Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on Bill C-46. I commend the member for Broadview-Greenwood for sitting here all day and listening to some of the great doomsday scenarios that have fallen on him from the opposition and also some of the points
which have been made from this side of the House and from Liberal members on the other side of the House.
Bill C-46 is one I have looked forward to debating. Anything that will streamline the operation of a government department and make it more clear to carry out its mandate is welcomed.
In particular I look at the improved business climate for entrepreneurs and the promotion of the tourism industry. The member for Broadview-Greenwood and I among other members have sat and talked in many long meetings about how to reinvent tourism in Canada. In the last 10 years the previous government almost eliminated tourism totally.
As a private individual I watched the bottom fall out of the real estate industry in Ontario, where a person's cottage all of a sudden was not worth anything or there was no market for it. I saw that and hoped that somewhere, some way this government I was elected to would take some initiative and try to re-establish some of the important sectors of our society. That is done with bills such as Bill C-46 which include provisions of the old act and yet become something new.
In the last 10 years there has certainly been a great decline in the initiative of entrepreneurs and people who are willing to come forward to finance small business, of which I was a part. I look at anything that will make that a clearer mandate or an easier path to follow, anything that will establish rules and say that yes, we do want to take a positive step in streamlining legislation. I speak to it for that reason and I look forward to the passage of the bill.
Victoria-Haliburton region has lost a tremendous number of jobs. Victoria-Haliburton is in Ontario; it is not in Victoria and it is not on the east coast. I do not speak as a person who has had the advantage of the financing of the east coast entrepreneurs. Ontario, particularly the central part where I am from, relies more on people in private industry to provide initiative.
In the last two years, for example, there has been almost 30 per cent constant unemployment in Haliburton county. The county is almost devastated. It swells the rolls of the number of people needed to administer the social assistance plan. It does not help anyone's self worth. It does not help anyone try to do anything.
I look at the tremendous loss since 1988 in Victoria county, the 2,400 jobs that were taken from there and I remember reading some of the articles by the member for Broadview-Greenwood at that time. He wrote about the things that could happen. He thought the branch plant economy was going to disappear, and it happened. Jobs were lost. This government has to take the initiative, has to go ahead and make the changes we need and that we believe will turn around that loss of jobs.
It will come through tourism in my riding. I hope it will come through other things and I will certainly work as hard as I can to bring industry and commerce to the most beautiful part of Ontario. I do not mean to speak disparagingly about any other part of Ontario; it just so happens that I do live in an area where the Kawartha Lakes depend on the rejuvenation of the tourism industry.
People ask how you service a riding of 10,460 square kilometres, 35 municipalities which take in a lot of Peterborough county and a lot of areas which should be in other ridings. Redistribution has given me areas of Brock township where I deal with boaters on Lake Simcoe, all the way through the Trent canal system right to the side of the city of Peterborough where that riding is looked after by another Liberal member. If you are in Ontario and you guess that anyone is a Liberal you are probably right 99 per cent of the time.
When we deal with the Haliburton County Lakes, the Kawartha Lakes and the Trent-Severn waterway, the Rideau system that connects to it, look at how that has been decimated. The Trent-Severn waterway and the Rideau waterway were even offered to the provincial governments to see if they would promote them and they turned it down. At one time the Government of Ontario did a large job in promoting tourism in Ontario and now its budget has gone the other way and it sees no benefits to tourism. It indicated that tourism is not something it wants to get involved in.
The federal government has to step in and provide some leadership in promoting tourism, not only in Ontario but in all of Canada as Canada is obviously the best country in the world to live in. It has been written. People all over the world have commented that they would love to live in Canada, as we can tell by the number of people who apply.
As I watch the vestiges of the last government being taken apart by this government in a slow orderly fashion to try to promote and better the lifestyle of people in Canada through the promotion of streamlining of government and changing the system, it is hard for me to listen to the opposition. I know it is paid well to oppose and I know its opposition sometimes is well-meaning and I know also that some of its members probably have some good ideas and I am very anxious to hear what they are.
None of them has come forward yet with the changes to any of this legislation that has been proposed. I was looking forward to seeing if there was some concrete results that would come out of the opposition's chance to change and refine and turn this
legislation into something it feels is better than what is being offered.
I feel what is being offered is once again a step in the right direction and will cause the rejuvenation of the department and in particular the slow and steady step of a government that is in control, that is going to turn the economy around. It is not going to do it by trying to jump over some huge gorge that has been mentioned. It is going to do it one step at a time, in an orderly fashion, looking at the various things affected by government change, taking into account all the municipalities that are involved, all of the various agencies affected by it and hopefully come out with a clear mandate for making this country the place we all want it to be, a better place to live.