Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on this motion.
The motion is deliberately written in a very broad fashion to bring attention to many deficiencies in the government's actions to date, the many promises it has broken and not followed through on. There were many things the Liberals campaigned on so vociferously during the last federal election. There have been many failures to deliver on what many Canadians thought were sincere attempts to deliver the goods on politicians' promises.
It is no wonder as we put together this motion and put together the list of promises that were broken that it turned into quite a project. We started out with the obvious ones such as Sheila Copps' nationally televised GST promise which eventually led to her resignation. There were some in my own riding. I remember during the election campaign the Liberals promised they would not sign the GATT agreement without a strengthened and clarified article XI.2(c). Remember that one? Of course that one has gone by the wayside. We remember some of the other promises that were made.
Many of us thought we would put together this supply day motion to bring this to the attention of Canadians. There would probably be a couple of other things which would come to mind. It ended up being a major research project. We started it on the broken promises and it turned into a major research paper. We could write Ph.D. on this.
The motion states that given the Prime Minister's 1993 election commitment "that there will not be a promise I do not keep", and I remember him standing in front of the cameras saying: "Every day you can check in the red book and see where I am". It has rapidly become one of those things which has accounted for the astounding 21 per cent drop in the approval rating of the Prime Minister over the last year. It is an astounding drop. Maybe he feels proud that his approval rating is still up around 48 per cent but one-third of the people who supported him a year ago no longer do. They have run out of patience.
Today the Minister of Natural Resources came before the committee. I reminded the minister again that although she is a very engaging person and talks a good line, people are getting impatient with the lack of follow through. For example, what was promised a year ago July, an energy chapter to the internal trade agreement, has now become a broken promise. There was a promise from the Minister of Industry last December to streamline regulations in the mining industry. It is now almost June and still there is nothing. There was the promise of jobs, jobs, jobs.
The rhetoric was good but the follow through just has not cut it. That has largely accounted for the 21 per cent drop in the approval rating of the Prime Minister. I also think it accounts for some of the paranoia I see on the Liberal side when they talk about many of the issues of the day after a week back in their ridings. They are starting to get the message from Canadians. Promises are fine but the follow through is what counts.
There was the GST debate during the last election. It has gone on here now for a couple of years. We all remember the actions of the Liberals, the ringing of the bells, the playing of the kazoos, doing whatever it took to raise the profile of why they were not going to approve the GST.
At all-candidates meetings my Liberal opponent was telling the world how they were going to abolish the GST. I remember saying: "That is not a serious proposal. You have no alternatives. Something cannot be abolished which brings in $17 billion. Let us be realistic about this". The promises were made. In my riding of course people did not believe it but they did in many other ridings, especially in Ontario where the Liberals won 98 of the 99 seats. However, the GST promise has now come home to roost.
Think also of the other specifics of the GST and how it has been handled. In 1990 a Liberal member in the House said that the GST was to be applied to reading materials and how could we expect to have another generation of people who could know more and compete in the world if the GST was applied to reading materials? Now the Liberals have harmonized the tax in Atlantic Canada and made it 15 per cent across the board. Lo and behold it is being applied to the very products they said three or four years ago they would not support.
Canadians are beginning to see. In Sheila Copps' case the GST brought down the minister. It caused her to resign and go door to door right now saying: "Please trust me this time". I think she is going to have a hard sell back in Hamilton East.
Where do we go? I am not sure which broken promise you are particularly interested in, Mr. Speaker. How about the CBC funding? During the election campaign the Reform Party had the zero in three plan which we said would balance the budget. We had to make some tough decisions. We said we would be tough with the CBC. Doggone it, we would cut $365 million from CBC funding.
For saying that the Liberals got up on their high horse and started in with: "What kind of a draconian feature is that?" They were going to provide stable funding for the CBC. As the member for Kingston and the Islands so readily noted, we promised to cut $365 million from CBC funding. Members can check in the zero in three plan.
The member for Kingston and the Islands has been busy with constituency work lately. He has a lot of time for that as he does not have many parliamentary duties to get in his way. When he goes home I am sure he will be interested in talking to his constituents since he has a lot of time to do that. They will ask: "What about this promise of stable funding for the CBC? What did that Reform Party promise?"
The Liberals have cut more from the CBC than the Reform Party proposed. To date the Liberals have cut $377 million from CBC funding. Our proposal is in the Reform Party's taxpayers budget, which I am sure the member called slash and burn at the time. He can get a copy of our proposals. I would be happy to send him one.
We said to cut $365 million. Did we want to cut $365 million because we thought that would be the end of the CBC? No. However, we were honest with the Canadian people, unlike members opposite who said one thing to get elected then broke those promises once they were in power.
I am sure the member for Kingston and the Islands will be interested in another broken promise, which sprung to mind as I was considering him and his busy constituency work. He wrote on revamping, modernizing and democratizing this place. His little report, which he wrote with a couple of other members from the Liberal Party, was attached to the red book as an appendix on how they were going to democratize the House of Commons.
I am not sure if you are ready for this, Mr. Speaker, but one of the proposals from the member for Kingston and the Islands concerned your very own position which he said should be held by members of the opposition parties. That was his proposal, not a particular campaign promise from myself. I will defer to his experience.
Mr. Speaker, I find you to be a very credible, very fair and an excellent Speaker, as you were in your former occupation. The member said that from his experience, in order to bring credibility to the Chair it was not good enough just to find a fair person; we had to have someone from the opposition parties. Do you remember the promise?
When we got into the House of Commons and went through a couple of sessions, some of the Chair positions were switched around. We brought this to the attention of the member for Kingston and the Islands and asked: What happened to the promise in the appendix of the red book to elect the deputy speakers from the opposition ranks?
I am not sure which person on this side would run but it is an instance of a broken promise. He wrote the report. He promised it to the Canadian people. He said it would help make this place more credible. It was not my proposal. It was a promise made by the Liberal Party of Canada which has not been fulfilled. It is a broken promise. It is another broken promise.
Another issue was the ethics counsellor. When I think of broken promises I think of the ethics issue. The Prime Minister has gone on at some length as to the appointment of an ethics counsellor. He found a person he felt he could trust, and we can take that anyway we like. He felt he could trust the ethics counsellor to give him the verdicts he wanted, the work that he wanted or whatever. The Prime Minister put him in the position. Instead of reporting through the House of Commons to the Canadian people, where does the ethics counsellor report? He reports to the Prime Minister himself.
When the Prime Minister appoints an ethics counsellor he finds someone he has worked with for 20 or 30 years for the position. The ethics counsellor is told to investigate whatever the Prime Minister wishes. When the investigation is finished the ethics counsellor hands the report to him to read at 24 Sussex Drive. Depending on what the verdict is, the report may or may not be shared with the Canadian people. That is not an answer to a promise for an ethics counsellor; it is an ethics lap dog.
The ethics counsellor does not report to Canadians but only to the person who hired him. A hired person is not independent if he must report to the person who is paying the bills. In our opinion that is what has happened to the position.
I return to the GATT and the NAFTA. During the election campaign the Reform Party said that we must sign the GATT. It was going to happen. One hundred and fifty nations of the world wanted to sign the GATT. We were going to sign it. We said that we
should be up front with Canadians. We thought we should sign it. It was becoming a worldwide, rules based trading economy. We should sign the GATT and get on with it.
I can remember the Liberal candidates in both Chilliwack and Abbotsford in my riding saying that they would lay down on the railroad tracks before they signed the GATT without a strengthened and clarified article XI.2(c). I am not exaggerating. The supply managed people had nothing to fear. The Liberals would never sign such an agreement. They would lay on the railroad tracks before they would sign that deal.
Within a month of the election, before Parliament even sat, the Liberal government had signed the GATT. I am not surprised. It was the thing to do. We in the Reform Party campaigned on it. We told the truth to the Canadian people. The Liberals said one thing to get elected and did another thing once they were in power.
The same thing happened with NAFTA. The Liberals railed against that in opposition. They were going to renegotiate the NAFTA. It was a mess. Mulroney had botched it. We wondered if there was anything to salvage. They were going to renegotiate the NAFTA. Again, they got in power and they signed the NAFTA. I am not upset with the decision. That was the thing to do. I campaigned on it. I told the truth. The Liberals campaigned on one thing and did another.
The list is growing. Mr. Speaker, you will notice the list is growing. I am sure you are as alarmed as I am that lists of broken-