Last of the 2002 Hansard

Since the House is back in session today and there'll be new Hansard to review tomorrow, today is probably a good time to catch up on the last few days from last year, that I haven't commented on yet.

December 9: Second reading of C-220 to require labelling of genetically modified food. I'm in favour of that. I don't believe that genetically modified food is a serious health risk; however, I would prefer to avoid it for non-health-related reasons, namely my concern that the technology is being misused (for instance, to protect bogus "intellectual property" claims instead of to increase yields or whatever the proponents claim is the good reason to use it). That's an issue that seems to be being overlooked - lots of people are willing to argue that there is or isn't a health concern, when I think it's an important issue regardless of any health concern. The bill did not become votable and was dropped from the order paper.

The next item on the 9th is old news by now, but at the time it was what everyone was talking about: the Alliance brought up the GST rebate fraud business (for those tuning in late, the Government has a program where you can claim a tax rebate for selling GST-exempt merchandise abroad, and they basically just cut you a cheque for however much you say they owe you with little or no checking and balancing), and the Liberals made lots of hemming and hawing noises without actually saying much about what they were going to do about it. Then the closure motion on Kyoto ground forward another step, and they had a bit more fighting on that. In private members' business, Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville, Canadian Alliance) introduced Bill C-330, which says that the gun registry has to be dissolved in five years if it doesn't actually reduce crime. I think that's a wonderful idea - let's apply it to all crime legislation! Si guarda al fine...

December 10: Lots of debate about the budget. Introduction of Bill C-22, on family law - not normally a topic of much interest to me, but I have a friend who's anticipating a custody negotiation soon, and this may be relevant. Mr. Irwin Cotler (Mount Royal, Lib.) made a nice speech about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; I hope he's willing to back it with action. Mr. Vic Toews (Provencher, Canadian Alliance) complained in Question Period about inmate voting again, really sounding very random - I've no idea what it has to do with veterans and police officers, but he mentioned them in his question - and Hon. Don Boudria (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.) smacked him down: "[W]hat [Mr. Toews] is asking for is to revoke rights of people by amending the constitution. That is wrong." Indeed.

December 11: Introduction of Government Bill C-23, on a national sex offender registry. In private members' business, Mr. Myron Thompson (Wild Rose, Canadian Alliance) introduced Bill C-335, to remove the "artistic merit" defence from child pornography charges. It's a very short and simple Bill: simply removes that phrase from 163.1 while making no other changes. Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, BQ) introduced Bill C-339, to license brothels. I feel an urge to drag out the <BLINK> tag for that one; it deserves more than an incidental mention. Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa-Vanier, Lib.) said some good things in Question Period about patents on life forms; he seems to Get It.

Also on the 11th, Mr. Greg Thompson (New Brunswick Southwest, PC) raised a point of order on order paper questions, and the Speaker ruled that no, Mr. Thompson is not allowed to ask "whose decision was it to take the 'Christ' out of Christmas?", because "it appears to be argumentative. It contains inferences. It is 'ironical, rhetorical, offensive, or contain[s] epithet, innuendo, satire' or whatever, as stated in Beauchesne's in the citations to which the hon. member has referred so ably in his argument." (Internal quotation is the Speaker's.)

December 12: Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby-Douglas, NDP) introduced a petition against patenting of life forms from some sort of Catholic organization; see my entry earlier today. Hypocrite of the month Mr. Darrel Stinson presented another petition in favour of free speech - on condition that it's only used to "share religious beliefs" about why homosexuals are the bought and bundled minions of Satan. (That is a paraphrase; the hon. Member for Okanagan Shuswap didn't actually go into detail about which of his religious beliefs he'd like to share. I have some of my own that might be worth sharing, and one of them is in the Bible at John 8:7.) Royal Assent for various bills, including C-11 on Internet television rebroadcasting. Main topic of the day was the budget.

December 13: Last day of the House for 2002, and not much hard debate. Hon. Don Boudria (Minister of State and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.) got to play inmate-voting whack-a-mole some more in Question Period, this time with Mr. Darrel Stinson (Okanagan-Shuswap, Canadian Alliance) and Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris-Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance).

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Last of the 2002 Hansard

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