Rob Moore

[Supply, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely, this is about restoring accountability. There has to be accountability.

Justice Gomery found that the Liberal Party was responsible for these activities. It was the Liberal Party of Canada that benefited from these illegal activities, from taking taxpayers' money and indirectly or directly lining the pockets of Liberal Party activists and Liberal Party workers.

Absolutely, someone has to be responsible. The Liberal Party of Canada has to be responsible. The Prime Minister has to be responsible. The current Prime Minister was the minister of finance at that time. He was the minister responsible for the nation's financing. He was the caretaker of taxpayers' dollars. He was also responsible for this program that was being administered.

The then minister of finance, the current Prime Minister, should have known what was going on. It was his job to take care of our finances. The Liberal Party of Canada benefited from this program. Ultimately that responsibility is on the Liberals and now is an opportunity for Canadians, having heard what Justice Gomery said about the sponsorship scandal, to pass judgment on those responsible.

[Supply, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, we use the word “corruption” because these activities were corrupt. Justice Gomery found that bags of cash were exchanged under tables. There was an orchestrated, organized attempt to take money from Canadian taxpayers, money that the people in my riding worked so hard for, families trying to put their children through university, and single parents. These tax dollars were being taken from Canadian taxpayers and given to the member's party.

That is corrupt. That is why we use the word “corruption” to describe these activities.

[Supply, November 24th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Souris—Moose Mountain.

It is a privilege today to rise on behalf of my constituents of Fundy Royal to speak to only a few of the many reasons why the tired and corrupt Liberal government has lost the confidence of this House.

This House is condemning the Liberal government for its arrogance in refusing to reasonably compromise with the opposition parties over the timing of the next general election and for its culture of entitlement, corruption, scandal, and gross abuse of public funds for its own political purposes.

It could be said that the loss of confidence in the minority Liberal government has been a long time coming. The loss of confidence at this time is the accumulation of more than a decade of mismanagement, waste, and even the stubborn denial of problems that Canadians knew beyond any doubt existed.

Sector by sector, throughout our economy, the Liberals have lost confidence. Group by group, concerned about strong social policies, have lost confidence in the Liberal brand. Canadian by Canadian, concerned about the waste, mismanagement and even theft of their hard earned tax dollars, have lost confidence in the government's ability to clean up the mess exposed by the Auditor General and confirmed by Justice Gomery.

I want to discuss a few other areas where everyday Canadians from my constituency have contacted me to express a lack of confidence in the government's ability to look out for their interests.

First, I will speak a bit about agriculture which is very important in my riding of Fundy Royal. Earlier this week we debated an opposition motion calling on the Government of Canada to give our negotiators at the World Trade Organization talks a mandate to ensure that Canada's supply management sectors are protected and that any agreement reached strengthens the international marketing position of Canada's agricultural sectors.

That motion had to be tabled and debated because farmers and all agricultural stakeholders across Canada are not confident that the government is ensuring that our supply management system will survive the current round of negotiations at the WTO. We should not have had to twist the Liberal government's arms to force it to support our farmers so late in these trade negotiations. The Liberal government in Ottawa should be fighting to protect our producers of eggs, milk and chicken. Rather than taking the lead, the Liberals have been shamed into supporting our farmers.

The agriculture sector in Canada's economy has no confidence in the government's ability to command our negotiators to stand against the agricultural subsidies, tariffs, and other supports that rich economies, namely the United States and Europe, have been giving their agricultural producers.

In my home province of New Brunswick alone, there are 260 dairy farm operations that generate $90 million in farm cash receipts. These are stable businesses, providing steady employment. I have confidence that only a Conservative government will defend the interests of all Canadian farmers on the international stage.

Another area where my constituents have certainly lost confidence in the government is in the area of child care. The Liberal child care plan claims to be universal, but it does not give a single penny to stay-at-home parents, family caregivers, and shift workers. It is particularly biased against those living in rural communities. We have been asking for, and what our Conservative Party stands for, child care dollars to be given directly to parents and letting them decide what is best for their own children.

I want to talk a bit about keeping promises. That is something that this Prime Minister did when he first came to office. He made a lot of promises that Canadians expected him to keep. Canadians certainly cannot have confidence in a government that does not keep its promises.

It started, famously enough, in 1993 when the Liberal government stated it would “kill, scrap and axe the GST”. Of course that did not happen. Ever since then, we have had virtually no confidence in anything that the government says.

Even today we read of another broken promise. We hear that the party opposite intends to run a nasty and dirty campaign, a campaign that is negative. This is what the Prime Minister has stated in the past:

As we go into that election campaign let us understand that we are a party of principle,--

I think Canadians will have a chance in the next election to judge those very principles. He stated also, “I would hope that this would be a campaign of ideas. I do not want to sink to that level”. Yet today, another broken promise, word that we are going to have a negative campaign coming from that side.

The Prime Minister also famously came to power promising to eliminate the democratic deficit. He even, in a way, coined the phrase. What a total farce.

I sit on a subcommittee that is studying the appointment of judges. In spite of evidence from witness after witness that political connections play an important role and some would say the most important role in being selected to the judiciary, the Minister of Justice refused to even acknowledge in any way that any such a link existed. This was in spite of one study in the province of Quebec that showed that over 60% of appointees since 2000 contributed to the Liberal Party of Canada. The fact is that less than 1% of Canadians contribute to any political party, yet when it comes to the appointment of judges, over 60% had contributed to just one party, the party in power.

That is the kind of thing that causes Canadians and members of this House to lose confidence in the government, especially when all it will do is deny a problem even exists. We all know that in order to solve a problem, we first have to admit that there is a problem. I have heard time and time again the Minister of Justice and other ministers say that there is no problem. How can the government fix the democratic deficit when it refuses to admit it exists? The answer very simply is that it cannot.

I believe that a Conservative government is the only one that Canadians can trust that will restore democratic faith in our system.

We have been hearing quite a bit about the Liberal ad scam program, and a lot of this debate centres around it. The government of the day almost lost the Quebec sovereignty referendum. Afterward it told us to be confident, that everything would be okay. Yet we find that the scheme that it set up, instead of bringing Canada together, instead of building a stronger country, has brought us to the point where we are today, where we are torn, we are split. It has created such a backlash among Canadians, such a loss of faith, because the Liberal Party could not see that there is a difference between the country that we all love, the country of Canada, and the Liberal Party of Canada.

That is what Justice Gomery found. He found that there was an intricate web of kickbacks and illegal contributions and deception involving millions of taxpayer dollars spent on Liberal election campaigns. I want to read some quotes from Justice Gomery:

They disregarded the relevant laws governing donations to political parties.

The LPCQ as an institution cannot escape responsibility for the misconduct of its officers and representatives.

Two successive Executive Directors were directly involved in illegal campaign financing, and many of its workers accepted cash payments for their services when they should have known that such payments were in violation of the Canada Elections Act.

The Commission of Inquiry Found:[...] the refusal of Ministers, senior officials in the Prime Minister's Office and public servants to acknowledge their responsibility for the problems of mismanagement that occurred.

The negligent administration of the Sponsorship Program by PWGSC [Public Works and Government Services Canada] opened the door wide to profiteering by those five [communications and advertising] agencies and their owners, and they took full advantage of the opportunity.

Canadians know that as long as the Liberal Party of Canada is in power, no one will be held accountable, no one will be punished, and no meaningful reforms will be made.

I firmly believe that only by electing a Conservative government led by the member for Calgary Southwest will we clean up the mess left behind by the Liberal government.

Finally, the current Liberal government has absolutely no credibility when it comes to tax cuts. We all know that. I have been hearing so much from my constituents. Nobody is fooled. I do not believe there is one Canadian in the country that is fooled by a last ditch deathbed conversion when it comes to tax cuts.

I am encouraged that the Liberals have chosen to run on our platform. All of a sudden we hear the Minister of Justice talking about getting tough on crime. The Minister of Finance, who year after year has said that there is no money for tax cuts, that Canadians cannot have a tax cut, that the government cannot afford a tax cut, is now proposing a tax cut.

Canadians will not be fooled. There is a loss of faith in the government. I believe that the time has come for Canadians to have their say and to pass judgment on the government.

[Petitions, November 16th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to present a petition. The petitioners are urging the Government of Canada to assert its sovereign rights and to declare no rights of passage for LNG tankers through Head Harbour Passage, based on Canadian law and the precedent set in 1976 when oil tankers were refused passage. This is dealing with the Passamaquoddy region of New Brunswick.

[Volunteer Firefighters, November 15th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I recently had the opportunity to attend the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance hearings in Moncton, New Brunswick. We heard testimony from fire chiefs who supported an income tax deduction for volunteer firefighters.

I want to go on the record in support of the proposed income tax deduction of up to $1,000 for volunteer emergency workers. I want to encourage all members of the House to do the same. Especially in light of the billions in the federal surplus, we must ensure that this small measure of recognition is made to the thousands of volunteer firefighters from fire departments all across Canada. All regions of Canada rely on these volunteers. We certainly do in my riding of Fundy Royal and in the province of New Brunswick.

Volunteer firefighters give security to our communities by risking their lives responding to emergencies at a moment's notice and for no pay. They work under hazardous circumstances and physically and emotionally demanding conditions. They help us with the worst tragedies.

These volunteers risk their lives for their fellow citizens. Let us never forget that fact and show our gratitude.

[Petitions, October 26th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to table a petition to prevent passage of LNG tankers through Head Harbour Passage. It is signed by a great number of Canadians, mostly from New Brunswick.

The petitioners urge the Government of Canada to assert its sovereign rights and to declare no rights of passage for LNG tankers through Head Harbour Passage, based on Canadian law and the precedent set in 1976 when oil tankers were refused passage.

[Justice, October 26th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice refuses to admit what is abundantly obvious to every other Canadian: that this Liberal government systematically screens judicial applicants for their Liberal credentials and donations.

Only a fraction of a per cent of Canadians donate to the Liberal Party, yet according to a study by the Montreal Gazette , fully 60% of candidates named to the bench by the government after the 2000 election donated to the Liberal Party.

Does the minister honestly expect Canadians to believe that these donations had no connection to these appointments?

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly interested in my hon. colleague's comments about his rural riding. I have a similar riding in Fundy Royal, New Brunswick, that has many small towns and villages. I hear a lot of the same complaints that he raised about a fear people have in their own homes, which is absolutely unacceptable. I also hear about RCMP detachments that have, for example, six members but only one is on duty because of one circumstance or another. However if that officer should run into, for example, a domestic dispute, he or she will need the next available officer for backup, who is over an hour away, before he or she will even enter a premise to help out if someone is in need.

We did talk a lot recently about justice issues. We are dealing with this bill right now. Who is being served by the Liberal approach to the criminal justice program? To me, there seems to be a distinct lack of compassion. Where is the compassion? My hon. colleague mentioned the young woman who was killed by someone who had 15 to 20 prior offences. Where is the compassion for the victims? Where is the compassion for the families of victims and the compassion for Canadians, in particular, seniors, who fear being alone in their homes?

I am wondering if my hon. colleague can comment on who is being served by this approach to crime.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my hon. colleague. The Liberals have a tendency, which we have seen repeated over and over, to respond to public outrage. The public is rightly outraged about carnage on the streets, about property offences and about people who offend against children and most Canadians, from coast to coast, regardless of their province, town or city, when it comes to the protection of children they want that to be a priority.

There is an absolute reluctance on the part of the government to take steps that actually would be effective. However, because it is just politically smart to do so, there is the need to appear to be doing something. I use, for example, the sex offender registry where, in order to appear to do something, the government introduced a registry but when we scratch beneath the surface we realize that it was a blank registry, a blank sheet of paper with no names, so it was absolutely ineffective. The same for our child protection legislation. It has a nice name. We all agree that children should be protected but what is behind the curtain is an empty shell. It does not protect children.

What we need is a government that looks at the needs of Canadians and addresses them, not in a half-measure but goes all the way by adding some teeth to our criminal justice system so that Canadians will be protected.

[Criminal Code, October 20th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's question is a good question. In the current Criminal Code under the impaired driving provisions that the hon. member has mentioned, there is provision for an increased sentence for serious repeat offenders.

By way of example, let me note that there are situations where someone commits an offence and perhaps learns from their mistake. They do not reoffend. In effect, they have learned their lesson.

But then we hear the horror stories. We are dealing with one now, about repeat sex offenders. Yesterday there was a discussion in this chamber on this very issue. For whatever reason, when people have shown themselves to be an absolute menace to society, to be a danger, or when people have multiple serious offences when it comes to street racing, for example, the party opposite does not want to take it up to the next level and impose a serious consequence.

I think Canadians are left wondering why. In the topic we are dealing with today of street racing, why? When it comes to protection of children, why? When it comes to offences involving property, why?

Why do we not take a more serious approach when people have risen to the top of the class, so to speak, when it comes to criminality and are easily identified as what we would call serious repeat offenders? These people have shown recidivism in their nature. They have shown that they cannot be trusted to honour and respect the safety of their fellow citizens. Yet we will not take a correspondingly serious response. A Criminal Code has to do that. That is an expectation.

The member's point is well taken. If people are showing themselves to be serious repeat offenders, then there should be a correspondingly serious response by our criminal justice system.