Dale Johnston

[Manitoba Entertainment Complex Inc., September 28th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House the Minister of Human Resources Development gave a very ambiguous response to a question asked by my colleague in regard to the $533,000 grant that was given to a group in Winnipeg known as Manitoba Entertainment Complex Inc.

Would he clarify today what process the group followed to obtain these funds and what was the criteria for qualification?

[Canada Labour Code, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate today on the bill sponsored by the hon. member for Manicouagan.

The summary of the bill found on page 1a states that the purpose of the bill is to prohibit hiring of persons to replace employees of an employer under the Canada Labour Code or of the public service who are on strike or locked out.

In fact this bill goes much further than just prohibiting hiring of new workers. Modelled after labour legislation in Quebec, this bill proposes that government prohibit anyone from performing the work of a person who is on strike or locked out by companies falling under federal jurisdiction, crown corporations and the public service. It also includes provisions for the maintenance of essential services in the event of a strike or lockout in the public service or a crown corporation if public health and safety are at risk and it gives increased powers to the Governor in Council.

The Public Service Staff Relations Act contains a mechanism for providing essential services in strike situations. To replace the designated employee category of the act with these provisions cannot be viewed as a progressive step.

We know that one of the reasons the member is sponsoring this bill is that he is concerned over the effects of the year long labour dispute at the Ogilvie flour mills in Montreal. Members from all sides of this House have expressed concern over the Ogilvie situation and we are all anxious to see a speedy resolution. I was pleased to hear that progress was made at the mediation meetings held on May 25 and 26. There was an agreement to reconvene the talks on June 20 and 21.

If the hon. member for Manicouagan really wanted to help settle that dispute, he should have supported Bill C-262 authored by my colleague, the member for Lethbridge. If the government and the hon. member and his colleagues were really concerned about the workers at Ogilvie Mills and other workers under federal jurisdiction, they could have got on the ball and voted for Bill C-262 on March 20 and supported the hon. member for Lethbridge on his final offer arbitration bill.

If the hon. member and his colleagues wanted to protect both sides of labour disputes they would advocate final offer arbitration as a sure fire solution to settling labour strife.

When workers at the west coast ports were legislated back to work last year, the Minister of Human Resources Development endorsed the use of final offer arbitration as the settlement mechanism. The transport committee in its recently released national marine strategy recommended a final offer selection mechanism for settlement of all disputes between pilots and their customers.

As I stated in this House on previous occasions there seems to be a growing popularity for final offer arbitration. The transport committee also recommended that the new Marine Transportation Act would provide for final offer selection for the settlement of all disputes between the new not for profit seaway corporation and its employees.

I would like to confirm once again that the Reform Party believes in the bargaining process and we do not want to interfere in the course of two parties coming to an agreement. We see final offer arbitration as a tool that is useful to both sides, labour and management.

There are three provinces in Canada that ban the use of replacement workers in strike or lockout situations: Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario. Just last week voters elected a Progressive Conservative government whose leader promised to repeal Bill 40, the NDP's labour legislation and put an end to the ban on replacement workers in Ontario. Perhaps my hon. colleague would do well to find out if there is public support for anti-worker legislation.

We in the Reform Party are concerned about the impact that strikes and lockouts have on workers, employers, and Canadians, who most often have to bear the brunt of the cost and inconvenience of services withdrawn by monopolistic industries.

The recent strikes in the railway emphasize the weakness in the Canada Labour Code for preventing a shutdown of essential services. I commend the member for attempting to deal with the contentious issue of maintaining essential services. However, this bill does not contain any provision for the continuation of essential services in the private sector.

We would all agree the federal government has a responsibility to act in the best interest of Canadians, but I am surprised the hon. member would increase the powers of the governor in council.

In an interdependent world, economic security is threatened by major strikes involving services that provide linkage on an interprovincial and an international basis. Transportation and communication services, for example, are essential to the daily movement of people, goods, and services. A shutdown for any duration always has significant economic impacts.

Canada's competitive advantage is determined by the efficiency and reliability of the transportation and communication network it relies upon. We simply cannot afford any major shutdowns in the networks that link the country together.

The Canadian economy was hard hit by the $3 billion railway strike in March. The effects of this strike are now seen as contributing factors in the lower than predicted gross domestic product and the fall of the leading economic indicators. This was a hit the Canadian economy could not afford to take.

I believe that if final offer arbitration had been in place it could have defused the problems that faced the parties in this dispute. It is by far the most effective and impartial means of obtaining a solution to the concerns of labour and management where an impasse occurs that inflicts significant damage on Canadians.

There is nothing to prevent both sides from achieving a deal, providing they are being fair and open with each other. In fact, the presence of an arbitrator who is in a position to adopt either side's proposal in entirety exerts a tremendous pressure on both sides to reach an agreement. I believe this would preserve and strengthen the process by which the parties negotiate a contract.

In cases where fundamental issues are at stake, such as employment security, an agreement might never occur through collective bargaining, and a strike or lockout may only make matters worse. The best solution is for someone respected by both sides to make a decision on the fairness of one proposal and for the process to be viewed as legitimate by both sides. Section 57 of the Canada Labour Code which contains provisions for final offer settlement by an arbitrator for disputes that occur during the life of a collective agreement should be amended to include final offer selection in disputes where collective agreements have expired.

I want to assure the House that I believe in the collective agreement process, but in the area of essential services the Canadian people should be protected from costly and disruptive work stoppages. Part I of the Canada Labour Code is under review at the moment. I urge the Minister of Labour to bring the code into line with today's economic realities by expanding the definition of essential services and by providing for final offer arbitration in work stoppages in essential services when the agreements expire.

The end result of a strike or lockout is that the side that is able to withstand the damage longest is considered to be the winner. In reality, we know that neither side wins. Both parties sustain significant losses in relationships and dollars. In the long run, no one benefits from a strike, not the workers, not the employers, and not the Canadian people. I believe this legislation would inflame already strained relations and drive a deeper wedge between labour and management.

The Canada Labour Code is out of date. As legislators, we must find and implement solutions that will best serve the needs of all involved.

[Adm Agri-Industries Ltd. Operations Act, May 19th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on the bill sponsored by the hon. member for Verdun-Saint-Paul.

The bill proposes that the government implement final offer selection as a mechanism for resolving the year long labour dispute at ADM Agri-Industries, otherwise known as Ogilvie Flour Mills.

I was a bit surprised that a member from the government side would sponsor the bill. When the hon. member for Lethbridge was seeking support for his final offer arbitration in Bill C-262, which called for basically the same as the bill today only it applied to grain handling disputes, government members did not want any part of it.

If the hon. member from Verdun and perhaps the rest of his caucus truly believed in the concept they would have spoken in support of Bill C-262 at the time it was debated in the House.

How can he promote final offer selection or arbitration in one case and oppose it in others? Since flour mill workers are grouped into the same category as grain elevator operators they fall under federal jurisdiction. If the hon. member and his colleagues were really concerned about the workers at Ogilvie Mills, they would have got the ball rolling on March 20 by supporting the bill of the member for Lethbridge on final offer arbitration in grain handling disputes.

We know the government runs hot and cold. The fact the member could not get unanimous consent for his bill is a perfect example as far as final offer arbitration is concerned. They did not like Bill C-262 and they came out in force to ensure that it did not survive.

The Minister of Human Resources Development in a news release announcing that royal assent had been given to the West Coast Ports Operations Act was quoted as saying:

The imposition of the final offer selection procedure in this particular legislation should encourage the two sides to demonstrate a strong sense of rationality in deciding on the positions they place before the arbitrator.

That is what we said in Bill C-262, that it was a tool that could be used by either side in a dispute.

The transport committee in its recently released national marine strategy recommended a final offer selection mechanism for settlement of all disputes between pilots and their customers. It seems to work in some areas. As the mover of the bill mentioned, it is not something union people are objecting to. There seems to be growing popularity for the concept of final offer arbitration.

The committee also recommended that the new Marine Transportation Act should provide for final offer selection for the settlement of all disputes between the new not for profit Seaway Corporation and its employees. The chairman of the committee spoke on final offer arbitration during the debate on Bill C-262. He spoke at length about the need to maintain essential services. He also said:

Employees either have the right to strike or not.

He went on to say:

We have to roll with the change. I do not feel the way to begin a positive and co-operative renewal of labour relations is by introducing legislation which begins to erode what labour considers a basic right.

We are getting mixed signals from the government.

Last week in the human resources development committee I had an opportunity to ask the Minister of Labour if she would consider implementing final offer arbitration as a solution to ending disputes involving essential services. She conceded that it might be an interesting concept but that it would be difficult to use as a method of settling disputes, especially complicated disputes like this one. I got the distinct feeling that she would not support that sort of move. I am not surprised my hon. friend could not get unanimous consent to make his motion votable.

Obviously he has one other colleague in his caucus that feels the same as he does. The member for Vaudreuil introduced exactly the same bill but it has apparently been withdrawn. I am sure they both thought there would be no repercussions since the government employed final offer selection as a way out of its problems with the west coast ports.

My friend from Verdun-Saint-Paul is probably thankful in some ways that it is not votable because if it were he would have to vote in favour of it and we have seen the government sometimes punish people who vote for their constituents.

The Reform Party believes in the bargaining process. We do not want to interfere in the process of two parties coming to an

agreement. We see final offer arbitration as tool that is useful to both labour and management. Certainly my friend across the way has alluded to having support of the union in this case.

We on this side are concerned about the impacts that strikes and lockouts have on workers, employers and Canadians who most often have to bear the brunt of the costs and inconveniences when the services of monopolistic industries are withdrawn. When all efforts to solve the disputes through the regular collective bargaining process have been exhausted, final offer arbitration should be available to all parties.

The recent strikes in the railway helped to underline the weakness inherent in the Canada Labour Code from preventing a shutdown to essential services. The federal government has a responsibility in this area to act in the best interest of Canadians. Transportation and communication services are essential to the daily movement of people, goods and services.

Canada's competitive advantage is determined by the efficiency and reliability of the transportation and communication network that it relies on. We cannot afford any major shutdowns in the network that links the country together. A case in point was the recent railway strike that is estimated to have cost the Canadian economy in the neighbourhood of $3 billion.

Final offer arbitration is the most effective and impartial means of obtaining a solution to the concerns of labour and management where an impasse occurs that inflicts significant damage on Canadians. It requires both parties to negotiate in good faith and quickly, while keeping in mind their overall interest as an organization.

There is nothing to prevent both sides from achieving their deal providing they are being fair, open and expedient with each other. Tremendous pressure is put on both sides to reach an agreement if the arbitrator is in a position to adopt all of one or all of the other side's proposals.

The threat of arbitration should be enough for both sides to reach agreement if the arbitrator is in a position to adopt either side's proposals. The threat of arbitration should be enough for both sides if they want to reach an agreement.

In cases where fundamental issues are at stake, such as employment security, an agreement may never occur through the collective bargaining process. A strike or lockout only makes matters worse and nobody wins in those situations. The best solution is for someone respected by both sides to make a decision on the fairness of one proposal and for the process to be viewed as legitimate by both sides.

Section 57 of the Canada Labour Code contains a provision for final settlement by an arbitrator for disputes that occur during the life of a collective agreement. The parliamentary secretary from York North referred to this provision on March 2 when he said: "Our system of compulsory collective agreement settlement through arbitration or some other peaceful means contributes to a high degree of stability in our industrial relations system". The message government is sending on this issue is one of confusion. Government is for it in some instances and not for it in other instances.

I am certainly not trying to circumvent the collective agreement process. I do want to ensure that in areas of essential services Canadian people are protected from costly disruptive work stoppages that could affect their safety and their livelihood. We need an amendment to the Canada Labour Code which would expand the provisions contained in section 27 to include final offer arbitration in work stoppages in essential services as soon as the existing agreements expire.

The Ogilvie workers and their employers have been involved in a bitter labour dispute as has been mentioned, for almost a year. Those people would certainly like to get back to work. It is unfortunate that this bill is not a votable one. If it were, I would be suggesting to our caucus that we should support it.

I encourage the government to come forth with legislation considerably similar to this that would work as a long term solution and not a piecemeal approach to the problems.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Maybe we should. The hon. member suggests that there should be an election. I challenge him to call an election on this issue. It is an excellent idea.

They even boasted in the speech from the throne that pension reform was a plank in their platform. They have made a mockery of their own promises.

Bill C-85 was not at all what the Canadian taxpayers expected. Instead of real pension reform, the Liberal caucus agreed to protect senior MPs and youthful cabinet ministers, because it knows that when the Reform Party forms the next government, and it will, contrary to what my friend in the Bloc suggested, the Liberals will not be getting any patronage jobs to supplement their incomes.

They claim to have eliminated double dipping. However, even if they were to get a federal job, their pension benefits would keep on growing, thanks to inflation indexing.

I am amazed that with only two years left before the government has to face the Canadian electorate it would have the gall to introduce a bill that would give MPs a pension other Canadians can only dream of, especially since it is the average Canadian taxpayer who will have to pay for this now silver plated pension plan.

How much will they have to pay? They will have to pay plenty. For every dollar contributed by all those Liberals and Bloc MPs who are rushing to opt into the plan, the taxpayer contributes $3.50. It is hard to believe that the government is not embarrassed to boast about a reduction of 1 per cent in the accrual rate, from 5 per cent to 4 per cent. Wonderful, but it is still double what it is in the private sector.

Where else but in Parliament could one receive a pension for only six years of service and that pension would be indexed for life and payable starting at age 55? This is early retirement by anyone's standards.

In the private sector, only 22 per cent of the pension plans are adjusted automatically for inflation. It takes MPs only 19 years to qualify for a full pension. A person in the private sector would have to work for 35 years to be eligible for anything similar.

The Prime Minister attempts to justify this premium pension plan by saying that MPs have a difficult time readjusting to private life and finding jobs in the outside world. Surely to goodness they cannot have that much difficulty. If they do have that much difficulty, I fail to see how it could be the taxpayer's fault.

Often when we ask the Prime Minister to justify his continued support for this cash for life scheme he compares MP pensions to hockey players' salaries. For one thing, we are talking about salaries, as opposed to pension plans; let us get that straight. For another thing, I believe the Liberals are skating on very thin ice on this one, because in Winnipeg we saw what happened when the players demanded too much. The players and those who hired them parted company. On the next election day the Canadian taxpayers will be telling the players in the government they would just as soon part company with them.

The provincial legislators in Prince Edward Island and in Alberta realized that the taxpayers could not afford to support them forever and have scrapped their pension plans. In Manitoba, Premier Filmon promised to cancel the pension plan and replace it with a registered retirement savings plan arrangement.

We are not suggesting that members of Parliament should not be properly paid for the job we do. We all know that we work hard here at this job and that we are eligible and we deserve a decent salary for it. But let us separate salary from pensions. The Reform Party does not say that members of Parliament are not deserving of some sort of retirement benefit as well. Let us have a retirement benefit that we can take in good conscience and we can look our constituents in the eye and say yes, I contributed and yes, you contributed; it was equal and it was dollar for dollar and we do not have the feeling that we are taking advantage of the people who pay our salary and put us here in the first place.

Canadians are being asked by their government to do with less. In the vast majority of cases Canadians can accept that. They can accept that there is not enough money to fund all the government programs that have been created over the last 30 years. They cannot accept the excuses offered by this government to continue to fund a pension plan that Canada cannot afford. The government has to get its own financial house in order before asking Canadians to support them for life.

During the 1993 election campaign I promised the constituents of Wetaskiwin that I would not participate in the existing gold-plated pension plan. As a matter of fact, one of the first things we did when we got to Ottawa was to go over to pay and benefits and sign a declaration there saying that we were paying into this pension plan only under duress and that we had no intention whatsoever of collecting.

This is not something we came up with in the last few hours so that we could debate it in the House. It is something we signed at an early date because we in good conscience did not want to participate in a pension plan of this type.

On February 24 and during our annual general meeting, when I explained to my constituents how meagre the changes in this bill were, I told them there was only one acceptable clause in it, and that was the one that would allow me to remain outside of the pension plan.

I question the intention of the government. Perhaps I am treading on thin ground here, but I think there was some malice in that very clause. It was aimed directly at the Reform Party. The idea of course would be that some would opt out and some would not and it would effectively split our caucus. I can say that

this has not happened and that our caucus has decided individually and collectively that we will opt out of the program.

Members have probably deduced by now that I am opting out of this plan with its silver lining. I recommend that anybody in the House who plans to be here for more than one term follow suit and do the same.

[Members Of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, May 9th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, normally it is a great pleasure for me to rise to speak in the House, but today I find the need to speak to this bill is not much of a pleasure.

In 1952 the Liberal government of Louis St. Laurent introduced the members retiring allowance. He described it as actuarially sound and a matter that would operate without any further charge on the public funds than the matching of the contributions to be made by all members of Parliament. That is the way it should work.

How in the world did it get so far off track? Today the taxpayers contribute 80 per cent and the members of Parliament contribute 20 per cent.

Only a government with its head in the sand would ask Canadians, who have the fastest growing personal tax burden in the industrialized world, to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction without first putting its own house in order.

Bill C-85 tells Canadians that the majority of the people they elected to Parliament in 1993 care more about their personal financial security than they do about the deficit or the tax burden.

Canadians will soon learn that while all 52 Reform MPs are opting out of the pension plan, only one Liberal MP has the fortitude to say no. Canadians will soon realize that the majority of members they elected to Parliament do not really care about the debt or the tax burden ordinary Canadians have to face. They talk the talk, but when it affects them personally, and when it is going to affect their retirement, they quickly seek refuge back at the trough.

Pension reform was a major issue in the last election, and I suspect it will be in the next election. When my colleague was quoting from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", a line occurred to me as well: and like a cross around my neck the albatross was hung. This is an albatross the Liberal government will have a difficult time getting off its neck.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, March 30th, 1995]

The Reform Party has introduced in the House a private member's bill dealing with final offer arbitration. It has come to the point, particularly about the sort of disputes my colleague is talking about, at which labour and management have come to rely on back to work legislation. It has therefore become an impediment to the collective bargaining process rather than something that would enhance it.

When the parties are this far apart for 25 months, as we have seen in this past dispute, it is a very good indication they are relying on back to work legislation. Labour knows it will not be out for eight months. It might be out for only eight or ten hours before Parliament starts to talk about back to work legislation. Management also has the same assurance.

There is really no incentive for them to get their positions closer together in real down to earth bargaining. The bill soundly defeated in the House I would appreciate seeing come back from the government side. I hope the Minister of Labour would come up with some similar legislation as as a tool for both labour and management to get them to sharpen their pencils, get their positions as close together as possible. At any time one party or the other could ask an arbitrator to step in and select all of one position or all of the other position. That would encourage the two parties to get as close together as they could in their negotiations on their own.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1995, March 30th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are a tough breed and it is a good thing. They will have to be tough to face what lies ahead.

Bill C-76 provides for the legal implementation of the measures contained in the February 1995 budget. Among the initiatives contained in the bill is the new block funding plan which will alter the transfer of payments to provinces for health and education. The passage of Bill C-76 will, as well, facilitate the termination of the Public Utilities Income Transfer Tax Act.

Let us get on with it. The House has wasted enough time and taxpayers' money debating measures which are secondary to the main problem in Canada. While the Liberal government directs its energies to useless mandatory gun registration, the national debt steadily rises.

Today the debt stands at $547,758,477,000. That is approximately $39,000 per taxpayer and over $18,000 per capita. Canadians are worried about their future and they are depending on their elected representatives to straighten out this mess. We had evidence of that earlier in the year when the polls showed that Canadians were ready for a tough budget. They recognized that the debt was out of control and expected the Minister of Finance to bite the bullet. Instead, the finance minister's plans were torpedoed by his left leaning cabinet colleagues.

He is not the first to have his plans watered down. In fact, for the last 20 years successive ministers of finance have declared war on the debt and we have not seen any results. One after another they have succumbed to the whims of political fortune. One by one they have shown disregard for the Canadian taxpayer. Now we are so far in debt that our legacy to our children will not be something to cherish. Their debt riddled inheritance will bring them a future full of fiscal instability.

There was a short-lived budget back in 1979 that dared to be different. The new government of the day inherited the leftover Liberal debt and what was then the highest debt ratio among the major industrialized countries. Some things never change. Canadians saw what happened to that government. It started to put its fiscal house in order. The Liberals defeated that budget and the rest is history.

In 1980 the Liberals regained power and allowed the debt to escalate. When they finally were defeated in 1984 the Tories, who learned their lesson in 1979, took a vow never to be so fiscally responsible that it would jeopardize their power.

In the end, this philosophy helped to bring about not only their defeat but their unprecedented drop into oblivion. Today, even the Canadian economy is sinking faster than that 1979 budget. The Minister of Finance refuses to predict when his budget will be balanced. He continues to talk about balancing the budget but he does not tell us when.

Interest costs on the debt continue to grow. Inevitably this will result in a loss of security for Canadians, robbing them of an independent future. The minister made sure he could meet his deficit target by using what most economists consider to be conservative assumptions.

He is instituting new rolling two-year targets, whatever that means. That way he can change the target as the interest rate fluctuates. He padded his budget with enough hidden taxes to ensure that there would be sufficient tax revenue growth over the next two decades to allow him room to meet his deficit targets.

The bill, as I mentioned earlier, will terminate payments made under the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. This is one of those hidden personal taxes found in the budget. It is a selective tax on the people of Alberta, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Yukon, but particularly Alberta.

It is estimated that the average Albertan could lose $70 per year in disposable income as a result of this measure. The village of Warburg, which is in my constituency, estimates that the cost to the village will be $4,000. One might say that this is a rather insignificant amount but it is not. It is a 10 per cent increase. When one factors in the impact of the current belt tightening by other levels of government, it adds to the increased costs facing small municipalities in Alberta that are still the backbone of the rural areas.

Why would the government single out these provinces for tax increases? How can one province be taxed and not another? Is this the Liberal version of fairness? Even though Alberta will bear the brunt of the tax, we can only assume that there was nothing untoward in the minister's decision. It is hard to convince residents of Alberta otherwise, especially after they have heard about the study conducted by the University of Calgary economist, which was reported by Canadian Press on Monday.

That study not only confirmed that Quebec was the biggest net winner from Confederation but it also confirmed that Alberta was the biggest net financial loser. Between 1961 and 1992, Quebec received some $168 billion more from the federal treasury than it contributed in other revenues.

Over the same period, the taxpayers of Alberta paid $139 billion more into the federal treasury than they received, thanks in part to the national energy policy. It makes you wonder why we in Alberta want to stay and why they want to go.

We would like to be treated equally but the government seems to have other ideas. It continues to seek out new ways to tax us. Even with the new creative method of deficit accounting and other moneys generated from the budget, the deficit target of 3 per cent of GDP is still far from adequate.

While 3 per cent of GDP would be the lowest deficit in 20 years, it is irrelevant when one considers that the net federal debt has risen to 73 per cent of GDP. Despite the federal reductions outlined in the budget, we cannot hide from the problem of increasing debt.

A year from now the debt will be in excess of $600 billion and the interest on the debt is expected to go up by about $8 billion to top the $50 billion mark.

When the Prime Minister boasts about the 3 per cent deficit target, all he is really saying is that the growth of the debt will be slowed. The debt may grow at a slower rate than it did in the past. That is not really anything to boast about when one considers that the $42 billion spent on interest payments is $4 billion higher than a year ago.

What is the reason for that jump? It is the $2.5 billion for interest on the new debt that has accumulated. Our past deficit now requires interest and it is the $1.5 billion for which higher interest rates are responsible. Program spending will only be reduced by some $12 billion over the next three years while the interest charges will grow by $13 billion. We are not gaining. We are paying more and getting less.

The reality is that Canada has a debt problem, not just a deficit problem. The government was elected 16 months ago. How long do we have to wait before it gets on with tackling the problems of the 20th century? The debt clock is ticking and the Liberals are still fiddling. Someone should tell them that they do not have a lot of time left. Canadians know all too well that if a government does not address these sorts of problems in the first two years of its mandate, it is not likely to implement any difficult decisions in the face of an impending election or in the last half of its mandate.

Canadians are demanding action. They want government and politicians to be accountable. If the government shunned traditional Liberal practice and did the right thing for Canadians, it would find those very Canadians willing to support it.

The problem is that the Liberals do not have a plan to take Canadians to their ultimate goal of deficit elimination and tax reduction. They do not have a plan to solve the labour disputes over a long term. They do not have a long term plan to reform social programs. That is particularly obvious when one looks at the new Canada health and social transfer act. This is the much touted initiative that rolls established programs financing and the Canadian assistance plan into a new block funding arrangement.

The idea may have some merit but it presents more than one dilemma for the provinces. There are no financial projections, for one thing, beyond 1997-98. How can provincial finance ministers make their fiscal projections for the future with any degree of accuracy if they do not know how much they can expect from the federal government?

Canadians want to see some light at the end of the tunnel and they do not want it to be the headlight of an oncoming train. They want to know that the fiscal sacrifices that they have to make will not be done in vain.

That is why the Reform Party took the unprecedented action of presenting a budget that explained how the deficit could be eliminated in three years. It is too bad for Canadians that they elected a government that lacks vision. The only solution the government can come up with is to drop everything on the provinces. We do not think that is fair. By transferring additional tax points to the provinces, our plan offers them a dependable, growing revenue base to fund health and education over the long run.

As a farmer, I have come up with a way to explain the difference between the Reform Party and either the block funding proposal or the existing arrangement. This does not involve teaching a person to fish or giving him a fish. It involves a chicken and an egg.

Under the existing arrangement, the federal government keeps the chicken and gives the provinces a dozen eggs. All the eggs have strings attached. That means the federal government can unilaterally make the decision to give less eggs to the provinces.

The Canada social transfer involves giving the provinces a carton of eggs with one or two eggs missing and still with strings attached to the carton. The federal government continues to hold the chicken and can continue to remove the eggs from the carton it sends to the provinces.

Neither of those situations sound like perfect situations. The Reform Party proposes to give the provinces the chicken.

The government budget tells the provinces their transfers will be cut. We would work with provinces to develop national standards for health care and education. The Reform taxpayers budget showed with reasoned determination Canadians can emerge from the tunnel into the sunlight. The Reform budget offers Canadians hope for the future. Under our plan there will be enough money to support those who are unable to help themselves.

The real threat to social programs is the failure of the Liberal government to control the deficit and the debt. The government will do and say anything to prevent Canadians from realizing this fact.

Reform wants Canadians to know the real facts about the future. This is 1995 and the Liberals are still trying to come to grips with the 20th century while Reformers are planning for the 21st century.

For instance, social security has always been provided only through the delivery of costly bureaucratic centralized government programs and agencies. If the government does not come to grips with this program now social programs will not survive this century.

Reform's vision for the future of social programs contains ideas which will generate affordable, cost effective and people effective programs that will provide greater personal security and freedom from dependence on government for all Canadians.

At the heart of Reform's new social vision for Canada is the concept that we can get more social security for dollars spent by changing the division of responsibility between Canadians and their governments. The Reform budget proposes to balance the budget in three years. The Minister of Finance continues to duck the issue. He knows at the rate he is going he will never bring in a balanced budget. A balanced budget is not simply an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is the first step in building a strong, vibrant economy for future generations.

The Reform budget offers hope for the next generation and a chance to escape from the burden of debt. If quick and decisive action is taken sooner rather than later the impact on employment will be minimal and measures will lead to more permanent positive employment for Canadians than the red book plan of slow deficit reduction.

It is inconceivable how the government could ask Canadians, who have the fastest growing personal tax burden in the industrialized world, to shoulder the burden of deficit reduction without first putting its own house in order.

Last month the government announced an agreement had been reached among Liberal MPs to reform the gold plated MP pension plan. The only really good aspect about the plan was the opting out provision and that provision was intended to pit one Reformer against the other and split our caucus.

I cannot deny that was the strategy but it did not work. It did not work and this Reformer cannot wait for a chance to opt out of that plan.

The government made sure that senior Liberals and youthful cabinet ministers will be protected. At the end of their days here they will receive cash for life courtesy of the beleaguered Canadian taxpayer. The taxpayer can only dream of such financial security. The media charge of a double standard rings pretty true.

Where is the hope? At the rate we are going none of us will live long enough for this mortgage burning ceremony. Canadians are beginning to realize this government is not any better than its predecessors. If the government had any heart, any real concern for Canadians, it would deal with this debt now.

In case there is any question, I will not be supporting the bill.

[Firearms Act, March 28th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I want to begin by congratulating my colleague for Yorkton-Melville for introducing this amendment.

The universal registration of firearms is one of the most controversial and ineffective sections of Bill C-68. The amendment separates gun control from crime control. It allows the crime control portions of the bill to be dealt with separately and expeditiously.

For the last year members of the Reform Party have been telling the government that Canada has a crime problem, not a gun problem. It is a difference it has so far refused to recognize. The government persevered and introduced Bill C-68 which is seriously flawed.

The minister claims his intention is to crack down on the criminal use of firearms. Certainly that is an area I would support him in. In fact, all he has done so far is to take aim at the easiest available target: the legitimate owners of guns. He really means that gun control lies at the heart of the Liberal Party's effort to derail the nationwide surge in interest in tougher and more effective criminal justice.

Public safety must be the overriding goal of any government. Punishment of crime should come before all other objectives. The Reform Party believes the target should be the criminal use of firearms, not the law-abiding gun owners.

Passage of this amendment would allow Parliament to get on with dealing with the crime problem. There is no connection between the legitimate gun owner who owns a firearm for hunting, target shooting, or for the protection of his family or his animals from preying wildlife and the criminal who obtains a firearm illegally for the purpose of committing a crime. There is no correlation between the two at all.

As my friend pointed out, last Thursday in Ottawa a few miles west of this Chamber there was an armed robbery. Not only were two of the participants in this botched hold-up on parole, but they also had a history of armed robbery convictions. That is what they had been jailed for on their last convictions. One of them was even prohibited from owning a firearm for life.

How would gun registration have made any difference whatsoever in this case? Would it have saved the two Ottawa police officers from the gunshot wounds they suffered? Not likely. Let us face facts here. No amount of gun control regulation would have stopped this trio from obtaining the guns they needed to carry out their robbery or any other robbery they might plan.

The real problem here is the criminal misuse of firearms. Those convicted must be severely punished. The separation of this bill into two parts would accomplish that goal.

More crimes are committed in this country with knives than guns, but no one is suggesting we register our kitchen knives, at least not yet. This government is more interested in proceeding with the mandatory registration of firearms than it is with solving our crime problem. Mandatory gun registration is not just a tax on law-abiding gun owners, but one that will cost all Canadians millions of dollars to implement.

The minister's supporters, the anti-gun lobbyists, claim that firearms registration is justified because we register our cars and our dogs. The truth is that these registrations exist primarily as a form of taxation.

The Minister of Justice estimates universal registration will cost $85 million. If you will pardon the expression, I think that is a rather conservative estimate. Experts at Simon Fraser University put the cost somewhere between $400 million and $500 million.

Here we have a Liberal government using parliamentary time to debate gun control when we will be paying some $50 billion in interest this year. This government has its priorities completely mixed up. So much for an assault on the deficit. This is merely another assault on the wallets of Canadian taxpayers.

In addition, mandatory registration will turn police officers into bureaucrats. The Minister of Finance announced in the February budget that thousands of public service jobs will be eliminated and he is going to shrink the bureaucracy. Someone should tell the Minister of Finance that his colleague, the Minister of Justice, is creating a whole new bureaucracy. Once the minister turns police officers into bureaucrats, they will be so bogged down with paperwork and chasing otherwise legitimate gun owners that they will not have time for regular law enforcement duties.

We have asked the minister repeatedly for evidence proving that a national gun registry will save lives. So far he has been unable to give us that information and has been successfully ducking the issue. We know the reason he cannot give those. He simply cannot. He does not have a shred of evidence to provide to us.

The Minister of Justice has taken on gun control purely as a personal crusade. Somehow he has managed to confuse crime control with gun control. Now legitimate gun owners are afraid that this minister is so blinded by his personal agenda that he will stop at nothing until he reaches his ultimate goal: the complete confiscation of all firearms in Canada, maybe with the exception of law authorities and military. We have heard this minister and other members of the government state that they would like to see a society in which only police officers and the military have weapons. The only way that can come about is through confiscation.

The minister hopes that by making firearms ownership so complicated and expensive that Canadians will give them up. More than likely, it will put more guns into the underground market, not less and ultimately, more guns into the hands of criminals.

The Minister of Justice hopes that all this attention on gun control will divert attention away from the roots of our crime problem. After all, the Liberal Party policy on crime is that it somehow is society's fault. He often drags out polls to support his stand.

If he is really interested in the polls and what people think, he should look at the Simon Fraser University opinion survey. It showed that Canadians knew little about gun control laws and that their support for firearms registration weakened as they became more knowledgeable about this issue.

The reason people voice support for gun control when questioned by pollsters is that they think or hope that registration of firearms will somehow improve public safety and reduce violence. Most Canadians do not know that handgun registration has been in effect in Canada since 1934, 61 years. There is no record to show that a single crime has been prevented as a result of this registration.

Most Canadians do not know that experiments in firearms registration were expensive failures in Australia and New Zealand. As my friend has pointed out, they are now being given up in those countries.

Most Canadians do not know that in 1993 the auditor general reported to Parliament that the previous government had no statistical basis for implementing the last round of gun control regulations.

Most Canadians are unaware of the findings of project gun runner which was undertaken by the Ontario government. Project gun runner found that 86 per cent of all handguns used in the commission of crimes were smuggled into Canada. Does the minister really believe that the new owners of these smuggled

weapons will register them? Surely, he is not that naive. I do not believe he is.

Reformers are not opposed to the government's plan to crack down on smuggling. That is why we believe the only solution is to split this bill so that crime control and gun control can be dealt with separately.

It is too bad the Minister of Justice cannot see that his determined efforts to reduce crime are so far off base. He started down this road and he is too proud to admit he is lost. He is afraid that if he turns back he will be seen as abandoning his principles.

The minister should thank his colleague from Yorkton-Melville for bringing forth this amendment. The member has done him a big favour. He has given the minister an avenue to save face. If he takes it, he can preserve his standing in the next leadership race.

[Agriculture, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, the private member's bill presented by my colleague from the Reform Party is one we in the farm community feel very strongly about. It is an idea whose time has come.

The federal government over the long haul has been in many areas of duplicity. Some of the areas the provincial government could probably handle better are agriculture, forestry and mining. This bill deals with agriculture but the principles involved would also apply to those other areas.

As my colleague has said, there is also some sentiment in the Bloc for this division of powers and a little less power in our central government. This motion is very worthy of consideration of all of the House. I encourage members opposite to look very closely at this motion and to consider very strongly their support for it.

[Rail Strike, March 24th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, it is simply not true that only the Bloc and the NDP are responsible for the damage to the Canadian economy. The government has had nearly a year to deal with this problem and to come up with some long term legislation which would prevent this sort of thing from happening.

Once back to work legislation is finally passed, will this government take legislative steps to resolve the transportation problems once and for all? After all, the team Canada approach depends on a viable rail service.