Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be speaking today in support of this motion which severely criticizes the government because it does give me the opportunity to talk about all the broken promises.
I bring up some matters mentioned by the member for Kenora-Rainy River. He mentioned the importance of voters selecting a party based on facts, not fiction. Let us get something very clear. Fifty-one of fifty-two Reform MPs in the House gave up their right to any pension. Therefore nobody can point a finger at us. All of the greed is on the other side of the House.
I am getting a bit sick of having my constituents attacked as racist, bigoted, homophobic, extremists or any other derogatory adjective these Liberals keep bringing up. Just because my constituents do not believe in Liberal tax and spend policies does not mean they are intolerant. Every time the member puts a label on us or our policies, which incidentally have not changed since the 1993 election, he is attacking our constituents. More than two million people, 20 per cent of the voters of Canada, voted Reform in the last election. Therefore every time he gets up arrogantly to use those labels I suggest he give a little thought to what he is doing.
I continue with the latest set of broken promises from the government. Canadians will remember that about a week ago the Prime Minister in western Canada said Canadians will have to live with high levels of unemployment. By admitting failure on the job front the Prime Minister has confirmed that neither he nor any of
his government employed for life colleagues have the slightest idea how real jobs are created.
The Prime Minister claimed during the 1993 election campaign that his $6 billion job creation infrastructure project would create all sorts of wonderful jobs and we would return to the days of low unemployment. He had this theory that all the people employed by the program would spend the money in their communities and that this would then reduce unemployment.
However, anyone with business experience could see that the plan could not work from day one. The reason was the government was not creating long term, meaningful jobs. It was buying jobs using taxpayers money and borrowed money, and those sorts of jobs are only short term.
Frankly, if running deficits and accumulating a $583 billion debt could create jobs we would each have at least three by now. Instead the overspending has led to punitive levels of taxation. It has driven businesses out of the country. It has reduced the amount of disposable income in the pockets of consumers. Debt and deficits have caused unemployment. Until the people on the other side of the House-and we can laugh at this right now-come to grips with that we will not make any progress.
Although governments cannot themselves create meaningful jobs, they can create the climate that permits private enterprises, the private sector, to create those jobs. The steps to success would require the federal government to balance its budget as quickly as possible so that those who are to be affected by the changes can adjust as quickly as possible and then immediately get into tax reductions to put more money into the pockets of consumers. With that money in their pockets, consumers will spend more, stimulating the demand for products, increasing the demand for jobs and subsequently lowering the unemployment level.
These steps were the foundation of Reform's zero in three plan for balancing the budget, which we used during the 1993 election campaign. We are three years down stream from that now. If the government had taken our plan the day it came to office, we would today be running surpluses and arguing about what to do with the surplus money instead of arguing which social program we are to cut next.
We would not be talking about disassembling CPP and cutting the transfers to medicare. We would have a surplus and would be talking about enhancing those programs.
I come from New Zealand. New Zealand politicians were forced by a fiscal crisis in 1984 to take exactly the steps I just detailed. Today the New Zealand unemployment rate is below 6 per cent. It has large budget surpluses. It is applying those surpluses to expanded health care programs, better social programs, and at the same time workers this week received a $100 per month reduction in income taxes.
Imagine if the Minister of Finance had been able to stand in the House in his last budget and announce a $100 per month reduction in income taxes. The government side is always paying lip service to eliminating and reducing poverty. The best way to make that happen would be to get taxation down so that there is more money in the pockets of consumers.
New Zealand has proven that a dollar in the hands of an investor, a business person or a consumer will be spent more wisely and will create more jobs than that dollar in the hands of anyone on the other side of the House. We can have jobs, jobs, jobs if we want them but first we need to get a few MPs in the House who understand how jobs are created.
The sad thing is that even though there are methods for job creation that have been proven in other countries, one must ask why we cannot not get that in the House.
The basic problem is there is a party unwillingness on the other side to admit that any idea that comes from this side might actually be worth considering. That problem stems from the fact that Parliament in its present form is much more suited to the enactment of a party agenda than it is to the enactment of sensible policies or the will of the people.
In blunt terms, the $125,000 plus to run this place every hour gives us little more than a charade of meaningless debates and answerless questions. The outcome of every vote on every government bill is known in advance, before the first speaker even gets up. The government knows every one of its bills will pass. The problem is that to change that sort of thing we will need a lot of sacrifice by those in power. At the moment those people are the least willing to sacrifice the power they maintain.
Despite their resistance I can feel the tide turning. I feel the tide of Canadian support turning against those traditionalists. The progress of the revolution can be measured at the ballot box. It certainly manifested itself in tremendous uncertainty for the traditional parties over the last five years or so.
We need look only at the success of the Reform Party of Canada, which jumped from one seat in Ottawa prior to the 1993 election to 52 seats. It was contrary to the predictions of the pundits and despite the vigorous, completely unfounded media attacks against the party. It used to use the old labels of racist and bigoted, but those long ago lost their effect because they were not true.
Let me give a personal example. My riding was held from the middle of the 1970s until 1993 by Chuck Cook, a Progressive Conservative. In the vote of 1993, I received a higher number of votes than Chuck Cook ever had in his entire history in this place, votes paid to any suggestion that this party is a reincarnation of the
PCs. Through our policies I took 18 per cent of the NDP vote to Reform. That happened in Reform ridings throughout western Canada.
The truth is voters saw through the attacks, the labels attracted to the party. What they saw they wanted, a populist set of policies based on their input and a promise that MPs would represent the will of constituents in Parliament.
Perhaps this is an appropriate time for me to mention again that my constituents are getting fed up with hearing Liberals in the House continually implying, through their personal attacks on Reform MPs, that the millions of Reform voters and supporters across the country are racists, bigots, homophobes and extremists simply because they do not agree with Liberal policies and because they do not agree with the way bills are rammed through the House.
They are not racists, bigots, homophobes and extremists. They are caring, responsible, compassionate Canadians, and they are sick and tired of being attacked by the politically correct who sit on that side of the House. It has to stop because it is unacceptable. It would do well for those taking part in the smear campaigns to remember that every time they stand in the House to make those kinds of accusations.
This morning I had a call from a constituent who watched the television coverage of yesterday's extensive ceremonies involving MPs. I ask members to put themselves in the shoes of ordinary Canadians who watched that yesterday. They saw former members of Parliament honouring themselves by unveiling a series of wall plaques listing their names in the House of Commons. They saw them heading off for a cocktail party at the governor general's residents.
Those taxpayers were asking who was paying for all of this self-glorification. Do they not have big enough pensions already? Do they not have a big enough trough already? Do they not take any responsibility at all for what they have done to the country? Are they proud of the $583 billion debt they left for our children and our grandchildren? Are they proud of the highly excessive taxation levels forcing people to deal in the underground economy? Are they proud of a justice system that cannot protect us? Are they proud of the Young Offenders Act which lets young offenders roam out of control in gangs, not accountable for the crimes they commit?
They are the ones who caused all the problems. Why are they honouring themselves? It was because of them that millions of Canadians voted in 52 Reform MPs in the last election, a party with ethics that would stop wasting taxpayer money on gold plated pension plans and would restore some common sense to government.
The truth is the real extremists in our political system are sitting on the opposite side of the House. They are the traditional politicians who flocked to this place yesterday to admire their names on the gold plaques on the walls. They were the ones who before they began dismantling the CPP for ordinary Canadians voted themselves a gold plated pension plan that would be illegal in the private sector.
They were the ones who ignored the will of ordinary Canadians and rammed their politically correct legislation through Parliament. They are the ones who invoked political correctness so that Canadians are afraid to speak openly about the issues that concern them. As a Reform MP I have had to live through a lot of attacks from special interest groups which see their funding threatened.
On this latest attack that we have heard over the last couple of months, this extremist label that has popped up, the public sees labels for what they are, a smear campaign without foundation. As the constituent who called me this morning said, we have only to look at the actions of the traditional parties to see who the real extremists are.
Their $583 billion debt is extreme. Their punitive tax rates are extreme. Their decision to let dangerous offenders out of prison after a few years of sentence is extreme. Their actions in ramming special interest group bills through the House are extreme. Closing off debate on important bills is extreme. Their thousands of annual patronage appointments and grants to special interest groups are extreme. Most extreme of all is the legislation they passed for their own pension schemes.
All these things were achievements of the people like those on the opposite side, the traditional old line politicians who ignored what the people wanted them to do and enacted the will of the special interest groups instead. Yesterday they celebrated their achievements and people watched on television. Members should have heard the comments they made.
The people on the opposite side of the House are slow learners. There is no doubt in my mind that we have now reached the point where any party, federal or provincial, which does not listen to the voters and start enacting the will of the voters is going to find itself subject to elimination by the voters of the information age. We can already see the evidence that it is happening by looking at matters in the provinces and even at the federal level.
It is only the social engineers who still cling to the belief that people are too stupid, too mean, too intolerant, too lacking in compassion to govern themselves. Those social engineers are resisting change.
The traditionalists think they are the sole possessors of compassion, understanding and tolerance and that the voters can only be
trusted to make a decision once every five years about which benevolent dictatorship will govern them next. I know for certain, and every MP in this House must know, the public notices how every party when it gets elected says how clever the voters were to have selected it to run the country. Any time the public will is against one of its bills the first thing the party does is label the voters as ill-informed, mean-spirited, racist, homophobic, extremist. No wonder the voters have become cynical about their governments. They have good reason.
Let us look at an example which happened in the House just a couple of weeks ago. The member for York-Simcoe stood in this House and criticized the member for Yorkton-Melville who made a statement on behalf of a group of Cree Indians. Leonard Iron, a Cree of the Canoe Lake Band had handed a letter to my colleague from Yorkton-Melville and asked him to read it in the House. That is exactly what that member did. Then last week the member for York-Simcoe said in her statement in the House:
Once again a member of the Reform Party has lashed out against a minority group, this time Canada's aboriginal community. This Reform member made derogatory remarks about Canada's native leadership when he said that its leadership will turn native self-government into fascist states.
After she made the comment I walked across the floor of the House and I said to the member: "When you read that statement, did you know that my colleague was reading it from a letter from the Cree nation?" She said to me: "Yes, I did". I said: "What sort of person does that make you?"
I can respect differing opinions in this House. I am prepared to argue for the policies that I stand for but I have no respect for people who set out to destroy others by not using the facts.
Here is another example. I have been waiting for the answer to a question I put in this House in March of last year. I realize there has been a prorogation but anybody with an ounce of common sense knows that if any work had been done on the question it could continue after the House came back. Since March 1995 the question is:
With respect to the Squamish Indian Band in North Vancouver, what has the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development determined to be (a) the total number of band members living on the reserve, (b) the total amount of funding provided to the band in each of the years from 1990 to 1994 from all federal government transfers, including but not limited to, transfers and grants for any purpose, government leases of land from the band, housing costs, education and training, special purpose funding and income from Park Royal South Shopping Centre lease collected on behalf of the band?
I have been waiting for an answer to the question for my constituents for more than a year. It is a disgrace the way this government conducts itself.
Unfortunately our parliamentary system has made it possible for the MPs of the traditional parties to be unaccountable between
elections and to ride to election on the coattails of a dictatorial leader who will tell them how to vote in the House. In my opinion this has the potential to rob them of their dignity, their decency and their morality and could reduce them to the level of trained seals.
Unfortunately those who hold the reins of power presently pay lip service to consultation and input. It is very rare for anything to change in their plans as a result of that input.
The Prime Minister has done nothing to rectify this problem despite the promises of free votes. If he truly believed in democracy, all he would have to do is rise in the House, the way Pierre Trudeau did when the present Prime Minister was the minister of finance, and state that a vote lost on a government bill does not mean the defeat of the government but should be followed by a confidence vote to restore confidence. This would allow democracy to prevail. It would allow meaningful debates in the House in which members would have a chance to talk openly and freely to perhaps convince one another to vote a different way.
The problem is there is no accountability. There is the same lack of accountability by ministers. For example, the minister of immigration answers letters from my constituents with ridiculous statements which I do not have time to read.
It is very depressing to see what happens here. I support the motion of my colleague and I hope others will also vote in favour of it.