Debates of Oct. 25th, 1994

Supply

[Ian McClelland, Reform, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I see that the Liberals have one more member of their olympic low hurdles team thinking that 3 per cent is just fine.

I listened with great interest to most of the dissertation of the hon. member for St. Paul's. A good deal of what he said about what the legitimate role of government should really be would find favour on all sides of the House as we are searching around now with yet another study to find out what the legitimate role of government should really be.

The reality was however that it was 10 minutes of platitudes disavowing 35 years of Liberal history. That is the route. That is the reality. It was 10 minutes of platitudes disavowing 35 years of Liberal mismanagement of the economy that got us into this mess.

My question to the hon. member for St. Paul's is this. After nine years in opposition, one year in government, is it not time that the government came out with specific responses to specific problems rather than yet another consultation? Does the hon. member opposite consider it the legitimate role of government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace? This is a very simple question. Is it the legitimate role of government to pick winners and losers?

[Barry Campbell, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the member's last question, no, and I said as much in the speech. We should pick winning sectors and that is what we are going to be doing.

With respect to the member's suggestion that we are disavowing Liberalism or the Liberal viewpoint or policy of the last 35 years, absolutely not. We still put the Canadian people first and foremost. As we attack the debt and deficit, which must be addressed, we keep the Canadian people clearly in focus.

Unlike members opposite, we know how complex the issue is. We know that Canadians want to have a say in what we are doing. Many have asked to testify before the finance committee in the prebudget consultations-we are oversubscribed already-and I for one welcome hearing what they have to say.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I hear that the hon. member opposite is proud of the $275 billion that the Liberal government contributed to this wonderful national debt.

If they are going to blame the Conservatives for a portion of it we really believe that these members should take their share as well.

My question for the hon. member is when it comes to the deficit and to balancing the budget, which they claim now after they have listened to the Reform Party long enough, what sense of urgency does the member opposite have to getting to a zero deficit and a balanced budget? What sense of urgency does the hon. member have in getting to a balanced budget?

[Barry Campbell, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know where the hon. member got his lead into the question. I do not know if he was listening to the debate or not.

However, on the second part which was the urgency of getting to a zero deficit or balanced budget, clearly that is set out in the documents that I was discussing in my speech earlier. The 3 per cent figure by 1996-97 is clearly stated and has been stated on numerous occasions by the Minister of Finance as an interim target. We are going to hit it. We are going to get there and then we will move on.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Lisgar—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will not be quite as harsh with the hon. member for St. Paul's as my colleagues.

I would like to ask him a couple of direct questions. I am reading from a speech given by the transport minister. That is my big concern. It says U.S. rails have higher labour productivity than Canadian rail, 64 per cent higher actually. I appreciated the comment that we are going to become competitive.

The other excerpt I would like to read is this: "Rail has more than 200 separate kinds of actions or decisions that must be approved by the National Transportation Agency". Then he goes on and says: "In Canada, the approval process for conveyance can take up to six months. In the U.S. approvals are granted in as few as seven days".

How is the Liberal government going to make us competitive with these kinds of hindrances? These have been injected into our system during the last 25 or 30 years. All of a sudden are we going to do it in a six-month period? I have been after the transportation agency to stop the back-tracking. It has been almost a year and we have not been able to stop that yet. What action can we take?

[Barry Campbell, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. That is precisely the kind of example that we are looking at in transportation policy. The Minister of Transport is conducting reviews that are precisely addressing those impediments to business, productivity and competitiveness that I was speaking about earlier in my comments.

These reviews are going on throughout government. We are getting on with regulatory reform. We are getting on with social policy reform. We are addressing this in the context of prebudget consultations. All of that is under way. I know the hon. member is impatient and I do not blame him.

Canadians understand that we do not fix problems overnight. I know he has some colleagues who think it is all simple problems, simple solutions. We will do it, we will wrap it up tonight and it will all work out tomorrow morning.

However, on this side of the House we know things are complex. Canadians want to speak to us. We want to listen and we want to do the best for all Canadians.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address our motion requesting the government table a clear, detailed plan to show how and when it intends to balance the budget.

For years the Reform Party has been saying that the deficit and the debt and the interest costs to service that debt together constitute the single most critical problem facing Canada today.

We have been saying this loud and clear for the past year in the House as well. As the debt clock continues to tick its way into the second half of a trillion dollars, we are increasingly aware that the old way of doing things in Canada simply does not work any more. The Liberals are standing firm on their policy of status quo federalism while the Bloc Quebecois continues to push its separatist agenda.

Reformers believe that these two approaches do not cut it for Canada. There is another option for a new and better Canada and we would like to invite people to have a look at what we intend to build on our side of the fence. Like a house, Canada is mortgaged to the tune of $534 billion. The interest payments on this mortgage alone eat up one-third of our tax dollars, leaving less money for social programs and for government services. That is why there is a need to balance the budget.

Even in the red book the Liberals have pointed out the dangers of continual deficits in the $30 billion range. What have they planned to do this year? Simply add $39 billion to the debt. By the end of the first three years of their mandate they will have added another $100 billion to the debt.

The time has come to build a home that we can live in comfortably without adding further to our mortgage. We must start by having a foundation of responsible spending and set priorities so that we can afford things that are really important, like strong walls and a good roof instead of wasting money on frills like gold bathroom fixtures and swimming pools.

Our building plan trims the size of the federal government, carefully prioritizes social spending, and cuts out frills like multiculturalism funding, subsidies for businesses and special interest groups, the gold bathroom fixtures to which I was referring.

On this note I would like to focus attention on where and what to cut in the area of special interest groups. As many of you know, the Reform Party does not court special interest lobbies and is opposed to the subsidization of such groups with government funds. The reason for this is straightforward. Political interest lobbies have a singular political purpose and that is to advance their own agenda. We feel strongly that taxpayers should not be shouldering the cost of their activities.

The National Action Committee on the Status of Women for example receives about $5 million a year of taxpayers' money while claiming to represent the interests of all women in Canada. What have Canadian women received for this money? Calls for pay equity, which pushes the country away from embracing hiring practices based on merit and not gender, demands for a national day care system when the majority of parents would prefer to raise their children themselves, given a better tax situation.

The fact is that based on recent polls more than half of Canadian women have not even heard of NAC. NAC has about 2,000 card carrying, money donating supporters. They claim higher totals but this is because every member of the YWCA is automatically added as a member of their organization.

These 2,000 supporters are a stark contrast to the women's group called REAL Women which has over 40,000 members, collects no government subsidies and gets its money from the people it purports to represent.

The fact is that when the government subsidizes political lobby groups it subsidizes only some and not others. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to NAC.

On another front the Canadian taxpayer is paying millions of dollars annually for union leaders to understand the importance of the Canadian labour movement. The total handouts by the Department of Labour during the period of 1989 to 1992 to unions was almost $18 million. If unions would dedicate their members' dues to union business rather than political action they would not need handouts from the taxpayers. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to unions.

As a businessman I have seen people take advantage of government subsidies and grants, not because they need to but because the money was served on a gold platter. Here it is, take it. It is called incentives. Staggering sums continue to be ladled out in handouts to businesses despite the fact that national business groups have called on the federal government to stop giving them money. This money usually comes from giant slush funds known as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Western Economic Diversification Agency. The 1994-95 estimates have almost $1.3 billion being funnelled through these agencies on pork barrel programs.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to pork barrel agencies, including his own federal office of regional development, a $400 million program in the province of Quebec.

I have a question. Why Olympic Saddledome renovations when Calgary needs $60 million worth of sewer repairs? The infrastructure program simply puts Canadians $6 billion further into debt and the jobs they create are over when the money runs out. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut out infrastructure immediately and quit tempting Canadians with my grandchildren's money.

The government is tilting the playing field, giving financial assistance to just those groups it wants to hear from. The idea that the government is looking out for the interests of all Canadians is just a smoke screen. It is only a select few that count.

A perfect example of this will become apparent in the next couple of months with the much talked about consultations across Canada on social and economic reforms. The government favoured special interest groups have already been given their advance notice to prepare their presentations while ordinary citizens have been left to their own devices.

The game goes on and it is habit forming, so much so that the government even continues to give money to groups to lobby for things that the general public actually agrees with. Here is a good example. I do not smoke and the majority of Canadians do not smoke. The health minister and her department clearly want to put an end to smoking. I do not have a problem with that but can someone tell me why we paid $200,000 to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association to tell us what we already know? Incidentally, the Non-Smokers' Rights Association has just 300 paid up members. That is not what I would call significant public support. Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister, cut funding to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association.

The simple truth is that we are now on the verge of losing our home to foreign creditors. We simply cannot continue to give borrowed money to people who have no proper claim to it.

Direct government subsidies to business distort the marketplace and punish success in order to subsidize failure. Money is taken from successful people in businesses and reallocated to unsuccessful people and unsuccessful businesses in the name of job creation. In the same way that government subsidies to business distort the economic marketplace, subsidies to political lobby groups distort the political marketplace of ideas.

In a true democracy this is intolerable. That is why the Reform Party believes that people should be free to express their views but use their own financial resources. That is why we are against special interest funding. If an idea has merit and is deserving of public support, that idea will rise on its own with financial assistance from the people who support that view. If not, then the idea will fade away as it deserves. Let the people speak rather than the subsidized lobby groups.

It is time to cut spending and stop giving money to those who do not deserve it. It does not take months of consultation, task forces, studies and commissions to understand this fact. The Liberals, three years prior to becoming the government, wrote studies and went across the country. The Prime Minister asked them too. They have already consulted with people and they still do not know what the people are saying. I do not know when they will get it.

People at the grassroots level are saying quite clearly that they will no longer subsidize special interest activities with their hard earned tax dollars. Gone are the days of needless government frills and fancy fixtures.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the Minister of Finance, if the government wants to start cutting it can start right here. Cut spending on special interest groups and save taxpayers a half a billion dollars. Cut spending and stop direct business subsidies and save taxpayers $1.3 billion.

Mr. Speaker, through you to the finance minister and to the Liberal government, let us build a mortgage free home that we can all afford and pass on to our children and our grandchildren with pride.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to all parts of the speech of the member opposite and I have a couple of comments to make and a question to ask.

At the beginning of his speech he talks about, and quite rightly, our grave concern about interest payments. He suggested that if we were responsible, somehow we should be able to eliminate it overnight. It is inappropriate that we should be incurring more debt and more interest payments tomorrow, the next day or the day after. However, I want to make it clear both to the member and to the people out there in the audience that to accomplish that tomorrow would mean we would have to cut $40 billion out of government expenditure. The member opposite is suggesting that we cut $40 billion out of the federal budget tomorrow.

That is an unreasonable approach. We want to cut the $40 billion but we are going to do it over a reasonable period of time with reasonable policies that protect individual Canadians while we are doing it, not overnight.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

That is the Tories all over again.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

We have been listening to that for nine years.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

The member across suggested a number of ways he thinks we can do it. Let me enumerate some of them. He talked about the fact that he wants to eliminate day care. To him daycare is not important. Let us sweep it off the table. That is not of any interest to anybody.

According to the member pay equity is not important. Let us sweep that off the table. That is not something we want to have anything to do with.

We do not want anything to do with unions or with economic diversification in the areas of this country that are hard hit economically. No, we do not want to help any of our disadvantaged regions. That would be something we would not want to do.

Finally, he talks about special interest groups. He mentions that we do not want to fund them. He suggests that we should not have to do that because they would pay for it themselves. I agree there are occasions where I would like to see somebody who is able to afford to make a case to the government pay for it themself, but not everybody has the financial resources to do that.

If we use the member's scenario, the rich would have an opportunity to present to Parliament and an opportunity to make their voice heard, but the poor would be shunted aside because they would not have the money to be able to do it.

I do not think that is the kind of representation we want to encourage as a government. I bring these points up to the member opposite and suggest that he might want to re-evaluate and take a second look at some of the suggestions that he is making to the hon. finance minister.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I find it extremely humorous that I have to re-evaluate. We have proposed for the last three years to balance the budget over a three-year period. It is through a combination of spending cuts and growth in the economy. If the hon. member opposite and all of his frontbench cabinet ministers would listen, the Reform Party policy is the following: We would cut about $18 billion, $19 billion, $20 billion over a three-year period in various ways, shapes and forms, listening to the people. When we get in we would expect those cuts, especially making those cuts in the first year of our mandate-which the party opposite did not have the political will to do-would help to stimulate the economy.

It is not $40 billion in one year. Is that very clear, Mr. Speaker? I know you understand it, but through you do the members understand that? It is not $40 billion in one year. It is $18 billion to $20 billion over three years and the rest comes from growth. I hope I have put that to rest and that I have been quite clear.

I am letting something affect me which as a professional football player I was told never to do. I am developing rabbit ears. While I am speaking to you, Mr. Speaker, I am hearing noises from the members opposite. We are not supposed to hear that. We are supposed to give our speeches and answer the questions. I am trying to do that.

Do we have any time left on this?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Just a little.

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

I will entertain another question if the members opposite have the courage to ask me.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask one very short question. I still do not believe we sit in this Chamber to put all of our energy toward helping those people in our society who are advantaged. I believe that a good part of our responsibility is to make sure that those people and regions in our country that are disadvantaged from time to time get our attention and our support.

I would like to ask a very simple question of the member. Does he believe in that fundamental view, yes or no?

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes I do. Not only do I, but there is a comment I would like to make with all respect to the hon. member who asked me that question. He has made a suggestion to his government and he has been making suggestions to the Canadian public for the last few years.

Nobody with any intelligence or any brains over on the government side even gives this man the time of day or the attention that his ideas and suggestions deserve. After we make the proper cuts that are required, after we find out what the government needs to spend, whether it is $100 billion or $80 billion, then get rid of the Income Tax Act and replace it with a flat tax, a proportional tax. Our tax is a little different than what he is proposing, but we would definitely support him. He is not being listened to. He must be about the most frustrated member. He is not a backbencher and he cannot get the attention of the government. I would be embarrassed to be sitting on that side of the House.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Far be it from me to fuel any more cynicism than there already is in this place at times, but some might say that was kind of a long question. In any event, resuming debate.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for those Canadians who are watching this debate on television I would like to read again the motion that has been put forward today to the House for debate by the Reform Party:

That this House requests the government to table a clear detailed plan to show how and when it intends to balance the budget including a clear statement of its vision of the role of the government in the economy in order for the people of Canada to debate the plan and vision.

There are a few things we need to point out about this process that Reform's motion suggests and proposes. One is about this whole question of public debate and consultation.

I have been rather amused to hear the government keep playing the violin about consultation, talking to the people, wanting Canadians to draw up a blueprint for reform of social programs, which is the area I am involved in the most, but not having anything to debate.

If we have a debate there is a proposal, a question, some sort of statement and people take the pro and the con and they debate it. How can we debate a nothing? There is no debate.

This government has made a fetish out of debating and consultations and put no meat on the table, put no clear proposals on the table, no question to be debated. It is just: "What would you do about social program reform? What would you do about budgets?". People are going to come from all over the map on that type of question.

What we have suggested in this motion today for debate is that the people of Canada be given a plan and a clear vision to debate. The government should come forward and say: "After talking to all of our experts, after examining all of the options, after examining all of the facts and figures and knowing all of the cost benefit of what we might do and what we might not do, we think we should do this. However, because this is a democracy, because we want to truly represent the people who are paying the bills and whose futures are going to be affected by this plan, we are now going to you the people and we are saying this is our best judgment about how we should attack and address this problem. But we want to know whether you are willing to support it, given all the information that we can make available to you and given sufficient time for you to examine our proposal".

That is what consultation is. It is not just: "What do you think?". We definitely need leadership from people in charge, a plan and a proposal and some direction, vision and purpose. We need to get that out for debate.

We do not have that from this government. That is one of the things that is sorely lacking. I am afraid quite frankly that the Canadian public will become very cynical, very disenchanted and very disrespectful of this whole business of consultation. It is going to become a dirty word. What it means is just pooling our ignorance, just "whatever you think". That is not good enough.

Consultation has to be focused on something concrete, something specific and something with some vision and a plan. Therefore I urge this government not to debate the notion of consultation with this kind of open ended, whatever you think, throw it at us. Let us show as parliamentarians and leaders, particularly those members who are representatives of the government party, that there is some leadership, a plan and a focus and that we are going somewhere so that we as Canadians can say: "Yes, we agree. We support that. It makes sense to us", or "No, we would like to see changes". At least we would know what we are talking about.

There has been a lot of talk about balancing the budget. Goodness knows our party has been talking about it for seven long years. They say seven is the perfect number. I hope it is because some time or other you would like to see this vision of a balanced budget coming to fruition.

We have been labelled as hackers and slashers, wanting to gut social programs, and all of the negative things that can be thrown at people who have one very sensible, very common sense proposal, and that is that we live within our means.

Why on earth would representatives, leaders and public officials want to borrow from the future? We do not want to mortgage our country. We do not want to lay the burden of our spending on our children. Why would that be such a difficult concept to accept? We do not know.

Why would it be such a difficult concept for the government to accept? We do know because it is still believed that governments can scoop up our national wealth and reallocate it in a way that is beneficial to Canadians. If the last 30 years have not demonstrated that that is a foolish and fallacious notion, then I do not know what will convince people.

If you had done something for 30 years, if you had scooped up billions and billions and billions of dollars of our national wealth and had it spent by bureaucrats, politicians and social engineers and then seen the mess we are in today, you would have thought that someone would stand up and say: "Gee, maybe this isn't working. Maybe we should do something different".

No, Mr. Speaker. What do we have from this government? Instead, the same old cant about "Well, maybe we just need different programs. Maybe we just need to spend it differently. Maybe we just need to do this or that or the other thing".

Maybe what we should do is run this country like any sensible business or household is run, that is living within its means, and letting people have the freedom to define their own futures, to look after themselves and their families, to help each other and their communities instead of this notion that somehow the state, mother government, the bureaucracy, the central planners, the wise men from the government can do everything.

It is not working and it is time that we acknowledge that. It is time that we started to say that we can do better in this country. We can do better than giving billions and billions of our hard earned dollars to government, politicians, bureaucrats, programs, and social engineering experiments that are simply making the situation worse.

When we talk about balancing budgets we are simply talking about taking the money that we have and using it with some common sense. We are talking about taking the money that we have and using it for what needs to be done, not what governments and bureaucracies and industries of different sorts think should be done with it.

This talk about balancing the budget is going to be just so much talk until something is done. I remember as a brand new, some would say very green, parliamentarian sitting in this chamber in February and listening to the finance minister. One thing that the finance minister said struck me very powerfully.

"We are no longer going to nibble around the edges of our deficit." I thought, wow, this is great. What happened at the end of the day? He cut just over one billion from spending. A lot of people said that was by smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand and kind of mixing and matching the numbers. When you are spending $160 billion and you cut it just over a billion, is that not nibbling around the edges?

Canadians are sick and tired of governments and politicians who say one thing and do another. It is time that this government and this House got a grip on this country, started using some common sense, started using some principled behaviour in the way they manage this country and its wonderful resources, and started balancing their spending.

I urge this House to strongly support our motion today.

[Patrick Gagnon, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Solicitor General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, like many thousands of Canadians I listened intently to this speech and I would like to use a western analogy: Where's the beef?

All we heard was an outright condemnation of the existence of every system in place, everything we have worked for in Canada. I have not heard any solutions or proposals from the Reform Party. They are actually condemning the consultation process which has been put into effect.

The opposition held a number of failed electronic town halls across Canada to try to gauge the population, but to its surprise a number of things came out of that. Often the population in Canada was in total disagreement with its own policies.

Reform members tell the Government of Canada that it is not doing its job. I have seen what happened on their side over the past few months. Every time they have tried to consult the population in their fashion they failed.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to respond to those terrible distortions of what is happening with the Reform Party.

I am amused and in disbelief that member of government, a parliamentary secretary, would ask: "Where's the beef?". The government has had no beef for one full year after working away. It has no beef at all in its social program reform. It has no beef at all in a plan to balance the budget or even get it down to its feeble target of 3 per cent of GDP. I would have thought the parliamentary secretary would be standing up telling Canadian people where their beef is, not demanding that a third party supply him with the beef.

If the member wants to see some beef, perhaps he should look at the plans put forward by the Reform Party and tabled in the House. For the benefit of the government perhaps he should get a report on the consultations of our party with his finance minister to try to give him a bit of hand holding in coming up with a sensible plan to do what he is supposed to do. Those concrete proposals were put forward by a brand new third party of 52 green, untried MPs, and the government still says: "You tell us what to do".

This party is going to have a plan ready to give the Canadian people and to run the country in the proper way after the next election.

The member talked about town hall meetings. It is interesting to note that just last evening the Liberal Party imitated Reform's electronic town hall by trying to get out and consult with the people. We have led the way in public consultation and in innovative ways to get the true input of Canadian people. We are delighted the government is catching on that this needs to be done, but I certainly think it is inappropriate for the member opposite to suggest that somehow our electronic consultations are not working when his party is aping them or imitating them. That does not quite make sense to me.

I might add the consultations that have been done with the Canadian public have given valuable input not only to our party but to the governing party. I hope he is paying attention to what is being said in those consultations.

[Patrick Gagnon, Liberal, Bonaventure—Îles-De-La-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that a lot of Canadians are not listening to the Reform Party. We have seen it in terms of the percentage of the popular vote it actually has according to recent polls.

I would also like to raise other things. How about regional economic development? That seems to be an area where the Reform appears to be really lacking. I am from eastern Canada. I am from a very rural part of Quebec. The fisheries industry has gone down. There is no longer any fish. We are having problems. We cannot find the various resources we once took for granted. What do we do?

What do we do with these people? What do we do with the 50,000 people of Newfoundland and the maritime provinces who were laid off? Do we just tell them to go away, it is their problem, there is no fish and we cannot do anything? After all this is a compassionate society, is it not? This is why the government has to make sure we address the issues and the needs of all Canadians, but especially those who are having a harder time than other Canadians.

To say that it is inappropriate for me to make comments, the fact is that we know the results of the Reform Party. People have

passed comments and judgments on the way your people look at policy and on the way you people look at governing Canada.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order. I hate to intervene when anyone has the floor but again I must remind all colleagues on both sides of the House to make their interventions through the Speaker and not directly to one another.

I would ask the hon. parliamentary secretary to wind up his question so the member for Calgary North can give a short rebuttal.

[Patrick Gagnon, Liberal, Bonaventure—Îles-De-La-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in summary, I am still waiting on this side for concrete proposals from the opposition instead of its usual rhetoric that everything done by the government never works.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary North, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it always makes me a little concerned when I hear members say things like "you people". It is so easy to hang facile labels on people, to somehow suggest there is something not quite acceptable about a group. That is called bigotry and it is called labelling.

[Patrick Gagnon, Liberal, Bonaventure—Îles-De-La-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not a bigot and I have never used those words in reference to the Reform Party. I was only alluding to the form and substance of that party, which is not necessarily reflected in its policy.