Debates of March 1st, 1996

Petitions

[Dave Chatters, Reform, Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in accordance with Standing Order 36 to present the first of a much larger petition to come from 9,000 constituents across Canada. They beg this Parliament not to increase the federal excise tax on gasoline and to strongly consider reallocating some of the $8 billion now collected from gasoline taxes and dedicating it toward the crumbling national highway system.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions today. The first reflects on the parliamentary press gallery which is excluding a particular newspaper in this area from free access to the press gallery. This petition would ask Parliament to address that issue and I agree.

[Grant Hill, Reform, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my second petition relates to section 745 of the Criminal Code. This petition has been generated by Darlene Boyd. I have a very small petition here but I will be taking 12,130 names to the office of the justice minister after I leave the House. I could not carry all the boxes into the House. It was too big a load.

[Rex Crawford, Liberal, Kent, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise pursuant to Standing Order 36 to present a petition on behalf of the constituents of Kent.

The petitioners draw to the attention of the House the following: that Canadians are paying approximately 52 per cent of the cost of a litre of gasoline at the pumps in the form of government taxes; that the tax increase was 1.5 cents per litre in the last federal budget; that a committee of Parliament has recommended another 2 cent per litre increase in federal excise tax on gasoline in the next federal budget; and that over the past 10 years the excise tax on gasoline has risen by 566 per cent. Therefore, the petitioners request that Parliament not increase the federal excise tax on gasoline in the next federal budget.

[Georgette Sheridan, Liberal, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I have the pleasure to present a petition on behalf of 91 signatories from my riding of Saskatoon-Humboldt and that of my colleague, the hon. member for Saskatoon-Dundurn, urging this Parliament not to increase the federal excise tax on gasoline in the next federal budget.

[Morris Bodnar, Liberal, Saskatoon—Dundurn, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I have a further petition with 100 signators from my constituency and that of Saskatoon-Humboldt requesting that Parliament not increase the federal excise tax on gasoline in the next federal budget.

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I also have a petition asking the federal government not to increase the federal excise tax on gasoline in the next federal budget. It is signed by 57 constituents in my riding.

[Gar Knutson, Liberal, Elgin—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition signed by over 300 people.

The petitioners are requesting that Parliament amend the Criminal Code and all other relevant statutes of Canada to establish lifetime sentences without eligibility of parole for dangerous offenders, particularly sex offenders against children.

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Swift Current—Maple Creek—Assiniboia, SK]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I table three petitions identical in form and content from constituents primarily from the towns of Swift Current, Eastend and Leader.

My constituents also are begging Parliament not to increase the excise tax on gasoline in Canada.

Questions On The Order Paper

[Paul Zed, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Business Of The House

[The Deputy Speaker]

I believe the hon. member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley has 13 minutes left in her intervention from before question period.

[Stephen Harper, Reform, Calgary West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member would have liked to finish her remarks but at this moment she cannot be in the House. She will be returning a bit later.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was rising to speak. The representative of the third party has spoken.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The whip is quite correct. We rotate on matters. No member from the Liberal Party indicated they wished to speak. I should have recognized the hon. whip from the government.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to take part in today's debate on the motion put forward by the hon. Government House Leader.

The motion by the hon. Government House Leader is very innovative. True, it proposes a system that is rather new but not unprecedented.

First, I must indicate that a little earlier today one of our friends from the Bloc Quebecois mentioned that in 1991, some parliamentarians objected, and rightly so according to him, to an initiative by the last government to reinstate bills that had died on the Order Paper in a previous session of Parliament.

As we know, several hon. members then rose and accused the Conservative government of discrimination. The Conservative government wanted to reinstate only some of its legislation by means of a single motion and denied the same privilege to other members of the House.

As you well know, in spite of our grievances those of us who had protested lost their cause nonetheless on most of the issues raised. Although we believed our argument to be well-founded, we lost. The Speaker made a ruling and, naturally, the bills were reinstated although in a slightly different form than what the government expected. What are we trying to do today?

We want to do something completely different. First of all, the motion before the House is not discriminatory. It allows all members of Parliament, ministers, secretaries of state, private members on the government side as well as those of the opposition to reintroduce their bills at the stage they where at the end of the last session.

Personally, I first heard about that innovative idea not from a government member or a minister, but from the hon. member from Lethbridge himself.

The hon. member for Lethbridge moved Motion M-476: "That, in the opinion of this House, all private members' bills that have passed second reading in the first session of the 35th Parliament and which are presently at committee, report stage or third reading stage should stand for the second session of the 35th Parliament".

The hon. member for Lethbridge is an experienced parliamentarian not only here but in another legislature, a person who has undoubtedly a lot of knowledge about things parliamentary. He proposed this motion. Given that the hon. member for Lethbridge is the House leader for his party, I am sure he was speaking on behalf of his party. He must have been. After all, he is the boss of that party, he is the House leader.

The boss of the Reform Party wanted to reinstate all private members' bills. Hold that thought for a minute. We on our side of the House, being non-partisan and congenial as we are, had one of our colleagues, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, approach on our behalf the hon. member for Lethbridge. We told him it is such a good idea to revive private members' bills from the opposition. Given that we are non-discriminatory and congenial, as I said, we said let us apply it to all bills in the House.

Mysteriously on the day the initiative was to have been debated the hon. member for Lethbridge did not debate the item in question. I cannot refer to presence or absence. That would be unparliamentary, but if I could I would. Shall I say he was unable to debate the issue in question.

[An hon. member]

It was withdrawn.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

How was it that he was not available to debate it or, as the member across said, deliberately withdraw it?. That is even worse after having proposed it, given that he was the boss of his party and speaking on behalf of his party.

I do not understand all of these things, but then again I do not have a Reform mindset and maybe that is why. I cannot think like a Reformer and hopefully I never will.

Now, the Reform members' boss wanted to reintroduce private members bills, those from opposition members as well as those from government members, even though, traditionally, private members bills are mainly an instrument used by the opposition to advocate certain measures. We liked the idea and we wanted to apply it to bills from opposition as well as government members using the very formula proposed by the hon. member from Lethbridge, that is that a bill that was merely introduced in the

House would not automatically be reactivated. Likewise, a bill that was before the Senate would not automatically be reinstated. But bills that were still before the House and had passed second reading could be, under this formula.

Let us remember the other point. This is enabling and it does not in itself cause the bill to be reactivated. In other words, if I had a private member's bill, which I do not as the whip, presently before a committee, if the government had already dealt with the issue and solved the problem, which the government so often does, and if I felt my private member's bill was now redundant, it would not be automatically reinstated. In other words, it simply enables a member who feels his or her private member's bill is still important enough to merely cause it to go back to the point it was at prior to prorogation.

This is remarkable because it mirrors what the boss of the Reform Party, the hon. member for Lethbridge, was asking us to do.

[An hon. member]

He is not the boss.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

An hon. member across says his House leader is not his boss. That may be so. I will not tell the Reform Party House leader that one of his colleagues said the House leader was not his boss. I will keep it a secret among us. We shall not mention it to the hon. member for Lethbridge. We would not want to have the hon. member for Lethbridge all upset at some of his colleagues who have said in the House today that he is not the boss.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

We do not believe in top down like you guys.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I wonder if the member for Elk Island does not think the whip is the boss. Anyway, I will let Reform members discuss their caucus disagreements. It seems there is a lot of disagreement if they do not think anyone is running the show.

Let me go back to the motion proposed by the House leader for the government which I believe to be quite innovative. One of the important things about this motion is that it saves a lot of money to the taxpayers of Canada. I suppose if a bill had been terminated at second reading the economies are somewhat smaller, although they are there as well because there is sometimes quite a step to reach that level.

Nevertheless, for a bill or another initiative that has gone to committee and which has received the input of Canadians from all across the country testifying either here or elsewhere in Canada, for the people who have submitted briefs and so on, there are economies in not repeating the exercise a second time on an identical piece of legislation.

Groups who have already made representations, who have already submitted briefs to parliamentarians, would not have to repeat the whole process a second time for a bill that is identical to the one that was considered during the previous session.

To protect parliamentarians, the motion states clearly that the bill has to be identical to the one from the previous session, as verified by the office of the clerk of the House of Commons, otherwise this new condition would not be applicable.

You can see the validity and the objectivity of this whole exercise. I am sure members opposite could find it in their hearts to support such an initiative.

This has been the subject of consultation among political parties in the House. I cannot discuss the details of the consultation because that is not normally done when consultation is between House leaders. However, I can say that consultation between the House leadership teams, leaders, whips and so on, of each political party has taken place. People were contacted. The substance of what was there was described to the officials of political parties across the way. Therefore consultation had taken place previously.

For those who say or pretend this has been brought on at the last minute, it is not so. It does not reflect reality.

The Hill Times of February 26 had a long story on this. It has been known for days through that medium, through the consultation that we had and so on. Consultation has taken place. Only bills that are identical to those-

[Jim Silye, Reform, Calgary Centre, AB]

Are you sure?