Garth Turner

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I also vote no.

[Softwood Lumber Products Export Charge Act, 2006, December 4th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting no.

[Income Trusts, November 28th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has made it clear he will not be budging on income trusts. However, I also know he is a man who values fairness and he is a man who is aware of the money that investors have lost.

Would the minister agree to allow income trust investors a one time writeoff on their 2006 taxes of capital losses as a result of his decision?

[Business of Supply, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be voting no.

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I rise again tonight for the third, fourth or fifth time. I am trying to get an answer to a very simple question. I am going to ask the member opposite, as I have asked a number of other members tonight, if he could please define the word “nation”. It is something that my constituents have asked me to define. I was unable to do it. I have met with them over the last four days. It is a very critical issue for them so that they can understand how I should be voting on it and understand the consequences of the vote that we are going to take in a few minutes.

Could the member please, with some precision, describe to us what “nation” means? We are about to confer that status on an entire group of Canadians. I think it is extremely important before we do this in the next few minutes that the member try to answer that question.

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like my hon. friend from down the 401 to know the results of an online poll regarding whether or not we should support this motion. The latest results as of a few minutes ago are running basically 70% to 30%, suggesting for members of the House, if they care about what the voters think in terms of polls, that 70% want us to vote against the motion and 30% want us to vote in favour of it.

First, I am wondering if the member might be able to comment on that, on whether he takes that into consideration at all in determining how he is actually going to cast his ballot 40 minutes from now or whether he does not care.

Second, we have a great example here of the suck and blow school of government, where people are saying on the one hand that this motion does not really matter that much. They are saying that it does not confer any special powers on the Québécois or give any special powers to the province of Quebec, that it is just semantics, just words. On the other hand, we are told that if we do not pass this tonight, if we do not rush to judgment, we are turning our backs on the people of Quebec.

Then, of course, we have the argument about our friends from the Bloc Québécois. If we do not pass it, they are going to go willy-nilly into another referendum and win because we have turned our backs on Quebec. However, if we do pass this motion, it gives them no tools to campaign with. If I were those guys sitting here, I would be rubbing my hands in glee waiting for the clock to hit 8 p.m. so that I could have this finally behind me. There they go. They are doing it already.

They are happy because this motion plays right into the hands of the people the hon. member just made an impassioned speech about wanting to foil. Suck and blow: they cannot have it both ways. I fear that right now we are going down the wrong path. Would the hon. member please comment?

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for pointing the errors of my ways.

As I was saying, I know the hon. member cannot vote against this motion. I understand that. He made that choice. He is a part of a team. There is no i in team. We both understand that. However, I would like him to explain to my constituents, because I cannot answer this, and he believes in these things, so tell them--

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the hon. member. I have been trying to get an answer to this question for a little while in this chamber today.

Could I please get from the hon. member a definition of the word “nation” in English or “nation” in French. It is important to my constituents to understand exactly what it is I am about to vote on in an hour and 10 minutes after a very short and unsatisfactory debate.

It is important to my constituents because I had some meetings in my riding and they peppered me with this question over and over again. They asked me for an explanation of exactly what is it we are conferring upon the Québécois. What is the definition of “nation”. Only when people know what the definition of that word is can they then reasonably understand what the consequences might be down the road of having granted nationhood status to the Québécois.

What does this mean? Is it purely symbolic as some members have said? It means nothing; it is semantics. They said it is only a collection of words to make the separatists go away.

Other people have said it is consequential. This is an important matter. It is so important that all the members on the Conservative side are under a three line whip. They do not have the ability not to vote for this motion. If they do not vote for this motion, they are out of the caucus. Gentlemen, there is a warm chair right beside me here. It is empty at the moment. They are all welcome to come and visit me, and live here if they would like.

It is interesting that a member of the Prime Minister's government was lost this afternoon. The Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, whose riding abuts mine, an honourable man, and whose honour was so great as a matter of fact that he could not sit on that side of the House tonight under a three line whip and subjugate the will of his constituents and his own moral compass, his own sense of honour, his own duty to Canadians, and vote for this motion. I am sure that he does not know what a “nation” means either, other than our nation of Canada.

I ask the hon. member, and I know you cannot vote against this even if you wanted to,--

[The Québécois, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I consulted with my constituents quite at length over the last three or four days at a town hall meeting in my riding. There were a few questions that emerged, which I would like the member to address if he could.

Also, we have been conducting an online poll over the last 48 hours. It is interesting that the polling results have been running 70% of people urging me to vote against the motion tonight and roughly 30% asking me to vote for the motion. We are getting about a thousand people ever few hours voting online.

I know Internet polls are notoriously unreliable. It is, however, an indication of where Canadians perhaps are on this issue. In the town hall meeting in my riding, people voted by a ratio of 30:1, asking me to vote against this particular motion.

I will pass along to the hon. member the questions my constituents have asked and perhaps he could answer them.

First, what is a nation? In the context of this motion it is rather ill-defined as to whether we are talking about a population group, an ethnic group, a culture group, a geographic group or a civil government. What would be the member's response to a definition of a nation as contained in the motion?

Second, why the rush? This is a very salient point. People want time to debate and understand exactly what is going on and right now people feel that they do not have that. They would like to know why the House is rushing to a decision in two hour's time and how are we possibly going to deal with something so fundamental in that period of time.

Third, what are the consequences? Do we know if there will be consequences in the long term?

I think our friends from the Bloc Québécois are rather happy that we are about to pass the motion in the House. They obviously are one step further along the road to sovereignty when the Parliament of Canada declares that the Québécois are a nation within Quebec. I can understand completely why they would support that.

Would the hon. member answer my constituents, please, frankly and without platitudes and drop the speaking notes? Could answer those three questions?

[Government Policies, November 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Québécois motion is very concerning for many Canadians and word now is that the government's Minister for Sport and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs has just resigned because of it.

Could the Prime Minister please brief this House on this development and tell us whether he is ready to withdraw this divisive motion?