Stephen Harper

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, if I understood the question correctly, we recognize the demands of the public in some regions, including western regions, for regional representation in the Parliament of Canada.

Naturally, the committee can study the way to do it within the readjustment process, and we support that. However, there is a limit to the capacity to represent the regions in this House. According to the Constitution, this chamber represents the population. This is a constitutional fact.

If we want effective regional representation, we have to reform the Senate. This is our position and I believe that, in this regard, the position of the Bloc contains a contradiction. You cannot oppose Senate reform and support an effective regional representation in Parliament.

I would also like to make a few personal comments about the position of the leader of the Bloc Quebecois. I will no say anything specific, but just point out that there is another contradiction here between the public objectives for the next election and the fact that the Bloc does not intend to run in that election. This is intrinsic to their position on sovereignty. One cannot have sovereignty as the ultimate goal and pretend to be concerned about the future of the country. This is a fact.

I say to the government that the position taken by the Bloc in this debate demonstrates that we have an opposition party that has a vested interest in disagreeing with every possible proposition. We have seen it during the constitutional debates. The same applies to the electoral legislation. I am advising the government to follow the consensus of federalist parties and to be wary of the Bloc position, given its raison d'être.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, when I rose before question period in a much noisier Chamber I was stating that our party was prepared to support the bill with some reservation, given the Senate and government amendments that have been tabled today. I was pointing out some of the concerns we had with the bill and the fact that most of the commissions have now reported or are close to reporting in terms of their particular roles.

The effects of the amendments are basically as follows. The Senate is trying to ensure that redistribution is completed prior to the next federal election and the amendments now agreed to by the government should accomplish it. They also go further. They keep the commissions that were originally to be killed by the bill in a suspended existence and allow the present stage of public hearings to be completed so that we save the money we basically had already spent on the process.

Furthermore, and this is important, the amendments will in effect serve as a safety net to the committee examining the redistribution process. They provide a backup position in case the committee is unable to reach agreement on the nature of reforms, particularly if reforms are reached that do not necessitate starting the process from scratch once again.

They make it politically difficult under the motion the House earlier passed, Government Motion No. 10, for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to come up with a piece of work that is essentially partisan or that would lead to boundaries and a process that was not agreeable.

Also it is important this whole series of events has shown, particularly when the lower House is forced to act hastily, that the upper House can make a valid contribution. There are many problems with the Senate as it is constituted today and improvements could still be made, but I will leave that for another colleague of mine to comment on.

I point out that with the amendments the government has now introduced, or the Senate amendments that the government is supporting, particularly with the additional change that the government has made, the amendments to the bill are in substance virtually identical to what the Reform Party had proposed before the bill originally left the House.

Originally it was not our intention to see redistribution killed but this is as workable a compromise as we are going to get, given the obvious desire of the government to examine the process.

I urge the government to pursue in the future, not only with this bill, but also with motion No. 10, a really substantial all party agreement on changes to the redistribution process.

When we are dealing with the rules of the game it seems reasonable to expect that we would have a consensual approach. I urge the government to consider the opinions of the major parties in the House, the Liberal Party and the Reform Party. It should also, because elections concern minor parties, consider the effect on the New Democratic Party and the Progressive Conservative Party and whatever input they would have into this legislation.

It might be noticed that I did not mention the Bloc Quebecois in my comments. Frankly I have been mystified at every stage of the bill at the unusual Bloc position of supporting the unilateral changes in the first place. Then the Bloc engaged in a filibuster when it said it wanted the bill passed quickly and now the Bloc says it does not want changes.

We have seen in recent weeks some of the difficulties in having an Official Opposition that does not have the same stake in Canadian democracy and in Canadian institutions, not just on this issue, but on others.

As is obviously the case for many other hon. members here, the recent attitude of the Bloc Quebecois and its leader worries me a lot. But it is important to note that the Bloc claims it will not run in the next federal election. Indeed, the Bloc is not as interested as the Reform Party or the Liberal Party in a system and in issues concerning the next election.

What this illustrates, albeit in a small way, is that they cannot constantly aim at leaving the Federation and still claim to be concerned by all things Canadian.

They cannot have it both ways. This is a fact that we should take into account when considering this bill and the amendments to the Election Act.

I would like to take the last few minutes of my speech to comment on Motion No. 10. This bill suspends the process beginning in September for a period of nearly a year and government motion No. 10 charges the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs with studying a new law. It has laid out four items.

I will very quickly go over what our party feels very strongly the government should be considering. First, we had insisted and the government had accepted that this committee look at a formula to cap or reduce the size of the House. There has been

some comment on this because we have been urging, particularly in the case of British Columbia, that it achieve its fair representation.

We cannot have things every way and we recognize that. The size of the House should be capped. Maybe even the size should be lowered, but the proportionality of the provinces should be reflected. We would expect British Columbia and Ontario to increase their number of seats. Obviously this necessitates a new formula and some loss of seats for smaller provinces. You cannot violate the Constitution and forbid proportionality. At the same time you cannot cap the number of seats, as the Bloc Quebecois wants, and say that the smaller provinces that are losing share cannot decline in representation. You cannot have all of these things at once and then deny regional representation through the Senate.

That is another case where the Bloc's position makes no particular sense. Once again we would urge that the only valid reason for completely stopping this process rather than resuming it will be to come up with a new formula that will cap and reduce the number of seats which is what the public has been telling us.

Another aspect of the motion called for a review of the present method of selecting members of electoral boundaries commissions. The Lortie commission, which spent a great deal of time and money studying these issues and which on these subjects was really addressing non-ideological issues, recommended that the use of independent electoral boundaries commissions for each province and the Northwest Territories, as well as the composition and manner of their appointment, be maintained. The chairman is to be appointed by the chief justice of the province and additional members by the Speaker of the House. That is certainly what our party will be stressing.

The current commissions have not only the chief justices but also additional members who are, by and large, the academics with expertise in this field across the country. It is difficult to imagine finding more qualified people.

The motion asks that they review the rules governing and the powers and methods of the commissions and whether they ought to commence their work on the basis of making necessary alterations to the boundaries of existing electoral districts wherever possible.

Several recommendations here are relevant. If anything we would be restricting, as the Lortie commission suggested, the latitude in terms of population deviation. We should look at more frequent and partial redistribution after each general election rather than after each decennial census. Those are things we would encourage the commission to study, but we would also suggest that minor changes in those areas are not grounds for suspending, stopping or restarting the process.

Finally, the motion asks that we review the time and nature of the involvement of the public in the work of the commission. We would support strongly the Lortie commission recommendation which was that far from increasing the role of politicians, that their role be decreased, that we looked more at two stages of public hearings rather than a second stage where hearings are in the House of Commons.

Those are our concerns. They are concerns we continue to have about the process being suspended. However, with these amendments there are reasonable safeguards to protect the interests of the public as well as the interests of various parties.

At this point, I congratulate the government on finally seeing the light on some of these issues and accepting amendments that we had originally proposed and that the Senate also has proposed.

[Royal Canadian Legion, June 3rd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this week the Royal Canadian Legion has been holding its convention in my city of Calgary.

We have all become aware of this due to the media concentration on the issue of head-dress regulations that arose at the convention. I probably would have voted on that particular issue differently than the legion, but frankly that is not the important issue.

What we should be focusing on is the focus of the convention; the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and the unparalleled historic contribution of Canadian veterans to our society through their bravery in those dark days of World War II.

The greatest human rights victory of this century, perhaps of history, was the defeat of Adolf Hitler and the allies of the national socialists. The unbalanced focus of the press and so-called human rights commentaries this week have been quite frankly pathetic and an insult to veterans and veterans' organizations.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Suspension Act, 1994, June 3rd, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-18, which suspends the operation of the electoral boundaries adjustment process and to address specifically the motion that the government has brought forward to accommodate amendments that have come from the Senate study of the bill.

The purpose of Bill C-18 is, I think, to kill the electoral boundaries readjustment process. The Reform Party was opposed to that bill until now. However, I can say that with the amendments proposed by the Senate and those put forward by the government today, we can now support this bill.

As you know, Madam Speaker, we did oppose and have opposed vigorously Bill C-18. We were opposed to it to such an extent that at second reading closure was moved. We still have some concerns with this course of action, but I should begin by saying we can support this bill with the accommodations the government has made today.

Let us review Bill C-18 and some of the original problems that have been addressed. The House will recall that originally there was no demand from the public for this legislation, certainly no mention in the red book of any intention to bring in such legislation and no serious mention of the procedural concerns that had arisen when legislation such as this had been introduced previously in 1973, 1985 and 1992. Yet in late March, early April, the government came out with C-18 as their top legislative priority.

When the bill was rammed through the House with closure, it really did not present a lot of opportunity for meaningful public debate. We had begun to hear, and the Senate later heard, from provincial and territorial governments, from many academics and experts and from many individual Canadians, particularly from British Columbia, all of whom were condemning C-18 as not simply a bad bill and not simply an undemocratic bill, but an unconstitutional bill.

It was apparent that the bill had been prepared without consultation with Elections Canada. Mr. Kingsley, the Chief Electoral Officer, has stated in committee hearings that it has always been the practice of the governments of the day to consult Elections Canada when considering changes to such processes and it is what we would have expected normally on this occasion.

The mechanics of our electoral system are admired around the world and Elections Canada's advice, as we know, is frequently sought by other countries. Recently we played a role in the elections in new democracies in both South Africa and Ukraine.

The electoral process and its outcome affect all Canadians. The interests of all of Canadians must be served, not the interests of politicians, not partisan interests or political self-interest.

One of the biggest problems with the original bill was the lack of all-party consensus. The government had only the support of the Bloc Quebecois. It was opposed by the Reform Party, and I should add, opposed quite vigorously by the New Democratic Party and by the Progressive Conservative Party, although its opposition comes primarily from the Senate. We heard only within weeks of the passage of the bill that many elements of the Liberal Party were also opposed, as some members found out at their recent convention.

The reason I mention these other parties is that the support of parties, both major and minor, in this type of legislation is important for the operation of the democratic system. The support of the Bloc Quebecois is a different matter and I will address that in my later remarks.

While all this has been going on, the public hearings into the redistribution process have continued. The bulk of the dollars had been spent even before the bill was introduced and now eight out of eleven of the commissions have finished their public hearings; in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick-

[Electoral Boundaries, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the government supports the independence of the commissions which have now virtually completed their work at a cost of over $5 million.

Surely killing the process is not a serious priority for this government. Could the Acting Prime Minister assure the House that the only reason left for stopping this redistribution again would be to follow the suggestion of my party echoed by the Minister of National Revenue that the number of seats in the House of Commons be capped or reduced?

[Electoral Boundaries, May 26th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Acting Prime Minister.

Yesterday the Senate approved amendments to Bill C-18 to ensure that riding redistribution takes place before the next election. However, the government leader in the Senate indicated that one of the problems with the current process was the lack of supervision of the independent, non-partisan boundary commissions.

Could the Acting Prime Minister explain what sort of supervision the government thinks is required? Why does the government not support the independence of the independent commissions?

[Budget Implementation Act, May 26th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I am rising also to speak on these motions at report stage of Bill C-17, the Budget Implementation Act, particularly at this time motions dealing with sections 12 to 14, the fiscal transfers portion of the bill.

We are debating four motions, three of which I have moved, and I want to clarify my reasons once again for moving those motions. We have opposed the bill because of its omnibus nature. We insist upon having a debate on the floor of the House of Commons on each section of the omnibus bill because this should not be one bill.

I raised a lengthy point of order at second reading on this particular issue. I realize that the Chair ruled against it and I respect that decision which was based on precedent. I nevertheless reiterate that precedent is an unfortunate way to proceed here because we do have a new Parliament. We have a chance to right some of the wrongs and some of the questionable practices we have fallen into, in particular the practice in recent years of presenting omnibus legislation with respect to budgetary matters.

This particular section which I want to address in report stage today concerns fiscal transfers and specifically two areas: the CAP or Canada assistance plan and the PUITTA or Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. We very reluctantly support these particular aspects of the bill, although my amendments are here to provide us with an opportunity for debate on this specific portion.

Let me first of all address section 12, that is the Canada assistance plan portion. The government is introducing through the budget a freeze to CAP transfer payments to the provinces at present levels for the immediate future.

Through this, the government projects savings of $466 million in the next fiscal year, 1995-96, and the budget has promised social security reform based on co-operative effort among federal and provincial governments.

This is an area where the government, although it is adopting some of the things we proposed, is really proceeding without a plan and causing friction with provincial governments. I would note that in spite of its promise of co-operation this is clearly not happening. The evidence for this was the refusal in April of some provinces to attend a scheduled briefing to inform them of the federal government's progress in the area of social security reform.

I caution the government against making the same mistake with welfare that it has already made with health care, that is getting into an area of provincial jurisdiction-welfare is clearly an area constitutionally of strict provincial jurisdiction-enforcing national standards through, in this case the Canada assistance plan and regulations, and then gradually decreasing funding levels; in other words cutting the provincial funding but not giving them the freedom to adjust to the changes to make their targets and policies appropriate to funding levels.

Obviously this is a formula for alienating the provinces. Along with cuts which decrease their spending power it will make it difficult for them to implement social policy now and could also impact their ability to implement proposed social policy reforms down the road.

We need national deficit reduction of course, but we need it in a plan. We need it with an agreement in these areas with the provinces rather than a dysfunctional partnership in which the federal government makes unilateral changes through transfer arrangements but leaves in place policies that were based on full funding.

Section 12 of the bill which freezes the current level into the future does, I would also note, perpetuate certain anomalies. It perpetuates the CAP discrimination that exists today with regard to the so-called have provinces, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, particularly Ontario and British Columbia where the unilateral and discriminatory reductions over the years in CAP funding have dramatically impacted upon those provinces.

I note, for example, that in Ontario the federal share of costs of CAP has decreased from 50 per cent to 29 per cent. This is one anomaly. Another is in the case of Quebec. This is an area that has been brought to my attention for not being clear in the bill.

In the area of CAP, Quebec operates under a bilateral tax abatement agreement with the federal government. I would call upon the government to clarify how exactly this freeze of transfers affects that agreement into the future.

Considering these problems, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot for his amendment, Motion No. 12, which proposes the setting up of a parliamentary committee to review on a permanent basis the implementation of this policy. It is important, given the lack of a comprehensive strategy by the provincial and federal governments, to have such a committee, and I asked Reform Party members to support the motion tabled by the Bloc Quebecois.

I conclude with a comment on sections 13 and 14 that affect the Public Utilities Income Tax Transfer Act. These sections extend the freeze, basically a freeze of 10 per cent below the 1989-90 payment on these transfers to the provinces into the future.

I support this and our party supports this with even more reluctance than we support the CAP transfers. Of course the income tax transfers in this area to the provinces should be 100 per cent funded.

One should remember that the purpose of these tax transfers is to refund to provinces that have privately owned utilities the portions of tax revenue that are raised by the federal government. These are transferred back to the provinces where these private utility companies are located. In the case of Alberta, which receives a lion's share of these transfers, they are passed on to the customers of these utilities.

This is not a special payment. This simply ensures that there is not discriminatory taxation against provinces and against individual Canadians who happen to be customers of private rather than public utility companies.

While this should be fully funded, I understand the reason for the government's finding that at this time it cannot restore that but must continue the policy that was unfortunately established by the previous government.

We support that with some difficulty but we hope that will be reassessed some day when we do have a plan to get our fiscal House in order within a reasonable time period.

In conclusion, I would like to say on these amendments that we recognize the need for significant reform and some reduction of federal transfer payments to the provinces to balance the budget. These are not the best ways of proceeding. They are the ways the government has chosen. We are very concerned about the lack of an overall plan and strategy but are prepared to support them on an interim basis.

I would remind the House once again that I have moved certain amendments to allow this debate, but I would recommend to my caucus that we support the Bloc amendment to study particularly the operation of CAP transfer programs in the future.

[Budget Implementation Act, May 26th, 1994]

moved:

Motions Nos. 13, 14 and 15

That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 12.

That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 13.

That Bill C-17 be amended by deleting Clause 14.

[Bill C-18, May 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that Bill C-18 in its present form will stop redistribution until after the next election.

My supplementary is for the same minister. The readjustment process has reached a point where, even if public hearings were cancelled, not a penny will be saved.

Is the government ready to accept the Senate Committee recommendations and allow the public hearings to go on in order that the commissions may submit their reports without undemocratic and unconstitutional intervention called for in Bill C-18?

[Bill C-18, May 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the government House leader. In spite of twice trying, the government House leader has been unable to persuade the Senate to pass Bill C-18 and stop electoral redistribution.

Yesterday a Senate committee passed substantial amendments to the bill. Will the government give serious consideration to these amendments, or better yet, withdraw its support for Bill C-18 and stop the waste of Parliament's time and money on this legislation?