Debates of Oct. 17th, 1994

Justice

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was outraged after reading an article that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen written by a victim of violence.

While we stand in this House asking the Minister of Justice day after day when he plans to get tough with criminals in this country, a convicted offender is freely wandering the streets of Ottawa just blocks from here stalking the man upon whom he launched not one but two unprovoked, vicious attacks.

While Bill Glaister still suffers from pain and humiliation and fears for his safety, his assailant is free to attack again. Why? Because an Ottawa judge thought a stern lecture and five weeks in jail was a sufficient sentence for one count of assault, three counts of theft, one charge of fleeing a court commitment and one charge of misleading a police officer with false identity.

This criminal did not even serve his lenient sentence of five weeks. Our bleeding heart justice system turned him loose in three and a half weeks. That same system has left Mr. Glaister living in fear of this man and it will be responsible for the next victim who falls prey to this criminal.

Members Of Parliament

[Dianne Brushett, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I address this House today in response to the statements by the hon. member for Beaver River asserting that some women are not legitimate members of this Parliament.

I was duly elected in the beautiful riding of Cumberland-Colchester with a solid majority of nearly 3,000 votes more than the next closest candidate. I thank my electorate for placing its confidence in me and this Liberal government.

I have reason to believe that every person of female gender was duly elected to this Parliament on the same day last October by the same process under the same rules of the Government of Canada's elections act.

Could it be the Reform women members were elected by some other process or could it be they are doubting the integrity of the electorate?

Economic Development Association Of Canada

[Brent St. Denis, Liberal, Algoma, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to draw to the attention of the House that at the recent annual meeting of the prestigious Economic Development Association of Canada, two groups from my riding of Algoma were given national awards recognizing their tremendous efforts in the economic development and diversification of our part of northern Ontario.

I am especially pleased that the North Channel Marine Tourism Council won an award for its promotional video, "Shores to Discover". It displays the wonders of the magnificent north channel of Lake Huron which is ranked with the Greek islands as a premier recreational boating area. This video will go a long way to help communities in the north shore and Manitoulin area to tap into northern Ontario's growing tourism market.

I am also proud to say that the city of Elliot Lake took home top honours in the positive program category as a result of its very successful retirement living program which was started after the major downsizing of the city's uranium mining industry a few years ago. The city is to be congratulated on its efforts and ingenuity in attracting over 3,000 new senior citizens to the city which has created economic spin-offs-

Members Of Parliament

[Judy Bethel, Liberal, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in response to allegations made at the Reform Party convention that Liberal women MPs were not selected fairly and are somehow illegitimate, I would like to set the record straight for Edmonton East.

In Edmonton East there were five candidates who sought the Liberal nomination, four of whom were women. The nomination process was fairly established and strongly contested with active participation by more than 1,000 Liberal members, women and men, in Edmonton East.

Residents of Edmonton East, no one else, chose the Liberal candidate and the residents of Edmonton East chose the Liberal plan as the best one for them.

If the Reform Party is honest it will acknowledge the real reason why there are more women Liberal MPs. It is because Liberal policies are attractive to women because they respond to the reality of Canadian women. They will create more opportunities for women to participate fully in the life of our country. That is why the residents of Edmonton East chose-

Provincial Taxation

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government recently threatened to stop making provincial payroll taxes deductible, a move which would cost Quebec companies $200 million.

With a mixture of satisfaction and concern, we learned this weekend that this measure has been postponed by one year. The Bloc Quebecois is pleased that the federal government has yielded to its arguments and to those of Quebec's finance minister, Jean Campeau.

However, it is only a postponement, because a sword of Damocles still hangs over Quebec companies. Nothing says that the federal government will not try next year to reduce its deficit at the expense of Quebec companies by eliminating this perfectly justified deduction.

Reform Party

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I might say that we were all elected to the House of Commons. Some of us were elected to be candidates for the House of Commons.

On Thursday, 1,450 Reform delegates from every province and territory in Canada converged on the nation's capital for our assembly. In just two short days Reform delegates discussed, debated and passed 27 resolutions that would eliminate the deficit, make the streets safe for our children, salvage our shaky social safety net and put more money in the hands of taxpayers. That is quite an accomplishment.

The delegates told us again and again that Canadians were tired of the everything is under control attitude of the present government. Canadians want real change, real options, real discussions, real hope and real reform.

While the Liberals were obviously watching our assembly the debt has risen to $534,611,591-

Fleetwood Canada Limited

[John O'Reilly, Liberal, Victoria—Haliburton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today and salute another example of excellence by workers in my riding of Victoria-Haliburton in Ontario.

Fleetwood Canada Limited, which manufactures travel trailers in my home town of Lindsay, has won for the third year in a row the customer satisfaction championship of Fleetwood Incorporated.

It now employs about 285 people and was judged by an independent survey of product owners to have produced the best travel trailers of the 10 Fleetwood plants in North America. It has also won the production team of the year award within Fleetwood. This award which is based on quality, efficiency, safety, warranty and overhead cost control is another testament to its ability.

I commend the workers at Fleetwood Canada Limited in Lindsay for their diligent work and perseverance over the years which have brought the plant such acclaimed recognition.

Mississauga West

[Carolyn Parrish, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today close to the one-year anniversary of the last federal election to thank the hundreds of grassroot volunteers who worked tirelessly to ensure I could represent Mississauga West here in Ottawa.

I particularly want to express my deep gratitude to a small core of people. Through their hard work and dedication over a nine-month period I was able to win an incredible nomination battle against five other Liberals and the largest democratic nomination in the history of Canadian politics.

I want to sincerely thank George Carlson, Elias Hazineh, Denise LaParairie, Maggie Mavromatis, Arlette Neufeld, Louis Robitaille, my husband David, my two daughters, my mother Helen Janozeski and my late father Edward Janozeski. These are the real heroes behind my nomination victory.

Avro Arrow

[Jay Hill, Reform, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that the Royal Canadian Mint recently issued a set of coins commemorating milestone aircraft in Canadian aviation history.

To my surprise missing from this series is the Avro Arrow. As we all know, the Arrow was an aircraft decades ahead of its time and its cancellation resulted in a setback to the Canadian aviation industry from which it has yet to recover.

Most of the talented Canadians who worked on its development were forced to move to the United States where a great many were snapped up by NASA to work on the Apollo space program.

In 1958 the Arrow achieved speeds nearly twice that of sound and altitudes approaching 60,000 feet. Despite this the government of the day cancelled the project and ordered all tooling, plans and aircraft destroyed.

By allowing the exclusion of the Arrow from the series this government has effectively reinforced the shameful decision of a previous Conservative administration.

Economic Policy

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the discussion paper released this morning by the Minister of Finance has proved once again that the Liberals have very little to show for all the promises they made. The govern-

ment is full of good intentions but has failed to provide any solutions that will reduce government spending and create jobs.

My question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Would the minister agree that what we need is not a diagnosis but a cure, as far as reducing the deficit is concerned? How can he expect to be taken seriously when his paper contains no measures to reduce the level of federal operating expenditures or eliminate the many instances of duplication that exist? What is he waiting for?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should have been here this morning. Obviously, those who interpreted what was said this morning did not do a good job. We introduced a framework of new economic policies in order to increase significantly the productivity of our country, which, it must be said, has been dropping for quite some time.

If we want to create jobs, we can do that only if we are able to increase productivity in this country. And as far as action is concerned, if the hon. member would look at the last budget, we introduced some very important fiscal measures. In fact, it was after this budget was brought down that Canada started creating jobs. I am proud to say today that last week, it was announced that since January, 327,000 jobs were created in this country. That is practically a record.

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, words, words, words, but never any action or decisions from this government!

Does this mean that since the Liberal government refuses to do anything now about government spending, wasteful duplication and tax inequities, it is going to go back to its old habit of spending its way out of this mess and depending on the impact of economic recovery to reduce the deficit? Is it the same old Liberal dogma?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition may think 327,000 jobs are just words, but that is not the case for the people who got these jobs as a result of our measures and who are no longer listed as unemployed. It is important to create jobs, and we have done it since we came to power: 327,000.

Meanwhile, if you want to know what we have done, I suggest you listen to the IMF which said that this year, next year and the year after, Canada will have the best levels of growth and job creation of any G-7 country. We are proud of what we have done.

[Lucien Bouchard, Bloc, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be a little more matter-of-fact, to make the minister less inclined to indulge in political rhetoric. The minister knows perfectly well that if we are to raise employment levels to what they were in 1990, before the recession, we will have to create 800,000 jobs in Canada. When he talks about 327,000 jobs, he knows perfectly well he is well below that level.

We read the paper that was released this morning. It includes a paragraph that implies that social security reform will stimulate job creation.

How can the Minister of Finance expect social security reform to produce the spending cuts that will help him create jobs, since this reform merely turns the unemployed into scapegoats by putting them on the welfare rolls, so that fairness and any hope for the future no longer exist?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I must correct the Leader of the Opposition. When we look at job creation, we have now outstripped the level of job creation we had before the recession. We did it. Second, when we take a careful look at the diagnosis, when we consider what the Minister of Human Resources Development is doing, we are in fact implementing the OECD's analysis. Is that wrong? Are France, Germany and the OECD countries wrong or is the Leader of the Opposition the only one who is right? I do not think so, Mr. Speaker.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

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

In a statement made this morning on the state of the economy and government finance, the minister discussed at length the need to make additional budget cuts in order to meet his 1996-97 objective regarding the deficit.

Does the Minister of Finance still deny that, in order to achieve his objective, he will make additional cuts of $7.5 billion in social assistance and post-secondary education, on top of the $7.4 billion cuts already made in his last budget in the UI program and transfers to provinces?

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, let me quote the Leader of the Opposition, who asked this question on June 20: Does the Minister of Finance intend to table a supplementary budget in the fall to reduce government spending by at least $3 billion?

Mr. Speaker, I find it very hard to understand why the Leader of the Opposition wants us to make cuts, while his finance critic refuses to accept the fact that we have to improve government finance.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree with making cuts, but these must be targeted at operating expenditures, inefficiencies and overlapping, not at the unemployed and the poor in our society.

How can the public trust the minister and his government when in just one year, they have failed to protect the unemployed and welfare recipients, they have not abolished the GST and they are now talking about increasing taxes, in spite of all the promises made? What kind of trust does the minister think he will instill among Quebecers and Canadians?

[An hon. member]

None.

[Paul Martin, Liberal, Minister of Finance and Minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I am not the only one who gets excited.

It is incredible to watch members of the opposition at work. They say we must cut, yet every time we talk about an area they say: "You can't cut that". They have never made one suggestion as to an area where we should cut. They have never brought forward anything constructive. They sit there and they make huge rhetorical speeches about the future of the world. Never once are they prepared to get down to work and make this country work. That is the problem with the opposition.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today the finance minister repeated in graphic terms what Reformers have been saying for years. He said we are in hock up to our eyeballs and that the debt and the deficit are unsustainable.

Just this weekend it was reported that the Deputy Prime Minister, the Solicitor General, the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Public Works are still reluctant to attack the deficit while the Ministers of Finance, Transport and International Trade want to attack the deficit more vigorously. The cabinet is divided.

Will the finance minister tell the House whose position represents the position of the government, that of the Deputy Prime Minister and her free-spending friends or the finance minister and his deficit reduction?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, it is music to my ears to hear the leader of the third party stating that reports in the media are automatically true. I am glad to see the vote of confidence that he and his party have given to the media.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Calgary Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, deficit reduction is intimately related to social reform. The hardheads in the cabinet are looking for $7 billion to $10 billion of savings through social reform. The softheads in the cabinet think the best they can get is $1 billion to $3 billion.

Will the finance minister show some leadership right now by stating how much money he wants to save through these social reform programs?

[Sheila Copps, Liberal, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, there is one thing for certain. The Prime Minister laid down a target of 3 per cent of GDP to be achieved by this government and this cabinet in the 1996-97 fiscal year. We intend to deliver. Every single member of cabinet is committed to delivering on our red book promise.