Gary Lunn

[Aboriginal Affairs, March 17th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the homeowners in Clydesdale Estates, in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, face yet another year of uncertainty.

They are caught in the middle of a legal battle between the Tsarlip Indian Band and the department of Indian affairs. The department, on behalf of the band, negotiated and signed a lease to allow a residential development on band lands. This same band is now suing the department over this lease.

To voice its protest over this development, the band unilaterally elected to cut off the sewer main between the development and the municipality.

This has had a devastating impact on the residents of Clydesdale Estates. They have seen the value of their homes decline and some have been forced to abandon their homes and declare bankruptcy. I would remind members that this is no laughing matter. These people are in a crisis situation. They have put their entire savings into these homes.

Over a year ago they went to the minister for help and she told them to be patient. Would she wait this long?

[Division No. 96, March 9th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, on February 6 I asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans a question with respect to Yves Fortier who had just quit as Canada's chief Pacific salmon negotiator.

This is an issue which I have been deeply concerned about. This government has had four years to deal with it. As I stand here in my place and speak today, we are worse off than we were on June 2 when I was elected. I will not say that it seemed to be the height of the crisis because I think it could get even worse, but it was a very tough and difficult time for us, as has been the last four years.

We are worse off today than we were before. At the present time we have no negotiators acting on Canada's behalf. We have heard the minister make statements in recent weeks that they are waiting for the United States to contact Canada to resume negotiations. I would suggest that we have had over four years now, a time of waiting, and we have to get on with it.

The reason I asked the question about Yves Fortier is that he was the one person whom British Columbia fishermen had confidence in and he was acting on their behalf. He has now left and it is arguable why he left. I would suggest he left because the government did not give him the backing he needed. He saw no way out of the dispute without a commitment from this government.

Will the minister tell British Columbia fishermen how they can expect to have any confidence in this government when our negotiator had none?

This is a very serious issue. At present we are only a few months away from the beginning of the next fishing season and we do not have anybody representing our issues. We are not even in discussions. We are not in negotiations. Nothing is happening. Zero. Four years of nothing and it is going downward.

This government has to get on with it. This is a very important issue. Again I ask the parliamentary secretary what his government's plans are. When is the government going to act? When can we expect negotiations to resume? Does the government anticipate having this matter resolved prior to the next fishing season?

[Petitions, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition on behalf of 564 constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands and the surrounding area.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to enact legislation to repeal the Young Offenders Act and replace it with an act that will provide penalties for violent crimes committed by young people that will act as a deterrent to such actions and provide safety and security to the general public as well.

We have had a very large increase in crime in our area. The public is gravely concerned and they are of the belief that what is in place is clearly not working. They are asking Parliament to act.

[House Of Commons, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a few points. I want to respond to the NDP member for Kamloops who suggested that you really want this to go to committee. I believe that is not accurate at all. Your reason is that we are debating it before the House because you want the House to decide without question.

I want to respond to the member who brought the motion forward, the Progressive Conservative member who has drawn an analogy to a civil case. I do not see this analogy and I will explain why.

It is true before the courts, or the general public for that matter, that litigants are not permitted to lobby the judge, the arbitrator or a juror when making a decision.

I submit that is not the issue here at all. When the original motion was brought forward, or the point of order, I was also standing along with the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca. As is your role, Mr. Speaker, you recognized him. I respected that and I sat down. I did not have a chance to voice my concerns, but I had twice gone looking for you and was unsuccessful in finding you. This was an important enough issue for me that I wanted to talk to you and say that I at least have to voice my concerns to you on this point of order. I was absolutely going to try to influence your vote, without question. I believe that is perfectly appropriate in these circumstances.

I also believe it is perfectly appropriate if the public telephones you or faxes you or lobbies you to put their comments on the record.

This is an issue about your integrity. I believe that is why you are sitting in the chair. That is why we elected you. We are confident that you will make a decision which we will respect.

I had every intention of lobbying you, Mr. Speaker, because I did not have an opportunity to speak on the original motion and I felt it was very important that I do so. I disagree with the analogy which was made by the member of the Progressive Conservative Party that if this were a civil court case it would be improper to lobby you outside the House concerning your decision.

I am sure you have received faxes from the public, Mr. Speaker, on a matter of this importance. I am sure you have received phone calls from the general public. I would respectfully submit that the general public is not in contempt. They have every right to send information to you.

It is a matter of voicing our opinions. It is very important to me that you hear my concerns. I will not do that now. I want to, but I have not been able to do it. I will respect your decision, but again I think I have the right to let you know how I feel.

Some members have chosen to do that through the newspaper. We deal with it all the time. Every single day we see things in the newspaper about members of the House, their staff and other government officials. We have to filter through them to know what they mean.

Mr. Speaker, I have the highest respect for your office and for that matter for yourself. I will put that on the record. However, had I walked out of here and somebody had stuck a camera in my face and had asked me for my comments, I would have stated them quite openly, quite honestly and quite appropriately I may add with no disregard for your office whatsoever.

Again I will say that I respect your decision to let the House decide the issue. The other point of order is a separate issue entirely. We must respect your decision. We must respect your office. You are sitting in that chair because we put you there and because we believe in your integrity. Otherwise you would not be there. I am convinced of that.

I will not support the motion. Although I may not have chosen to lobby this way, other members have. They feel quite strongly about the issue and want to have their comments on the record. You are sitting there waiting to make a decision, which you can do with total impartiality.

[Fisheries, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am responding to comments made by the minister, not to anything else. These comments were made by the minister. They were in all the papers across the country.

Will the minister accept the evidence of thousands of fishermen on both coasts and scientists who have stated that the management of this fishery has been an absolute colossal disaster? Will he act now and accept their evidence? It is his comments I am asking about.

[Fisheries, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the fisheries minister stated that he would replace senior bureaucrats if evidence showed they were responsible for the collapse of the Atlantic fishery.

Will the minister accept the evidence of hundreds of fishermen and scientists who testified before the committee about DFO's incompetence and cover-ups which have led to this disaster? Will he accept their evidence? Will he act now and fire the top bureaucrats?

[The Budget, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that it was not me who heard those comments during the election because I would have been absolutely disgusted and appalled.

I can give the member a personal experience. My brother-in-law, who has been married to my sister for four years, chose to stay home and raise his three daughters while my sister worked as a teacher. I made it very clear that this is not a gender issue. We are in the 1990s. Maybe some of the Liberal people who ran in the election were not aware of that. It is an issue where families have chosen to stay at home, especially when children are young and it is so important that they get that important start and that they get the nurturing, love and caring that they need and that they get the values.

Some families are just not in the financial situation where they can. Some have chosen that the second parent will only work half time because they want to be their for their children to give them that most important start.

If this government could recognize that there is so much unfairness in our tax system to these families, it might be able to have more people stay home if it gave them the same opportunities that it gives both parents who work.

If my wife went out and got a job for zero money, I would be further ahead because we would both be working and would be given different tax incentives which we are not now entitled to. That is the point. We could deduct $7,000 off our income for child care expenses. It is incredible.

The situation in my family is we have two very young children, ages 2 and 4. My wife was a professional and gave up her career. She would some day love to go back to work. Right now she believes it is so important for our two children. They need her at home right now. She is staying at home and gets zero, absolutely zero. What is even worse is that she does need time for herself. She does need a half a day. She does need a day. She would not get the same thing as if somebody takes her children off to day care. This is only one example. There are many, many areas in our system today where we do not recognize the importance of raising children as an important role in society. This tax unfairness is only one aspect.

We have a very important role to ensure that this gets recognition. This is one of the most important occupations in the land. I think it will go a long way to starting to change this kind of discrimination and tax fairness for all. I am going to be addressing this in the months ahead and pressing this government.

[The Budget, March 9th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to comment on the government's budget. It is a budget which I see as a missed opportunity, a shallow budget and it does not deal with the issues.

However, let us deal with the positives. In most things there are positives and negatives. The positives will be brief. This is the first balanced budget in 28 years, something we can all celebrate and be proud of.

The next question, after a balanced budget, we have to ask ourselves is what are we going to do with the surplus, if there is any, and how are we going to go in the years ahead.

I want to inform the House that I did a poll in December and received just short of 2,500 responses. An overwhelming number of people from Saanich—Gulf Islands responded to the poll.

One of the questions I asked was what we should be doing with any future surpluses. I asked is our spending just right, do we need tax relief, do we need debt reduction, what should the priorities be.

I want to inform the House that 95% of the 2,500 respondents from Saanich—Gulf Islands stated very clearly that the priorities have to be lower taxes and debt reduction. This government does not have it yet.

Now we are going to the downside of the budget. It was actually 2,491 respondents who replied to the survey. What we have, and it scares me, is a bunch of ministers who are now lined up at the Prime Minister's door with their Christmas wish lists, and this government has just gone into a spending binge like it has never seen money before. That really scares me.

What we saw in this new budget is $11 billion for spending over the next three years. There are a number of my colleagues around me from British Columbia. If anybody can talk about high taxes in this country, British Columbians can. They are crippling the economy. The British Columbia economy will, out of all the provinces in this country, have the best economic growth. Why? We are one of the highest taxed provinces.

That has to start out of this House. This House has to lower the taxes. The government has a priority. What have we seen? Not lower taxes, but this is the very government that has brought tax increases which caused the downturn in the recession of British Columbia.

We have seen the single largest tax increase, the Canada pension plan increase. This government is proud of it. It is one tax increase after another. Yet we see the minister stand up, very proud of his so-called tax reductions, but they are insignificant. Those members stand up and go on and on. We have the new millennium fund. They talk about that providing an education for students, giving them opportunities.

If the so-called slush fund of the Prime Minister is dissected and if we ask what it will do for students, we will see that it will help a handful of them. A whopping 6% of all the students are going to see one dime of that money. The other 94% will not see five cents worth of it. The government has not addressed any of the real problems at all.

The other factor the government did not address is the debt. We know we need tax relief. Canadians are telling us loud and clear that we still have a massive debt in this country.

This government since 1993 has added $75 billion to this debt. Every Canadian taxpayer's first $3,200 goes to pay interest on the debt. That does not talk about paying down the debt. It the first $3,200 that people send into this House right here. There is something wrong and this government has to make it a priority.

There is no money allocated to debt reduction. We have seen the Prime Minister say we will put $3 billion into this new fund and after three years we will decide if we want to put it on the debt.

The government has no vision. It has no plan. It does not know which programs and how long the wish lists are of its ministers. It wants to make sure it has enough money in this little fund to accommodate all the wish lists first. Then, and it is a big if, it is a maybe, like everything with this government, it will tell us if it will put anything on debt reduction.

I do not have a full 10 minutes since I spoke for a few minutes last time, therefore I will go right to the back end. This is what disturbs me the most regarding this budget.

We have heard the word discrimination used in this House. If we want to talk about discrimination, here is a budget that is discriminatory. It really troubles me.

This government has not only failed to address the importance of parents who choose to stay home to raise their children and the value they bring into society, but it is discriminating against them, which is worse.

The government has increased the limits for child care expense deductions to $7,000 for children under age 7 and to $4,000 for children ages 7 to 16. These deductions are only available to people if they are working. When a person chooses to stay home and care for their families, it is in my view probably the single most important role we have in our society today, and this government puts zero importance on that. It is an absolute disgrace.

The Liberals should be ashamed of themselves. They can sit over there and hang their heads, which they should. They not only failed to address the important role stay at home parents play in society today, but they made it worse for them.

There are so many areas in our tax act which could allow one parent who recognizes the importance, value and contribution this makes to our society to stay at home. I have had many personal experiences of these things happening in society. When these people apply for a bank loan they are asked what they do. They say, for example, “I am just a housewife”.

We have a responsibility in this House to change this and make it a priority. However, there is absolutely nothing in this budget which does that. I think this is an absolute disgrace. The government should scrap the refundable child care tax credit and make it available to all families' children whether the parent is working or not. Maybe that stay at home parent, who has been working a lot more hours than anyone who goes out into the workforce, wants a day to themselves and be able to put their children in child care. Maybe they would like one day a week to do something. But they do not get that chance. If someone is working the government will pay for day care but it will not look after the child care expenses for the stay at home mom.

We often talk about crime, which is a serious problem. My hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca introduced a private member's motion a few weeks ago concerning crime prevention as opposed to crime management. I suggest that this goes to the very root cause of some of our societal problems. We need to have people who place importance on the value of raising children in the home.

I appreciate that not all parents can do that. It is very expensive in our society today and many families are forced to have two incomes to survive. However, they at least should not be discriminated against. They should be able to choose. They have enough of a challenge living on one income. We should at least give equal benefit to those parents who choose to work.

There are a number of issues in this budget but I would like to remind the government that its number one priority is the taxpayers and it is high time it gave them some of the dividend that is due to them.

I saw many media reports that stated the Minister of Finance has finally balanced the budget. Imagine that, the finance minister has balanced the budget. I think he is sadly mistaken. It is the Canadian taxpayer who has balanced the budget. I suggest the finance minister was probably clueless about this. Six months ago he was telling us that he had a $17 billion deficit. That was when the election was called. The minister did not know what was going on and that was his best guess.

If the truth be known, this government has raised taxes which are, ironically, all sneaky and hidden taxes. The Liberals stand up and say they have no real tax increases. However, we have gone through the list and there are 34 or 35 of these sneaky hidden tax increases. I have just been advised that there are 37 sneaky and hidden tax increases. This government should be ashamed of itself. It is time it paid that dividend back to the Canadian taxpayers and then put some on the debt, which is what is going to kick start this economy. It is not the minister's wish list lined up at the Prime Minister's door waiting to spend this great big pot of money that they can hardly wait to get their sticky fingers on.

I take interest in the fact that the members on this side of the House are listening. Hopefully they will take this message back to their caucus and rethink this one.

Mr. Speaker, I have just been advised that I was supposed to announce that I was splitting my time. I did announce it at the beginning of my speech, just before the break. I spoke for three minutes and I understood I had seven minutes to complete my speech. There was some confusion.

[The Budget, February 26th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I would also like to split my 20 minutes with a colleague, but I understand that I will only have three or four minutes before I will be cut off for the vote.

First of all, I wish I could be as proud of this budget as I am to be a Canadian and as I am of our national anthem and our flag. I mean that sincerely. I would have liked to have had an opportunity to speak on this issue earlier, but I did not.

I want to talk about the positive in the budget. There is one positive. Canadians taxpayers, all across this country, can give themselves a pat on the back. They balanced the budget.

Too often we have heard that the Minister of Finance or this government or the Liberals have done it, but there is no question about it, the taxpayers have suffered in order to balance the budget.

Now I will get into the negative side of it. I will focus on three areas. I only have a couple of minutes so I will rush through this quite quickly.

They keep talking about this 50:50 plan. There is absolutely no question that the evidence before this House is that this is 100% increased spending. There is zero debt reduction. There is absolutely zero tax relief. There is no question about it.

Government members will have a few token things to say to suggest that there is tax relief, but there is not. Make no mistake about it, there is no tax relief.

I listened to the constituents of Saanich—Gulf Islands. I sent out a resumé. I am here as their voice to speak on their behalf. I got over 2,000 responses. Ninety-five per cent of those responses said the most important priorities are to pay down the debt and reduce taxes. Five per cent said that the most important priority was to increase spending.

What has this government done? It has not only increased spending in this budget, the $3 billion—and they do not seem to know where it has gone—has gone into the Prime Minister's or the finance minister's personal slush fund.

I am going to speak specifically to a couple of points because a lot of the points I was going to make have already been made.

This is a Liberal debt. Make no mistake about it. The Liberals have added $75 billion to the debt since they took office. There is $5.5 billion worth of interest each year.

This is what I find to be quite amazing. We listen in the House of Commons day after day after day to the Liberals talking about the debt. What do they do all the time? They blame the Tories.

The Minister of Finance points to the Tories and says “The Tories left us this big mess in 1993”. But the Liberals started it long before the Tories were in power. They are the ones who brought in this debt under former Prime Minister Trudeau. They started it and look where we are today. The Liberals stand up so proudly and pass the buck over to the Tories. They should be ashamed of themselves.

I want to speak to a point which I think is absolutely shameful.

The Liberals keep talking about families. This government and this budget have absolutely no respect for the stay-at-home parent who looks after their family. They are discriminated against now in this budget.

[Canada Labour Code, February 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to commend the hon. member for Wetaskiwin for his comments on this bill, as well as the hon. member for Calgary West who just outlined the problems with this bill.

I will focus my speech on an alternative and why I think this alternative can work. I understand that government members are arguing that it will not work. I will offer suggestions to them as to why it will work. It will save this country billions of dollars every year. I would ask them to listen carefully. They have probably heard about this in the House before. I am talking about final offer selection arbitration.

I practised labour law. Prior to that I worked in industrial relations for a forest products company where we faced these problems every day. For five years I was involved in the negotiating process.

To put it in a nutshell, final offer selection arbitration is when two parties, party A and party B , have both made their very best offer. They have come to an impasse. If they cannot reach a negotiated settlement the arbitrator is forced to pick only A or B , nothing in the middle. One of the two must be picked.

Final offer selection arbitration does not hamper the negotiating process. In fact it helps it. There will be more agreements negotiated between unions and employers with this type of a process than without. When all the benefits of this process are realized I believe it will be welcomed.

The parties know what will happen if they do not reach a negotiated settlement. They will come to the table with the most reasonable offer, an offer which is close to where it should be. Instead of coming to the table saying that they want $35 an hour when they would really settle for $20, they are going to start at a very reasonable settlement because they know that if they reach an impasse the arbitrator is forced to pick one or the other. If they are too far away from what really should be the appropriate settlement, the arbitrator is going to be forced to go the other way. That is fundamental.

I have heard criticisms from the government side saying that this is not just about money, that so many other issues are involved in negotiations. There is everything from medical, to pensions, to benefits, to working conditions, to hours and also to salaries and compensation. I would suggest to members on that side of the House that it is the entire package the arbitrator is forced to accept, either A or B , nowhere in between.

The union and the company comes to the table with a package. It is not strictly money we are talking about. Both parties will come to the table with a package that is very close to reasonable because obviously if they are at an impasse, they will want their package to be selected. If they are way out in left field or right field their package will not be selected.

Let me give an analogy of how well this works. The civil courts in British Columbia have somewhat of a similar system. The principle is the same on how it works. Two people who are going to sue each other file a lawsuit in the supreme court. Let us say someone sues someone else for $100,000. The person being sued disagrees and offers $60,000 to settle out of court. The parties get together before they go to trial and make offers back and forth. If they are unable to reach a settlement prior to going to court, then in the court the justice makes a decision and the party on the wrong side has to pay a premium of the court costs of the other party.

In other words, if the person who was being sued for $100,000 made an offer for $60,000 and it was not accepted, and the judge made a decision of $59,000, then because they did not accept that offer the other party would have to pay their court costs because they were right. I know I might be losing some people in this analogy but the bottom line is that it forces the lawyers when they are making their offers to be as reasonable as possible to what they think a judge would impose. By doing that they come very close together and quite often they settle. Exactly the same principle would work here in final offer selection arbitration.

By doing that the unions and the companies will come to the table with very reasonable packages because they do not want an offer imposed on them. Worse off, if their offer is so far out of range, they know that the arbitrator will be forced to select the other offer without question.

I would ask the government members to listen to this. Look at what happened just in the last year, the number of strikes we have had, the lost productivity and the lost opportunities for this country. It was in the billions of dollars.

We need to have legislation that would assist companies and unions into a negotiated settlement. I emphasize this because it does not take away anyone's right to a negotiated settlement. The only thing it changes in the whole process is the very last step of does an arbitrator impose a settlement if that situation is reached, or is there a mechanism in place.

This mechanism would force the arbitrator into choosing one or the other, as I have stated. Therefore, the parties would come together and it would be a better situation. It is such a simple system and would offer so much to our economy. Our economy is growing and it would grow that much quicker. The lost opportunity is in the billions of dollars.

I would ask members of the government to revisit this bill. It is amending the Canada Labour Code and the government has missed probably the one biggest thing that it could do to assist the unions, to assist companies and more importantly to assist taxpayers and Canadians to make sure that we are not losing this economic opportunity.

Instead, as we have heard from previous speakers, this is going against the principle of democracy with the secret ballots and replacement workers. It is beyond me why this government is addressing all these issues. It will be nice to find out what it is really up to.

Again, this is to offer a constructive alternative. The criticism from the government side is that this will not work because we are not just talking about money. I emphasize that this is not just about money. This final offer selection arbitration or whatever name we might want to give it is the entire package that the parties bring to the table. This principle has been tried in other systems. It has been proven that it works. It will force parties to come very close to the middle. I ask the government to take a look at this.