John Finlay

[Sahtu Dene And Metis Land Claim Settlement Act, April 25th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. colleague's speech. He raised some questions that I might like to refer to and ask him one in return.

He asked: "Is this agreement fair?" If this agreement were arrived at by an equal number of participants who wanted to make an agreement that would stand and serve their interests, those of Canada and those of the aboriginal people, it is probably fair.

He said that 16,000 square kilometres was a whole lot of land. I agree but we do have a lot of land in the country. Then he said they were custodians. I suggest aboriginal people made less impression on this land in 36,000 years than we immigrants made in the past 200. In fact in the past 50 years we have done a pretty good job of changing the face of this land.

It might be a good thing to return some custodianship to those who believe that the land suckles us all and that it is here for our children and grandchildren and not for our exploitation.

He said that the Dene wanted to participate but that the money may turn out to be mistake. He asked: "Will this agreement lead to self-sufficiency?" All members of the House would like to say they hope very much that it will. Certainly what we have been doing up to now has not led to self-sufficiency. Maybe we had better try another approach to see whether it will work.

[Unemployment Insurance Act, April 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today addresses a concern of every person who knows, understands and values the family business today.

The Unemployment Insurance Act stipulates that workers who are related to their employer are covered by unemployment insurance if they qualify as do other workers. They work under the same sort of employment contract as other workers who are not related to the employer. Their employment is insured and they pay premiums.

This means that if they become unemployed they will also be able to claim any benefits for which they are qualified. Factors such as rate of pay, conditions of employment, length, type and importance of their work will determine whether or not their employment is insurable. Clearly the basic question of providing equal coverage to family businesses has been dealt with in the existing legislation and the guidelines for administration of unemployment insurance provisions are set out.

In the last four years how have family businesses fared in participating in the benefits provided to alleviate involuntary temporary unemployment?

I am confident that a brief survey of the situation in the typical riding will reveal this scenario. Family businesses which have paid into the unemployment insurance account found they needed the benefits. They filed their claims for the husband, daughter, mother or son who had to be laid off. They demonstrated the legitimacy of the claims and they received the benefits to which they were entitled. The benefits for which they may qualify include a broad range of services designed to help them end their temporary involuntary unemployment.

Special benefits particularly relevant to a family business include the following: 15 weeks of maternity benefits in the period surrounding the birth of a child; 10 weeks of parental benefits available to natural or adoptive parents, either mother or father, or shared between them as they deem appropriate; and a flexible combination of regular, sickness, maternity, and parental benefits. More than one type of special benefit can be claimed within the same benefit period up to 30 weeks. In addition claimants may receive special benefits in combination with regular benefits.

We can well imagine the situation where a mother and father are operating a business together. One of them becomes ill. This immediately threatens the entire future of that business. Under unemployment insurance provisions today the person who is ill may claim benefits which can help maintain the income of that person and help to keep the family business alive.

Tens of thousands of legitimate businesses with legitimate claims for benefits for which the employer and the employee have paid are receiving those benefits. The responsible competent management of the unemployment insurance fund has produced billions of dollars in benefits. These benefits have helped to ensure the financial survival of countless numbers of families who are operating their own businesses.

Then there is the case of a family business experiencing a slowdown and which must let go perhaps a daughter or son who is an employee. For many of those persons unemployment insurance has provided benefits while starting a new business to meet a new need in the marketplace.

This is just one example of how flexible and versatile the Unemployment Insurance Act can be to provide real solutions to real problems.

I suggest that each of us inquire among families we know that have benefited from the present act and learn their opinion. I believe that people who know the breadth and depth of the Unemployment Insurance Act will tell us that this act does serve well legitimate family business with a legitimate claim.

The anomalies which can eventually appear in any act are best dealt with in a comprehensive way in the context of all the social programs which the federal government provides.

I believe that in spite of the intentions of the hon. member who introduced this bill this proposal is not in the best interest of family businesses, of any people who participate in our unemployment insurance program or of all Canadians.

During the Easter recess I had the opportunity of holding three meetings in my riding in connection with the social security review. I had good attendance at these meetings and I had people from across the county and people who were involved in providing support services to our citizens. I can say that the recommendations I received were wide ranging and will add to the national debate that is occurring on this matter in Canada now.

I believe all of us as members of Parliament should consult our ridings to pass on their concerns to the minister. I and my staff have prepared a report of my meetings to pass on to the hon. Minister of Human Resources Development for his consideration in this process. After I have given the report to the minister I would be happy to share it with any interested members who

would like to conduct such meetings on this very important review.

I believe the bill before us should also be considered within the social policy review. It is best for us to consult the people of Canada on this crucial issue, for it is their money we are working with.

There was discussion on unemployment insurance and how it might be improved. The general feeling is since it is an insurance plan perhaps those who are most likely to become uninsured should pay a higher premium than those who are employed in a more secure occupation, a sort of pay as much as you are likely to need plan.

There is also a great deal of concern, as the hon. member across the House pointed out, for abuses within the system. There are people who spend most of their time collecting unemployment benefits and not contributing to the plan. I do not suggest that family businesses are necessarily one of those.

Another thing that I have learned in my brief five months as an MP is that to a lot of our constituents we can fix anything. We are supposed to know everything and we are supposed to be able to fix anything that goes wrong. As you would know from your experience, Mr. Speaker, they do not always distinguish between federal plans, provincial plans, municipal plans or even private plans.

I have had many requests about problems with internal revenue, about problems with UI, about problems with the Canada pension plan and about problems with any number of other plans and services and benefits that I knew nothing about. I can honestly say the problem purported to be so serious and to which this amendment relates is one that is entirely new to me. No one has complained in this regard yet and I am sure there are lots of family businesses in the riding of Oxford as there are in other places.

I congratulate the member for bringing this bill forward, but I would ask her to bring it forward in the social policy review and be looked at along with other recommendations of concerned Canadians.

[Performing Arts, April 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate two acting troupes within my riding of Oxford. The Woodstock Little Theatre recently won the Western Ontario Drama League Festival in London. Another of the main competitors in this event was the Ingersoll Theatre of the Performing Arts.

Both groups gave very creditable performances and the Woodstock presentation will now move on to the provincial championships to be held this May in Cambridge, Ontario.

As an amateur actor myself, I know firsthand the amount of work that goes into these productions. There are always a large number of people behind the scenes who do a great amount of work with much less recognition than those who appear on stage. Together these little theatre people provide live theatre to enthusiastic audiences in many towns and cities across this land. They are to be applauded.

[Supply, March 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I hope the previous speaker from the Reform Party listened to my hon. colleague because he would have learned something about history that my hon. friend mentioned and that I was going to mention earlier. We had a depression when the law of supply and demand held sway in the country, on this continent and in the world. We had a mini replay of the thirties in the eighties. We got heated up and there was to be no tomorrow. Interest rates went as high as 19 per cent.

My question has to do with the jurisdictional wars I heard about. In the House committee I am serving on we are working at harmonizing matters between departments and levels of government, not having wars. The infrastructure program was very

careful in putting decision making at the local level, at the municipal level, and that is where it is. I have seen no evidence of jurisdictional wars.

Perhaps my hon. friend does not have that kind of co-operation in his riding. I do in my riding. People are very pleased with the fact that they are deciding at the grassroots level where the money is to go.

[Taxation, March 10th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance.

Before I ask my question, Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that most of my constituents, most of the people of Canada, and most hon. members in this House would congratulate the Minister of Finance on a masterful and balanced budget.

Canadian press in the London Free Press of February 7, 1994 reported that 20 Canadian millionaires paid less than $100 each in income tax in 1991. The report goes on to state that 190 Canadians who earn more than $.25 million filed non-taxable returns for 1991.

Will the hon. minister assure this House that such tax loopholes will be closed in this taxation year?

[Petitions, March 9th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present another petition. This petition has been signed by constituents of mine and of another member.

These petitioners are opposed to profiteering at the expense of the victims of violent crime. I too stand on the side of the victims.

These petitioners want tougher measures taken against those who perpetrate violent crimes against women, children and the disabled, in short, the weakest and most vulnerable in our society.

As this is International Women's Week it is imperative we as legislators stand in unison regardless of political affiliation against those elements in our society which condone violent crime by profiting from the sale of killer cards. Such inducements to violence must be controlled and eliminated.

(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think there were three or four questions there. There were a couple at the start. I might remind my hon. friend that while death and taxes may be sure, the other sure thing in this world is change.

When the Constitution was written we were not flying across the ocean in six hours. We were not flying from the capital to Vancouver in four and a half hours. We were not picking up the telephone and calling our offices at home. There was no such thing as electronics, fibre optics and a lot of other things we now have. The Constitution did a good jobs in those days for what people knew.

I suggest to my hon. friend that he has to keep up with the times. We have the problem of airlines and telecommunications. These things need new approaches.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my hon. colleague. I am glad that he found some of the comments about Oxford interesting.

With respect to the budget and his very appropriate question, we must not forget that this budget cuts $5 in spending for every $1 it takes in through taxes or other payments.

I agree that the Canadian people do not want any more taxes. I said that they wanted a tax system that is equitable and in which those that can pay their fair share. I do not think this budget goes as far in this regard as it can. I remind the hon. member that the matter of family trusts is being taken up by a committee and that there are other changes that the finance minister pointed out would be dealt with in future.

[The Budget, February 24th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the elected member for the Oxford riding to make my maiden speech in this elegant and venerable chamber. When I visited this place as a high school student some 50 years ago, I little thought that I would have the opportunity to address my hon. colleagues as a member of Her Majesty's government. However, that day has arrived and it is an intensely moving experience for me.

I am proud to represent all the citizens of Oxford riding and Burford Township and I thank them for giving me the opportunity to serve them and Canada.

Oxford County and Burford Township, which make up the riding of Oxford, are situated in the agricultural heartland of southwestern Ontario. It is not as rugged as Alberta or B.C., or as expansive as Manitoba or Saskatchewan, nor does it have the rocky coasts and oceans of maritime Canada. It does have the pastoral beauty, character and history of many predominantly rural ridings in central Canada.

Agriculture is the backbone of our communities. We have tobacco farms in the southern part of Oxford around Tillsonburg, which is a progressive town, supporting factories, supplying parts to the automotive industry. Tillsonburg is also the headquarters of the Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board.

About 25 kilometres north of Tillsonburg is the town of Ingersoll, the home of the huge, modern General Motors Suzuki automobile plant known as CAMI.

The county seat is in the city of Woodstock, population 30,000. It is the administrative centre of Oxford County and has many factories serving the automotive and trucking industry, as well as several concrete fabricating plants, foundries and metal machining factories. The linings for the new Detroit River tunnel are being fabricated in Woodstock.

Woodstock is proud to be called the dairy capital of Canada and its symbol for the last 50 years is a holstein cow, Springbank Snow Countess, owned and milked by Tom Dent, a former Speaker of the legislative assembly of Ontario between 1943 and 1955. A life size statue of Snow Countess stands proudly beside the highway just as one enters Woodstock from the east.

I could wax eloquent about the hundreds of well kept dairy farms throughout Oxford County and Burford Township. There are also cash crop farmers, pork producers and chicken farmers. In fact, Cold Springs Farms of Thamesford is one of Ontario's largest turkey producers and processors.

Burford Township boasts some high tech factories and an outstanding research farm. Just north of Woodstock is the Western Ontario Breeders Incorporated which collects, tests, stores and sells semen around the world for the artificial insemination of cattle.

Oxford, my hon. friends, was the birthplace of some interesting historical characters. Aimie Semple MacPherson, the California evangelist, was born and raised near Ingersoll. A woman with a less admirable but no less colourful life was Cassie Chadwick, the famous con artist who lived very high off the hog in Cleveland, Ohio by pretending to be the illegitimate daughter of the New York City millionaire Andrew Carnegie of library fame.

On the male side, "Colonel" Joe Boyle, the saviour of Romania, was a Woodstonian who made a fortune from hydraulic placer mining in the Klondike following the gold rush. He equipped his own machine gun battery of ex-mounties and miners and transported them to France in the first world war. He was sent to Romania and Russia to reorganize the railroads. He rescued the crown jewels and 20 million in currency for Queen Marie of Romania from the Kremlin during the Bolshevik revolution.

His bones were returned to Woodstock several years ago and reburied. The Reverend John Davies of old St. Paul's Anglican Church in Woodstock, who lived to be 101 and who had known Joe Boyle in the Klondike, presided at the reinternment.

I will just mention some other heroes. The Mighty Men of Zorra, the tug-o-war team which won the world title at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, was commemorated last year on July 1 at the Annual Highland Games in Embro by an international tug-o-war contest. The anchorman on the 1893 team, Robert MacIntosh, had a chest expansion of 52 inches.

Last year the unlimited class hydroplane, Miss Canada IV, was returned to Ingersoll to the Centennial Park Museum by Harold Wilson, its owner and driver. Miss Canada IV broke Sir Malcolm Campbell's world speedboat record in the 1930s.

I want to share with my hon. colleagues some of the things I believe about this country. I believe passionately in this country. I agree with the view expressed two weeks ago by one of the hon. members opposite who said there were three founding realities in Canada's past, the aboriginal people, the French and the English.

My hon. friend from the Bloc went on to point out very rightly that now more than one-third of Canadians, 12 million in fact, are neither aboriginal, English nor French, but come from many cultures and races.

I would like to remind all hon. members that 52 per cent of Canadians are women.

I am proud to espouse the Liberal philosophy and to be part of this Liberal government. Our members represent people from one end of this great country to the other, both ways, and bottom to top.

Just look at the diversity along these government benches and across the way in the rump corner. Nearly every one of the ethnic groups which make up this country is represented in this government. We have not yet achieved parity in representation for women. Yet, 37 Liberals out of the 52 women members in this House is a great improvement over the last government.

I believe that Canadians want this government to succeed. They want to help Canadians get back to work. They want an equitable tax system in which everyone pays their fair share.

They want a revised safety net of social programs which is affordable, makes sense, and serves all those who need it but not those who do not. The people want us to govern firmly. They want peace, law and order. They approve of the Prime Minister's multifaceted and firm approach to the tobacco smuggling problem. They want a searching review of the Young Offenders Act and our parole system with respect to serial killers and violent sexual offenders.

This government committed itself in the throne speech to a more open process and more power to the backbenchers on both sides of this House. I would remind the hon. members opposite that provincial governments are just as guilty of overlap and unnecessary duplication of programs as the federal government ever was.

In this first budget presented by the hon. Minister of Finance we have fulfilled another promise from our famous red book.

This budget will stimulate small and medium size businesses to undertake new ventures and test new markets. It will reduce significantly government spending on inefficient and non-productive programs. It will force a thorough review of all our social security programs and our defence department's role to make sure that we can deliver the programs we need efficiently and effectively.

The budget does broaden the tax base and stops up loopholes in the tax system. It collects more taxes from large corporations and the rich. It will reduce the unemployment insurance premiums to help small business expand.

It lengthens the minimal work requirement and lowers the percentage benefit for all except those who have dependents and need.

There are many other provisions which reduce government spending.

In conclusion, I give a quotation from Sir Wilfrid Laurier which I would ask all hon. members to ponder, particularly those in Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from Quebec.

In 1911 Sir Wilfrid said:

I am branded in Quebec as a traitor to the French and in Ontario as a traitor to the English. In Quebec, I am branded as a jingo and in Ontario as a separatist. In Quebec I am attacked as an imperialist and in Ontario as an anti-imperialist. I am neither. I am a Canadian. Canada has been the inspiration of my life. I have had before me as a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, a policy of true Canadianism, of moderation, of conciliation.

I honour the spirit of Sir Wilfred and I commend his balanced and zealous view of this great country to all honourable members.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments and ideas behind the speech, however inherent in what the hon. member has said lies the danger. He has said petitions must not be frivolous. He said that the British House had 33,000 in one year and obviously things got out of hand.

Unfortunately most petitions are generated by special interest groups. I put one example to my hon. friend for his comment. He mentioned a petition of 1,000 signatures concerning abortion which took a great deal of effort. I trust the hon. member knows the latest poll with respect to abortion shows that 70 per cent to 80 per cent of Canadians do not want abortion made illegal. In other words in the vernacular they are pro choice. Therefore if we paid too much attention to a special interest petition of one million signatures we would be getting ourselves into a great deal of trouble.

All members in this House represent people in their ridings. If we are doing our jobs we know largely what most of them think. We should be in touch with the silent majority and we should not be swayed too rapidly by special interest groups.