947 partition plan. Those Palestinian Arabs who remained in their homes throughout the war period were granted Israeli citizenship. Those who fled were deemed Palestinian refugees.

As the committee concluded in its November 2013 report, one of the main messages to emerge from the committee's hearings is that two refugee populations were created by the Arab-Israeli conflict: one Palestinian and one Jewish. Just as Canada was driven by its humanitarian values to support the establishment of the State of Israel, so too Canada played an important role in supporting the needs of Palestinian refugee communities, both directly and through the UN.

The committee's hearings, however, have brought overdue attention to a second refugee population created following the 1948 war, that of the Jewish communities throughout the Middle East and North Africa. As the detailed presentations to the committee show, over 850,000 Jewish people lived in Arab countries in 1948. As noted earlier, these communities had lived together peacefully with their Christian and Muslim neighbours for centuries.

Following the adoption of the partition plan and the declaration of independence of Israel, Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa faced a changed landscape, becoming the subject of suspicion, fear, and violence. Within 10 years, over half had left these countries, with the vast majority of the remaining families following in the next 20 years. Today, the once-vibrant Jewish quarters of Damascus, Cairo, and Sanaa are Jewish in name only. In many cases, as the committee poignantly heard, when Jewish families left, they left with nothing, despite leaving land and homes behind.

There is, however, no UN agency responsible for the primary services of these populations. There are no camps housing them. Most resettled in Israel or in welcoming countries such as Canada. As the committee heard, however, these ultimately divergent outcomes do not negate the need for recognition of the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948. The eventual success of the State of Israel and the successful integration of many Jewish families into other countries do not diminish the need to acknowledge this very difficult experience.

(1215) The government is also in agreement with the committee's view that recognition of the experiences of Jewish refugees does not diminish or compete with the situation of Palestinian refugees. It is important, therefore, to ensure that the statements and actions of the Government of Canada do not undermine current negotiations or seek to prejudge their outcome. In this regard, the ensuing history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is pertinent to today's discussion. Amidst an environment of continued hostility toward the Jewish state, Israel continued to mature into a strong democracy.

During the upheaval of the Cold War, Israel continued to attract Jewish migrants from all over the world. They saw in Israel a place where they would forever be free from persecution. Israel was not, however, free from enemies. Following the 1948 war, Jordan had occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control over the Gaza Strip, both areas that were part of the planned Arab state envisioned in UN resolution 181.

As tension mounted, the Six Day War erupted in 1967, and Israel's victory resulted in its occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, as well as the Sinai and the Golan Heights. A second conflict in 1973 with Egypt, Syria, and Jordan confirmed Israel's military supremacy in the region. In the ensuing decades, in addition to demonstrating strength, Israel has demonstrated its willingness to make peace with its neighbours when such efforts are genuine.

As a result, in 1979, Israel and Egypt signed a historic peace accord, which returned the Sinai to Egypt and ended the hostilities between Israel and the largest Arab state. In 1994, Jordan followed suit, and signed a peace treaty with Israel. The latter agreement was signed in the context of great optimism for peace in the region, with secret talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, or PLO, resulting in the Oslo accords of 1993, granting the Palestinians self-governance over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Palestinian aspirations of statehood, left unfulfilled since UN resolution 181, seemed within reach. The great optimism of this period was shattered, however, with the assassination in 1995 of Yitzhak Rabin by an extremist Jewish settler, Yigal Amir. With the architect of the Oslo accords gone, commitment to the process faded and, instead, nearly two decades of intermittent violence and continued military occupation have ensued. This brings us to the present day.

The nearly 20 years since Rabin's assassination have seen numerous attempts by the international community, and in particular the U.S., to bring the two sides back together to achieve a final status agreement. Wye River, Sharm el-Sheikh, Taba, Annapolis, and Amman have been the sites of summits and conferences, but none have resulted in an agreement acceptable to the parties.

Canada's foreign policy objective throughout has been a comprehensive, two-state solution reached through a negotiated agreement between the parties that guarantees Israel's right to live in peace and security with its neighbours and leads to the establishment of a viable independent Palestinian state. Today, with U.S. stewardship, an opportunity to achieve such a historic peace may be before us. Under the leadership of U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, the peace process has begun again in earnest, with Palestinian and Israeli negotiators meeting regularly since July 2013.

It is understood that all final status issues are on the table, including borders, security, settlements, and security for Jerusalem and refugees. This follows a period during which hopes for peace had all but faded, and the Palestinians sought to gain recognition through unilateral actions, such as a statehood bid at the United Nations.

(1220) Canada's support for a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, like our opposition to the statehood initiative in November 2012, is based on the recognition that a just and lasting peace will only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, as spelled out in UN resolutions 242 and 338. Today, these negotiations may present the last chance to achieve the two-state solution. For those committed to the defence of the Jewish state and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the current process is a genuine opportunity for peace.

Secretary Kerry has obtained explicit backing from the Arab League for the initiative, reiterating the Arab peace initiative that would make an Israel-Palestinian peace the cornerstone of Israel's security in the wider region, in recognition from its neighbours. Unlike the Madrid process of the 1990s, this is a direct, bilateral consultation with strong U.S. engagement. In line with Canadian statements in recent years, it is our view that this is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace.

For these negotiations to be successful, third parties need to allow the process to unfold and not seek to prejudge its outcome. It is our assessment, therefore, that now is not an opportune time to implement the committee's second recommendation. As the issue of Jewish refugees in the Middle East and North Africa is not currently under negotiation, a request by a third party such as Canada to insert this issue into talks at this stage is unlikely to be helpful.

The current negotiations build on years of history, and the sequencing and layers of nuance between Palestinian refugees, the right of return, the recognition of the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, and a host of other issues, lie in a delicate balance. Introducing the issue of Jewish refugees at this stage may set back the discussions and may risk violating the principle that the committee sought to respect in ensuring that the recognition of Jewish refugees does not diminish or compete with the situation of Palestinian refugees.

In keeping with Canada's principled approach to the conflict, we agree with the committee's first recommendation that the Government of Canada officially recognize the experience of Jewish refugees who were displaced from states in the Middle East and North Africa after 1948. Such recognition, long overdue, would be historic and would place Canada at the forefront of the international discussion on Jewish refugees. Canada's official recognition would be one small step in acknowledging this difficult period for Jewish communities of the region.

Given the current delicate state of affairs with closely held negotiations ongoing, it is not an opportune time to implement the second recommendation. By seeking to influence the parties to acknowledge the plight of Jewish refugees at this time, Canada would run the risk of having its recognition of Jewish refugees diminish or compete with the situation of Palestinian refugees.

At this stage, therefore, we believe that the appropriate course of action is to officially recognize the experience of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa while continuing to support U.S.-led efforts in bringing the parties toward a comprehensive, two-state solution. Peace will only be reached through a negotiated agreement between the two parties that guarantees Israel's right to live in peace and security with its neighbours and leads to the establishment of a viable and independent Palestinian state. This brings my comments to an end.

(1225) Mr. Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest here and in the lobby to my friend's comments about this report on a very important issue. My question is to gauge his comfort level. As was discussed before you took the Chair in this debate, Mr. Speaker, the timing of this debate is most curious. The House of Commons was in the midst of discussing a point of privilege that the Speaker had ruled on: finding a prima facie case of contempt for Parliament by one of his members.

This report was issued in November last year, but it was on this day that the government needed to bring in debate on this issue, one of incredible sensitivity to the Jewish community both here in Canada and abroad. I admit that I have been getting emails from those in the Jewish community who are offended. They feel that their issue is being used to block a debate about a member being found in contempt and they do not know why the Conservative government would do this. Allow the debate to go free. I will conclude with this.

If this was such an important and urgent issue to the Conservatives, one would have assumed that a report issued in November of last year would have seen the light of day before March of this year. The timing is beyond coincidence. It is cynical. I wonder if he feels comfortable— The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Order, please. The hon. member for Don Valley West. Mr. John Carmichael : Mr.

Speaker, it is interesting, as we heard from the previous speaker in this debate, that had he the opportunity to be the whip for the third party, and I incidentally encourage him in his aspirations, then he too would have a problem determining the priority of these different issues, because there are so many important issues right now. It is important for us to balance all of the issues of the day as they come before us and give them all time. Clearly, this issue is one that has importance.

The committee has made its recommendations to the House, and I think it is important that we have appropriate time to discuss this issue.

(1230) Mr. Mark Adler (York Centre, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Don Valley West for his excellent speech on a very important and significant historical issue. Our Prime Minister was recently in Israel and spoke in the Knesset, where he said that Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is non-negotiable and is absolute. I ask my friend to comment on our government's position on Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, and how he can distinguish it from the positions of both the Liberal Party and the NDP.

As well, can he understand, as I certainly can, the reluctance of the two parties today to discuss this very important issue, given their stand on Israel? Mr. John Carmichael : Mr. Speaker, it is true that we just returned from a historic state visit to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan with our Prime Minister . It was a remarkable opportunity to witness a number of different cultures and issues that were pertinent to this time. Our Prime Minister spoke in the Knesset in what was, without question, a historic presentation. He spoke to the friendship between Canada and Israel, and it was based on democracy.

The Prime Minister spoke to the fact that our country recognizes Israel's right to exist and would stand with Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, most importantly, because there are those who surround Israel who do not believe that country has the right to exist. For this debate to conclude appropriately today, we have to agree, I believe, that there is a two-state solution that must be found.

It will be found only by the two participating parties coming to agreement on that discussion, and clearly they will both agree that Israel has the right to exist in a safe and secure environment. [ Translation ] Mr. Matthew Dubé (Chambly—Borduas, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Conservatives preach so much about the importance of democracy and yet seem unable to take a look at themselves in the mirror. The hon. member for Don Valley West said that it is important to address issues as they arise.

If we addressed the issue of the member for Mississauga—Streetsville 's contempt of Parliament, it is precisely because a Speaker's ruling was given. This is not about the opposition playing games, as the Conservatives often like to say, and it is not about fearmongering or any of the other excuses the Conservatives always use. The Speaker rose in the House and presented his ruling on the extremely serious accusations made regarding a bill that affects our democracy and elections.

When such an issue is before us, we must begin debating it immediately so that it can be examined by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The Conservatives want to change the subject by claiming that there are other more important issues that need to be addressed. However, if an on-the-spot Speaker's ruling is not a priority in the House, then I do not know what is. Does the hon. member recognize the importance of yesterday's Speaker's ruling, which we should be discussing right now? [ English ] Mr. John Carmichael : Mr.

Speaker, I will begin by saying how privileged I am to have the opportunity to address this issue here today. This is an important debate. My colleague for York Centre spoke about the Prime Minister's recent state visit to Israel, the West Bank, and Syria. However, throughout the morning we have heard much debate on where the priorities are. Is it the Speaker's ruling? Is it the Ukraine? Is it Syria? There are many issues today that are very relevant, and all of them need to be discussed. This one brings me particularly poignantly to the issue of refugees.

On this recent trip to Jordan, I had the good fortune to travel by helicopter to the Syrian-Jordanian border. I witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of men, women, and children carrying their worldly belongings across the border. I can tell members that it was heart-wrenching to see the plight of the Syrian refugees as they fled for their lives with all that they could carry. This issue is of particular importance. The timing is now. We have the opportunity to discuss it, and I think we should carry this debate to its conclusion.

(1235) Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo—Alberni, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, the refugee situation we are discussing today involved 820,000 people. It was a massive displacement of people from their homes, lands, culture, and language. They had to leave everything behind. Here we are just a few decades or maybe half a century later. I wonder if the member would comment on how it is possible that a displacement of 820,000 people could largely be forgotten.

Everybody seems to know about Palestinian people and the Palestinian refugees, which is a common thing to talk about, but how is it possible that the displacement of so many people has largely been forgotten? Mr. John Carmichael : Mr. Speaker, it is hard to imagine. In this day of instant messaging and instant information, we hear about crises that are occurring by the minute and in real time. Clearly 825,000 refugees who, I guess, almost went into obscurity suffered all of the same horrors as the refugees we watch today. I cannot explain the situation other than to say that it is time we recognized it.

Today's debate is an important opportunity to in fact take that time. [ Translation ] Ms. Hélène Laverdière (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am deeply troubled and shocked to see that the Conservatives are using as serious an issue as Jewish refugees for purely partisan purposes. No one is fooled, and that is the worst part. This is not because the Conservatives want to debate a report that was tabled last fall and discussed in committee nearly a year ago. They want to avoid the debate about one of their own, who may be in contempt of Parliament. That is all they want.

They are manipulating a very serious issue. The government loves to muzzle scientists and civil society. I meet with many representatives from community groups who are afraid. What does it say when people are afraid of their government? It is terrible. The Conservatives want to muzzle the public service and do not want to listen to Canadians. They refuse to travel throughout the country to hear what Canadians have to say about their electoral reform proposal.

In addition, it is quite clear that they do not want Parliament to function properly and they do not want to hold debates—they use gag orders, extensions and cheap political stunts like the one we are seeing here today. I cannot think of any other way to say it. They try to stifle all debate. They are not being transparent. My democracy is suffering, but I will continue to fight for it. I know that all of my NDP colleagues will continue to fight for our country's democracy. In light of that, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas : Motion That the debate be now adjourned.

(1240) The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion? Some hon. members: Agreed. (Motion agreed to)

[ English ] Petitions Animal Welfare Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I have a large number of petitions. First it is my honour to present petitions from 14,000 petitioners across Canada calling on the Government of Canada to stop being soft on crime against animals. Canada must strengthen the language of animal cruelty law and remove animal cruelty crimes from the property

section of the Criminal Code. We must recognize animals as beings that can feel pain. They are not property, and criminals who abuse animals must face conviction and serious penalty. Those who have done serious crime must do serious time. It is time for Canada to act and protect our furry friends.

Public Transit Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls on the Government of Canada to provide seniors with affordable, reliable and fast public transit. The petitioners note that seniors with low incomes are isolated at home because some of them cannot afford bus tickets. Having more seniors on public transit means better health, better air quality, less gridlock, and better neighbourhoods.

Motor Vehicle Safety Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the third batch of petitions is from my constituents. They ask that the federal government make side guards mandatory on all trucks in order to save pedestrians' and cyclists' lives, and in order to save fuel.

Public Transit Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the last group of petitions is also from my constituents in Toronto. The petitioners are asking the federal government to provide a permanent investment plan to support public transit, establish a federal funding mechanism for public transit, and ensure that there is a national public transit strategy so that we can deal with the $18 billion gap in transit infrastructure needs.

[ Translation ] Gatineau Park Ms. Rosane Doré Lefebvre (Alfred-Pellan, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to table this petition signed by dozens of people in the Gatineau region. The petitioners want Gatineau Park to have legal protection that will preserve it for future generations. I feel it is important to table this petition in support of the member for Hull—Aylmer . In my riding, Alfred-Pellan , a group called Sauvons nos trois grandes îles is working to protect a region along the Rivière des Mille-Îles, and I am sure that the people of Laval and Alfred-Pellan are happy that we are also fighting to protect a park in the Gatineau Valley.

[ English ] The Environment Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, I rise this afternoon for the morning petition presentations. I have two petitions. One is from residents of Pender Island, within my own constituency of Saanich—Gulf Islands. It is a petition that has actually been overtaken by events. The petitioners are calling on the government to await a full scientific response from the National Energy Board from its environmental review of the northern gateway. Having read the National Energy Board's review, I can only say with great sadness that the National Energy Board did not produce a scientifically-based, evidence-based report.

(1245) 41st General Election Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, the second petition comes from residents from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. They are calling on the government to bring forward a full inquiry to get to the bottom of the attempts to defraud voters in the 2011 election. The petitioners point out that each one of these efforts was an offence under elections law. Now that the administration opposite is moving forward on Bill C-23 to have a registry of robocalls, perhaps it would also be interested in getting to the bottom of who caused them in the last election.

[ Translation ] Gatineau Park Ms. Francine Raynault (Joliette, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support my colleague from Hull—Aylmer by tabling a petition called “Together let's protect Gatineau Park”. Many people have signed this petition to protect Gatineau Park, and I am pleased to table it today.

[ English ] Canada Post Mrs. Carol Hughes (Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this House one more time to table petitions with respect to Canada Post. The petitions are signed by people from Kapuskasing, Hearst, Fauquier, Moonbeam, Ottawa, Sudbury, Iroquois Falls, Matheson, and Timmins. Basically, the petitioners are concerned that Canada Post and the Conservatives are axing door-to-door delivery and killing jobs.

They expect that 6,000 to 8,000 people will lose their jobs, and they are concerned with respect to the impact this would have upon seniors and people with disabilities. The petitioners ask the government to reverse the cuts to services around Canada Post and to look, instead, for ways to innovate through postal banking.

[ Translation ] VIA Rail Mr. Guy Caron (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to table a petition signed by about 100 people who are asking the government to direct VIA Rail to intervene and ensure that the railway between Bathurst and Miramichi will not be closed. This contentious issue jeopardizes the future of passenger rail service in eastern Canada. This petition, signed by 100 or so eastern Canadians, is in addition to over 24,000 other signatures of people who want to protect VIA Rail's passenger service in eastern Canada.

These people are asking the government and VIA Rail to take action to ensure that this segment of the railway will not be closed.

Syria Ms. Hélène Laverdière (Laurier—Sainte-Marie, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition pointing out that more than 2 million Syrians have fled Syria and another 4 million have been internally displaced within the country. The petitioners point out this is the worst humanitarian crisis the world has seen in years and that the neighbouring countries cannot carry this burden alone. The petitioners are therefore calling on the Canadian government to significantly increase the number of Syrian refugees it sponsors, propose various measures to do so and ensure that no Syrians are returned to Syria under any circumstances.

Gatineau Park Ms. Nycole Turmel (Hull—Aylmer, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition to protect Gatineau Park, signed by many constituents from the national capital region. As I have said many times, our park is not really protected by any federal legislation. We must absolutely correct this problem for future generations. Again, I hope that all members of the House will support this bill, which will truly provide a legacy for future generations. Mr. Robert Aubin (Trois-Rivières, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, a number of regions in Canada have natural treasures that are worth protecting.

There is nothing more effective than legal protection. That is what dozens of citizens are calling for. They signed a petition to protect Gatineau Park and its 90 endangered plant and 500 endangered animal species. I am pleased to support and present this petition to the House.

(1250) Mr. Alain Giguère (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I present a certified petition to protect Gatineau Park. It should be noted that even in this day and age we have to intervene to protect green space from speculation and people who have no respect for their environment. It is shocking and unfortunate that even today we still have to do this. In keeping with this legislation, I would like the House to automatically protect the environment to leave a legacy for future generations.

[ English ] VIA Rail Mr. Robert Chisholm (Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I table another petition regarding VIA Rail's passenger services between Montreal and Halifax. The petitioners are concerned by the cuts in service in northern New Brunswick. They are concerned that not only would that create a real hardship for the residents who rely upon the rail service for personal transportation but that it would spell the end for the service all the way from Montreal to Halifax. Counting this petition, the petitions that have already been tabled, and forthcoming petitions that have yet to be tabled, there are now a total of 24,000 signatures.

Impaired Driving Mr. Bev Shipley (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by a number of Canadians concerned with the current impaired driving laws being too lenient. They are asking that tougher laws be implemented, along with new mandatory minimum sentences for those convicted of impaired driving causing death. They want to see the Criminal Code of Canada redefine the offence of impaired driving causing death as vehicular manslaughter.

Questions on the Order Paper Mrs. Susan Truppe (Parliamentary Secretary for Status of Women, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand. The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

Request for Emergency Debate Ukraine S. O. 52 Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, as I did yesterday, I rise because the Liberal Party believes there is, in fact, a need to have an emergency debate today with regard to the ongoing crisis taking place in Ukraine. In particular, over the last 72 hours we have seen the deployment of Russian military troops in the Crimea area.

There is a great deal of apprehension and concern both in Ukraine, obviously, and also throughout the world, particularly in Canada, where it is estimated that there are more than 1.2 million people of Ukrainian heritage and other Canadians who are very much concerned and want to convey one message as much as possible on the Ukraine crisis.

This would emphasize issues such as the need for Canada to participate in observing what is happening with regard to sanctions, the issue of those who perpetrated violence during the protests, and of course, most importantly, what has been happening over the last few days regarding the deployment of military personnel. Yesterday, when I moved the motion, the Speaker thought there might have been a day as an opposition day today or a supply day. We know that is not the case. The urgency exists today. Many are watching to see if we will move ahead and allow this emergency debate to take place.

It is only four hours of our time to address what is a very important world issue that is having a very profound impact on the citizens of Ukraine. We want to send a very strong message to the people of Ukraine that we are supportive and, as a nation, will do what we can to demonstrate that we care and are prepared to act as one, wherever possible. That would be the purpose of having the debate today. I trust, upon reflection, you will see that there is merit for it, Mr. Speaker. If not, maybe you could canvass the House to see if there is unanimous consent for it to take place.

(1255) Speaker's Ruling Speaker's Ruling The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : The Chair thanks the member for his request. At the outset, I would state that the Chair is quite sure that all members of the House and, indeed, all Canadians feel strongly about the importance of what is going on in the Ukraine and its relevance to Canada. Having said that, in his ruling yesterday, the Speaker articulated several reasons why he did not feel that an emergency debate was the appropriate step at this point.

The member for Winnipeg North pointed out the fact that today was expected to be an opposition day, but I would point out that the opposition day happening in the near future is still pending and would provide an opportunity for that to take place. As a result, the Chair is not inclined at this point to take the suggestion.

Statements by the Member for Mississauga—Streetsville—Reference to Standing Committee Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned Privilege Hon. Peter Van Loan (Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, with respect to the privilege motion of the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley , I move: Motion That the debate be not further adjourned. The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : The motion is in order. Pursuant to Standing Order 67.1, there will now be a 30-minute question period.

I invite hon. members who wish to ask questions to rise in their place so the Chair has some idea of the number of members who wish to participate in the question period. Seeing several members, I would ask members if they would keep the length of their questions similar to questions and comments, a minute and 15 seconds to a minute and 30 seconds. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. Mr. Nathan Cullen (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP) : Mr.

Speaker, for those following along in this sordid affair of a Conservative MP being found in contempt of Parliament by the Speaker, the Conservatives have now added even further insult to injury to Canadians. The context for this was their so-called fair elections act, which would muzzle the Chief Electoral Officer and make it more difficult for Canadians to vote. They put time allocation on that. They limited the debate.

Rather than consult with Canadians, they said there would be no consultations with Canadians about our elections law and no further debate in the House of Commons, and then they had evidence made up by Conservative MPs to justify and rationalize the debate. When it was pointed out that the Conservative MP was not telling the truth to Canadians and Parliament, he was found in a prima facie case of contempt by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Extraordinarily, the Conservatives think the best way to remedy this is to congratulate the Conservative MP for not having told the truth and for what a great fellow he is, and to say that everybody does it, so that is fine too. Then, while we are in the midst of the debate about how to make this better, so that the Conservatives do not keep rationalizing their bad legislation through completely invented and falsified accounts of something so important as voter fraud, they are shutting down the debate on that. When we only have a hammer in the toolbox, every problem looks like a nail.

That is what the Conservatives do. They shut down debate, shut down Parliament, and hold the place in contempt. That is what is being done here today, nothing more, nothing less. It is shocking to me that a sitting Government of Canada finds this kind of behaviour acceptable and to be encouraged. What message are the Conservatives sending to Canadians about how much respect they have for the people who put them here, those who voted for them, and the vast majority of Canadians who did not and who would certainly not again come the next election. My question to the government House leader is this.

How do the Conservatives have the audacity to stand here and shut down debate in our Parliament when we are dealing with an issue wherein a member was held in contempt for not telling the truth about a flawed and unfair elections act proposed by his same government?

(1300) Hon. Peter Van Loan : Mr. Speaker, the question we are dealing with is one that is quite clear-cut. There is a motion that the comments of the member be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee. The question we have to ask is whether that would serve any utility. There is no dispute about what happened. The member made comments in the House. He came back and corrected those comments to the House. He apologized to the House for his incorrect comments. The question then becomes what would be served by reference to the procedure and House affairs committee.

There is nothing new that we would learn. The facts are there. They are simple. Therefore, there is no utility in that exercise, the same as there is no utility in continuing to discuss and debate it in the House. We know what happened. The hon. member corrected the record and apologized, which certainly should have been accepted at that point. One cannot picture anything of great utility that would come from a further discussion of the matter at the procedure and House affairs committee.

If one wants to know what kind of insight could be derived at the procedure and House affairs committee, one need only look at the speeches that have occurred so far in this debate on privilege from the official opposition, that being lots of noise, no light, no illumination, and no new facts. We know what the facts are. They are quite simple. It is time to move on. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, the government House leader is dead wrong. Let me paint a visual picture for him.

On February 6, the member for Mississauga—Streetsville rose in the House and stated that he had personally witnessed an illegal activity. This was a significant statement. A day or so later we understand that Elections Canada might have been brought into the picture by wanting to know why the member had not reported it to the police or Elections Canada. What motivated the member for Mississauga—Streetsville to make that statement and then come back to the House and say he had made a mistake? The Conservatives talk about getting tough on crime, but what about getting tough on consequences?

Contempt of the House of Commons is very serious. The only way we are going to get to the bottom of this is if it goes to the procedure and House affairs committee. The member for Mississauga—Streetsville needs to indicate what motivated him. Was it because someone from Elections Canada contacted him and asked him whether or not he had reported having witnessed this crime to the police? What precipitated it? We do not know. The government House leader does not seem to see this as a big issue.

Could he indicate clearly to the House that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville was not contacted in any fashion by Elections Canada or the commissioner? Could he indicate that Elections Canada had nothing to do with motivating the member to come back and change the record three weeks later? It is a critical point. It would go a long way if the government House leader could provide assurance on this fact. Could he clearly indicate that Elections Canada did not contact the member for Mississauga--Streetsville? Hon. Peter Van Loan : Mr.

Speaker, all of us in the House have a custom of taking people's word as the truth. With that custom comes a heavy obligation, the heavy obligation that they must always tell the truth. Although rhetoric and debate at times may tempt people to stretch the truth, the fact is that it is a very serious duty and obligation. In this case, the hon. member, having misspoken, took that obligation sufficiently seriously enough that he came back to the House and corrected it. That is as it should be. When members find they have misspoken, they must come back to the House and correct that.

It is an important duty and obligation. The only thing that precipitated this motion even being in the House is the fact that the member came here himself and corrected the record. The paradox is this: should he face consequences for doing so? We would be creating exactly the opposite of the incentive we wish to see. We would be creating a situation where people would no longer be encouraged to come to the House and correct the record and tell the truth for fear of facing a contempt action, for fear of having their name dragged through the mud.

We would be creating exactly the opposite of what I think we all agree is the right thing, coming back and correcting the record when members have misspoken. That is a another reason we should not take this matter further to the procedure and House affairs committee. It would create, if I may say, an environment where people would be discouraged from carrying out their important duty and obligation of telling the truth here in the House.

(1305) Hon. Thomas Mulcair (Leader of the Opposition, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I have been listening attentively to the government House leader on this issue, and I find his mastery of what George Orwell called “newspeak” to be truly astonishing. He says that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville had misspoken, as if he had come in and called someone by the wrong riding name. Let us look at what the member said, and then ask ourselves why the government is trying to shut down debate. This is a quote from the member of Parliament for Mississauga—Streetsville : Mr.

Speaker, I want to talk a bit about this vouching system again.... On mail delivery day when the voter cards are delivered to community mailboxes in apartment buildings, many of them are discarded in the garbage can or the blue box. I have actually witnessed other people picking up the voter cards— —and using them to vote. That is what the member said. It was completely false. That is not misspeaking. Everything that we interpret has to be looked at in a context. Elmer A. Driedger, the author of numerous tomes on legislative drafting and statutory

interpretation, always says that the best way to understand the meaning of something is to look at the context. Let us look at the context. The government has introduced a bill that it has the temerity to call the fair elections act. It would allow unlimited spending by the Conservatives, the same Conservatives who were convicted in the in and out scandal, the same Conservatives whose database was used for the robocalls. We say that deserves a full and complete debate.

One of the things the Conservatives have put up as evidence in favour of scuppering the fundamental law of democracy in Canada is this type of witness, the member for Mississauga—Streetsville . We say this: shutting down debate puts a big circle around the stain of what the Conservatives are trying to do. [ Translation ] Trying to deprive the people's elected representatives of their right to debate a law that underpins our democracy is unacceptable, and it is your duty to refuse that request. [ English ] Hon. Peter Van Loan : Mr.

Speaker, I would also like to quote from what the hon. member said in this House on February 25. He came to this House and said: I would like to sincerely apologize to all Canadians and to all members of the House for the statement that I made. It was never my intention, in any way, to mislead the House, for which I have the greatest amount of respect. He came to this House and he apologized. That is what we expect of members. In fact, the Chair in his ruling on March 3, 2014, said: The Chair takes...note that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville...has apologized for his mistake.

This was, of course, the Speaker's ruling that led to the motion by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley that we are now debating. What is interesting is that subsequent to both of those, we have, for example, the leader of the opposition's critic on these very matters, the member for To