Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, like others I want to congratulate you and welcome you to the Chair.
I want to thank the constituents of Malpeque for having the confidence to re-elect me to this 36th Parliament.
As my constituents know very well, the last four years were not easy in our thrust to put the country in a secure financial position for the future. The reality is that in Atlantic Canada, where there has been a greater dependency on government programs, we have felt the pain of cuts and program changes more vividly than in other areas of the country.
My constituents have shown their willingness to accept what had to be done. However, they are also telling me that they are at their limit in terms of program elimination and cost recovery. Constituents of Malpeque want us in this term to ensure a balance between our economic and social agenda. They maintain we need a strong central government to carry out such initiatives. They welcome and support the latest initiatives of the government on the unity file.
Our plan during the election set out our values and priorities, a growing economy, a modernized health care system and investing in knowledge to equip Canadians to compete in a changing world. We also offered during the election a workable plan for enhancing the unity of our country and securing our future.
The throne speech begins the task of implementing those commitments in quality care, increasing the cash floor which is of particular importance in Prince Edward Island, education, knowledge, innovation, the commitment of $2 billion for the youth employment strategy and in trade where agriculture, fisheries, tourism and aerospace production are of particular importance to my riding and to Prince Edward Island.
The commitment of the Government of Canada to adopt its programs to reflect the social economic realities of rural Canada is of particular importance. Given these facts, I am still both anxious and optimistic about the future. I am anxious because I have seen the amount of pressure that those with economic power can place on government. We saw that here the other day in the debate on supply as the right-wingers from across the floor argued for tax breaks for the wealthy when we should be investing in programs that meet the needs of ordinary Canadians.
Before long we will have the ability to make decisions based on our people's needs rather than those of the international bankers and bond holders. That gives me optimism for the future. We have regained the ability to address the priorities of Canadians. We did it with a fair bit of pain. We regained that ability, but how will the ultimate decisions be made?
I believe we must recognize as parliamentarians what we are up against in making such decisions. That is the pressure from the economic right and the strategies it employs to undermine our ability as parliamentarians to represent fairly the needs of people. They some how manage to portray the needs of the economy above the needs of people. We need a strong economy but it cannot and should not be the absolute in and of itself.
In one sense I am speaking on the broader issue of democracy, of politics and of the needs of people in society to support and participate in our parliamentary democracy, not just those who have economic power and sway.
In the last decade our various political institutions have come under considerable attack, often very subtly, by those who have much to gain if the political institutions of the land can be undermined. Politicians are attacked as well and not just on their ideas; sometimes the person and the business itself.
As move toward the next millennium both within Canada and globally we are really in a battle of democracy versus the market.
Let me put this as concisely as I can. With all the trade agreements, the linking of the markets in the financial sense, it has caused power to shift. Let me put it this way and compare it to space. The economic space has grown and the political space has narrowed.
I believe if that space is out of balance between economics and politics we are all in trouble in terms of meeting the needs of the people in our nations. In other words, if the market has all the power then all we can really be is a consumer.
This is summed up best by Arthur Shafer in Peter Newman's The Canadian Revolution :
The values of the marketplace have infiltrated every institution in Canada, the family, the church, the legal system. Anti-human, commercial values are dominating every sphere of life. Now that we're coming into economic hard times, the sense of each man for himself, save your own skin, get whatever advantage you can is going to sink public spiritedness and make it much more difficult to preserve our sense of obligation to the community.
This pressure on the essence of government is also explained appropriately by John Ralson Saul in his book The Unconscious Civilization :
People become so obsessed by hating government that they forget it is meant to be their government and is the only powerful public force they have purchase on.
That is what makes the neo-conservative and market force argument so disingenuous. Their remarkably successful demonization of the public sector has turned much of the citizenry against their own mechanism. They have been enrolled in the cause of interests that have no particular concern for citizen's welfare. Instead, the citizen is reduced to the status of a subject at the foot of the throne of the marketplace.
My point is that the individual and the government are linked together by an artery. If we act to sever that artery by replacing or opposing a central role for government, we cease to be individuals and revert to the status of subject.
I have outlined the foregoing to put into context the kind of environment in which we will work in the House and this Parliament. We have to recognize from where and why that pressure comes. I certainly believe in a strong role for government. I believe that the public sector actually creates value in our society through its institutions, its programs, its public services and its workforce.
Part of the reason we see this subtle attack on this institution and government itself is that some in the private sector know that if they can shift that responsibility then they can profit by doing so.
It is the desire of some in the corporate sector to move back to a time when individual problems, regardless of circumstances, were an individual responsibility. We cannot allow that to happen.
As Thomas Jefferson stated, the care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.
The corporate sector recognizes that if government can be moved out of the way there is a profit to be made in the offering of what is now a public service. One of the best ways to achieve its goal is to substitute markets for those public programs now authorized through democratic institutions.
I put these points on the table to show what I believe is one of the greatest pressures on this institution. To protect ourselves from being subverted by that pressure I refer members to page 140 of Hansard and the remarks of my colleague from Hillsborough when he talked about more power being put to members of this assembly. That would certainly lessen the power of the bureaucracies within Ottawa and would also lessen the ability of those with economic clout to pressure cabinet ministers to make decisions. What we really need is real debate in this House and for the decisions to be made here.
I believe we can better achieve our objectives as stated in the throne speech by assuring, as the hon. member for Hillsborough had argued in his remarks, that greater power is put in the hands of the members of House of Commons. I think it is one of the most fundamental things we must do.