Lost his last election, in 2004, with 40% of the vote.
Transportation Amendment Act March 19th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask if you might seek unanimous consent of the House to support merchant navy veterans in the form of my private member's bill, which is an act to establish merchant navy veterans day. I would ask that the House unanimously support the bill at second reading and in turn send it to committee at the next available sitting day.
Transportation Amendment Act March 19th, 2003
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Having consulted with my colleagues in the various opposition parties, I believe if you seek it you would find unanimous consent to have my bill, an act to establish Merchant Navy Veterans Day, at second reading and in turn referred to committee at the next available sitting day.
Petitions March 19th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I wonder if I could seek unanimous support within the House to take my bill directly to second reading and in turn refer it to committee at the next available sitting day for committee.
Merchant Navy Veterans Day Act March 19th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for reminding me of that. I just assumed that hon. members would like to hear it one more time as they did in the last session.
This is clearly a bill to recognize the efforts of merchant navy veterans throughout the various conflicts in which Canada has participated and, the thousands of lives that have been lost to ensure and shore up democracy not only in this country but all around the world.
I say here and now that I could not be more proud to present this bill to the House of Commons.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Merchant Navy Veterans Day Act March 19th, 2003
moved, seconded by the hon. member for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, for leave to introduce Bill C-411, An Act to establish Merchant Navy Veterans Day.
Mr. Speaker, I would certainly take the opportunity before I read the bill to thank my hon. colleague from Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore for his seconding of the bill.
It is with great pride and honour that I present this non-partisan bill which I am sure will enjoy the full support of all members of the House of Commons. I also send a special thanks to Mr. Jack Stapleton in my riding.
I would hereby ask the House to listen to the preamble of the bill to establish merchant navy veterans day which states that whereas the veterans of the merchant navy have served--
The Budget February 25th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I could not be more pleased that the hon. member actually raised these particular points. I have to address them in two ways.
First, I want to articulate what the Alliance, Reformers or whatever they were at the time, suggested about these kinds of social safety nets, the soft money they refer to by way of investing in the homeless. The government has continually supported homeless initiatives by way of supporting the communities partnership initiative. We have invested significant amounts of money in that.
The suggestions being made by the people across the hall in many areas like this are to cut it, to lower taxes and to make tax cuts for the wealthy because we do not need to worry about these kinds of social safety nets that the government puts forward.
I am here to say that we will be working with municipalities, such as Collingwood, Wasaga Beach, Stayner and Clearview, to address this problem because, I agree, it is a shame that we live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world and we still have a homeless problem. However rather than rhetoric we are going to put words into action on this side.
The Budget February 25th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, he has brought up two points but I will address the health care issue first.
I sit here and question how we get a clear message out to Canadians when we have absolute foolishness being espoused by the other side. These are non-truths.
They do not take into consideration such things as tax points. I am here to say that the provinces certainly took them into consideration when they started to accept them. When we transferred those tax points, those were taxes that we were supposed to be collecting. However in order to save bureaucracy we allowed them to collect them on our behalf. We are talking about billions and billions of dollars.
The hon. member stands and says that we made a promise back in the sixties that we would fund 50% of health care. I challenge the hon. member to find a piece of paper that states that. I challenge him to do so because based on the last budget increases that we have just put forward, $35 billion over the last five years, we will be putting more than our share into health care.
We have transferred money to the Province of Ontario. Members know that. We transferred money to them and they have put it away in their treasury. They did not dispose of it in a timely fashion, reinvesting in health care.
I am saying that the government is committed to a national health care program.
The Budget February 25th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I am certainly pleased to rise to respond to last week's budget. I certainly want to take this opportunity as well to congratulate the finance minister on what I and I believe most Canadians believe to be very fine work.
Before I address the budget, though, I would like to clarify the record. I know I have to govern myself within the confines of using parliamentary language. For the hon. member who questioned the amount of time that I spend in the House, I will put my attendance record forward, my voting record forward and my attendance records at committee forward against his. I would be more than pleased to do that, because my commitment has been such that from Sunday to Thursday or Friday, when the House is sitting, I am away from my family working on behalf of my riding, trying to accomplish the good things with which the government is vested by way of responsibility. I do not appreciate the assertion that I am not in Ottawa representing the people of Simcoe--Grey when in fact the complete opposite is true. I find it a slight by the hon. member but typical of the kinds of comments that come from that side of the bench. It is shameful of that member and I am so disappointed.
I say we are in a very unique situation here, a terribly unique situation when we compare ourselves to the other industrialized and developed nations of the world. That was the challenge I was trying to throw out to the Alliance Party: to stand up and try to instill confidence in Canadians and remind them of the excellent fiscal shape this country is in today as opposed to five or six years ago and to create consumer confidence, because we are in a very unique position. We are in a unique position not only because of the hard work of the finance minister and the budget that he brought forward last week, but we are in a great position because of the leadership of the Prime Minister and the leadership that has been shown by the members of Parliament, my Liberal colleagues from all across this country.
This is a Canadian budget. Canadians have spoken. They have spoken to us in our ridings. They have spoken to us by way of survey. They have spoken to us by way of talk shows. They have spoken to us by way of presentations before committee. And this government listened. What did it listen to? There is a $35 billion increase in health care.
Mr. Speaker, show me somebody in this country who does not think that a $35 billion increase in health care spending over the next five years will help to raise the quality of life in Canada. Clearly it will, both in urban areas and rural areas.
In my riding of Simcoe--Grey, the three hospitals I have will directly benefit, as long as the province transfers the money in a timely fashion, of course. They will directly benefit from this. We are in a position to do that not simply because of the budget and the hard work on behalf of all my colleagues, but I think we have to take our hats off to the past finance minister as well, for it was under his watch that we went from a $43 billion yearly deficit to eliminating it in its entirety and to actually starting to reduce debt, to actually seeing the economy grow and the debt to GDP ratio spreading ever wider. Originally it was 66% and now it is 46%.
The country has not been in better financial shape as opposed to its allies or the G-7 countries in many years. Canadians need to know that. This economy is strong. It is stable. Quite frankly, we would not be in a position to invest the kind of money that the government invested in Canadians by way of its budget if we did not have those kinds of surpluses within our budget.
A number of things about the budget certainly impressed me tremendously. Health care, absolutely, but I would also like to talk about some of the other things, like the Department of National Defence. CFB Borden is located in my riding. It is one of the largest training bases in Canada. There are no people in this country that I am more proud of than the men and women in our military.
I get an opportunity to visit the base on a regular basis to meet them and hear their stories and I am here to tell the House that this nation is well served by the men and women in our military. I could not be more proud, more happy, to see a $1.6 billion increase for the Department of National Defence over the next two years and again an incremental increase of $800 million over the following three years. This is not chump change. This is $4 billion. That is a significant amount of money for our military, and I am proud to see it go to our military men and women because they certainly deserve it.
We talk about things such as the infrastructure program. When I was chair of the southwestern Ontario caucus for two years my caucus was proud, along with many other caucuses, to champion infrastructure in the House and to tell the government that there was a need for an infrastructure program and a need for cost sharing on some of the demands municipalities are facing today.
Do members know what happened? The government listened. We invested over $5 billion into infrastructure pre this budget. It had enormous consequences all across the country. My riding was likely one of the largest beneficiaries within rural Ontario. We had a number of tremendous projects that were announced over the last five years that have clearly raised the quality of life, that have created an environment where business wants to invest and that have had a substantive impact on the economy. We asked and the government listened.
What the municipalities want now is a long term sustained infrastructure program, not a one year or two year program but long term. They got it; it is over 10 years. Maybe $3 billion is not enough over that period of time, I will give that, but let us not lose sight of how it will extrapolate within the public sector, municipal governments, provincial governments and the private sector. We are not all of a sudden talking about $3 billion, we are talking about $10 billion or more. Therefore it will have a substantive impact over the next 10 years.
As the government has proven time and time again, when we have the resources to give more we will. As the demand is there, as municipalities are facing challenges, whether they be rural or urban, the government will be walking with them, shoulder to shoulder, as we have in the past. I would challenge anybody in the House to suggest that the infrastructure money we have invested in our great land, in my riding of Simcoe--Grey, has not offered significant benefit.
When I start talking about the wonderful things that have taken place in the budget, I am truly hopeful that both sides of the House will espouse the virtues of a budget that will create the level of confidence that Canadians rightly want to hear and deserve to have.
When I hear that $985 million will be invested in a national day care program, I say bravo. That is for the working class family. When my wife and I were raising our oldest boy 14 years ago that was the kind of program we needed. It certainly would have helped to elevate our quality of life and to provide a more stable environment for our son. No, we cannot go back and do it, but I am proud of the fact that I am sitting with a government that has the foresight to recognize that kind of investment sometimes needs to take priority over a road or a sewer.
The fact is that this budget invests in the most important thing any government can, its people. I could not have been more proud when some of these approaches were articulated in last week's budget.
There has been mention across the hall with respect to some of the lack of accountability in government spending over the years.
I forgot to say this at the beginning, Mr. Speaker, but I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot.
The members across the hall raised a very good point. I believe the official opposition is doing its job when it points out these deficiencies in government and in spending. Bravo to them for pointing them out. We do the same thing in the backbenches. If we see there is mismanagement taking place, if we see that we are not maximizing taxpayer money to the best possible ability of the cabinet and the government, we stand up and holler and shout and ask for corrective action.
The fourth principle of this budget, for which I could not have been more pleased, was clear and transparent accrual accounting. Based on a recommendation from the Auditor General, Canadians will now have as clear a picture as they have had in many years of the state of governance is in this country.
What more could they ask for: investment in health care; investment in security in these troubling times; investment in day care; investment in poor people; and investment in our children, while still balancing our budget and still setting aside a contingency to reduce the debt? I say bravo to the Minister of Finance, bravo to the Prime Minister and bravo to all Canadians who will benefit from this budget.
The Budget February 25th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the hon. member across the way, but just before I ask those two questions I would like to clarify the record. I am under the assumption that he has been provided inaccurate information based on his assertion that the debt is actually going up as opposed to going down. Just to clarify, since 1996-97 the debt has actually been reduced in hard dollars by $47.6 billion, a fact that Canadians all across the country recognize, and the debt to GDP ratio, which was 66.4% in 1997, is now 46.5%. That is just some accurate information.
More to the issue with regard to funding police services across the country, I have two questions for the hon. member. First, does the member believe that municipal councils should be investing in such things as what we would typically call soft infrastructure, recreational facilities, baseball fields, soccer pitches, and the list goes on and on, as opposed to investing in one of the responsibilities they have, which is that of delivering police service at a local level?
Second, could the member tell me how, constitutionally, we can create a mechanism to deliver federal funds to a local police service to help offset their operational costs?
The Budget February 25th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the member articulate what he considers to be shortfalls in this budget I cannot help but have an extremely high level of frustration.
The consistent negativity espoused by the Alliance Party is wearing thin not simply on members in the House, but on Canadians. Those members have changed their position more times than they have changed their party name.
In 1997 members of the then Reform Party made a commitment to structured debt reduction and said that ours was less than theirs. That party made a commitment to structured debt reduction and we exceeded it by a massive amount of money.
In 1998 or 1999 when that party was the united alternative party, it came out with a new structured approach to debt reduction to decrease it even more and we exceeded that. When that party became the Canadian conservative-reform-alliance party, it came out with a new structured debt reduction repayment plan and again, we exceeded that.
I wonder if the hon. member might just once stand up in the House and recognize the excellent job the government has done regarding debt reduction because by God he is taking down the confidence of Canadians and he should be standing up and giving credit where credit is due. Canadians have--