Debates of Nov. 6th, 1997

Points Of Order

[Lee Morrison, Reform, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Medicine Hat wishes to let it be known that he was never involved with the Conservative caucus.

[The Speaker]

I think that will warm the hearts of both caucuses.

Business Of The House

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the government House leader to update us on the business of the House for the remainder of this week and for the first week that we are back after the break.

As well, I would ask him to update the House on any business rightfully belonging to this House which has been redirected to the Senate.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to inform the House of the following:

I think there will be a resolution tomorrow about the report stage and the third reading of the bill on warrants to arrest, that is Bill C-16.

With your permission, before I continue, I would like to thank the House leaders of all parties for their co-operation in achieving consensus on what I am about to read.

Next week, there will be a parliamentary recess in honour of Remembrance Day. Afterwards, on Monday November 17, the government will propose consideration of the motion on amendments to the Constitution Act concerning the school system in Quebec. An agreement has been reached, so it is still possible we could sit until we conclude the debate, in order to proceed with the vote on the following day. Therefore, the first vote will be taken on Tuesday, November 18.

On November 18, we will consider Bill C-11 on customs duties. That will be followed by Bill C-15, an act to amend the Canada Shipping Act, and by Bill C-18, the legislation on powers of designated customs officers. After that, we will consider Bill C-17 on Teleglobe Canada and Bill C-14 concerning the safety of water destined for human consumption.

On Wednesday, November 19, and Thursday, November 20, also pursuant to the agreement reached, we plan to consider Bill C-4, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. Votes on that will be deferred according to whatever the whips decide at that time.

So this is the legislative agenda for the rest of this week and for the whole week following recess.

[The Speaker]

I believe there is unanimous agreement to revert to Statements by Ministers.

Remembrance Day

[Fred Mifflin, Liberal, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Secretary of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency)]

Mr. Speaker, 79 years ago on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month the guns of the great war finally fell silent. The war to end all wars was over. The toll in millions of lives lost was appalling. Nations were shattered as the flower of their youth lay slaughtered on the killing fields of Europe. And across Canada, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters wept at the loss of their loved ones.

We are fast approaching another Remembrance Day, a brief moment in time when Canadians pay homage to those young men and women who have given their lives in service to their country throughout this century. It is a time to remember those whose blood stains the soil of nations they have helped to liberate from tyranny and oppression.

It is a time as well to honour and to thank the families of those who died and the veterans still among us for their sacrifice and their commitment to peace. We are indeed privileged to have two of those individuals with us today, as you have recognized, Mr. Speaker: Mrs. Alice Taylor, this year's Silver Cross mother, and Victoria Cross winner, Sergeant Smokey Smith.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Fred Mifflin, Liberal, Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, NL]

Most of us are familiar with the now famous names of countries and campaigns in which our Canadians fought and died.

In our history books, we read of Vimy and Passchendaele, Beaumont-Hamel and the Somme. From our fathers and grandfathers we have heard about the disasters of Hong Kong and Dieppe, the victories in Italy, France, and Belgium, and the liberation of the Netherlands.

And the images of the Korean war would be among the first to flicker across our television screens.

What we can never really understand is the terrible, terrible suffering that our veterans must have endured. And whatever the war, whatever the campaign, endure they did.

For the ground forces in the mud, muck and mire of the trenches, if bullet or bayonet did not get you, disease would. Whether in the freezing cold of the blood soaked European battlefields or in the hell holes of prison camps in Hong Kong and Japan, or in the rice paddies of Korea, death was never far away. Death by dogfight or enemy flak met our airmen. Treacherous seas and death by wolfpack awaited our seamen.

We have also read the impersonal statistics of war: over 60,000 slain in World War I, over 42,000 in World War II, 516 lost in Korea. Nor have our peacekeepers been immune from death and terrible wounds. But they are just numbers on a page. They do not tell the human tragedy behind each and every loss.

I have a letter that I think does put a personal face on the tragedy, the suffering and the loss. It is a letter written to his mother by a young army lieutenant serving in France on the eve of the battle of Amiens on August 7, 1918, very close to the end of the war. He was one of five brothers who served in the great war and in the extract from this powerful letter he makes reference to three of his brothers. The words speak for themselves.

Dearest Mother,

This is the evening before the attack and my thoughts are with you all at home, but my backward glance is wistful, only because of the memories and because of the sorrow that would befall and darken your lives should anything happen to me in tomorrow's fray. Otherwise my eye is fixed on tomorrow with hope for mankind and with visions of a new world. A blow will be struck tomorrow which will definitely mark the turn of the tide—

I have no misgivings for myself in tomorrow's encounter. It does not matter whether I survive or fall. A great triumph is certain, and I shall take part in it. I shall strike a blow for freedom, along with thousands of others who count personal safety as nothing when freedom is as stake—

We shall strive only to achieve victory. We shall not hold our lives dear. The hour is all the more dramatic for me because, for the first time since I came to France, I am close to the spot consecrated by the blood of our gallant dead.

It was here that noble Raymond fell and Joe and Kenneth shed their blood in freedom's cause. I trust to be as faithful as they.

I shall be my mother and father's son tomorrow. Again God bless you all.

Your son Hedley.

The next day 110 men would fall in this battle and among the numbered dead was young Hedley Goodyear, in his early 20s.

War, freedom and peace are not just the business of government and the military. It is a personal concern, it is a personal issue, as this testimony of Remembrance Day holds fast.

Let us not forget. N'oublions jamais.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[Preston Manning, Reform, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to join with the minister and other hon. members in paying tribute to those brave Canadians who lost their lives or suffered injury in the wars of the 20th century. We also pay tribute to those who came home, our veterans and those who serve in our armed forces today.

The veterans that I know face each passing Remembrance Day with a combination of pride and sadness. The pride of course comes from knowing that they participated in the preservation of freedom and democracy, not only for themselves but for other generations of Canadians and other people around the world. Their sadness arises from the lurking fear that no one really remembers or really cares.

I am reminded of a sad, old World War I song by the Australian Eric Bogle, sung so well by Canada's John McDermid, which puts the following words into the mouth of a crippled vet. He said:

And so now every April I sit on my porch And I watch the parade pass before me; And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march, Reviving old dreams and past glories.

But the old men march slowly, Their bones stiff and sore, Tired old men from a tired old war, And the young people ask, What are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question.

To those who feel this sadness on Remembrance Day, I want to say not as a member of Parliament or as the Leader of the Opposition but as the father of five children, that we do remember what you are marching for and that we are eternally grateful.

Two years ago my wife and I took our oldest son to the airport from which he was to leave for a year of travel and study in Asia and the south Pacific. It was a time of mixed emotions for us, sadness that he was leaving home for an extended time for the first time, but excitement that he was now through high school and off to see the world before going on with his studies.

I could not help thinking at that time how different our situation was and how infinitely preferable it was to that of parents who took their young people to the bus station or train station 80 years ago or 60 years ago at the outset of the first and second world wars and the terrible emotions they must have felt as they sent their young people not off to study, travel and work abroad in peace, but to fight in a war from which they might never return.

It is because those parents and those young people were prepared to make those sacrifices that we have not had to make them. It is because they suffered those terrible emotions that we do not have to suffer the same.

When I see the veterans marching past the cenotaph, even if their step is slower now and the bones may be stiff and sore, that is the answer we should give to those who ask, what are they marching for. They marched long ago and they march today for you and for me. And for that we owe them our profound and everlasting gratitude.

[Maurice Godin, Bloc, Châteauguay, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today, as the Bloc Quebecois critic for veterans issues, I would like to pay tribute to our veterans. This week, we will carry out together the promise that was made to them by the 35th Parliament, that is to extend the period of commemoration of Remembrance Day.

Indeed, on November 2, 1995, at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the second world war, Parliament decided to honour the courage and sacrifice of its military personnel by designating the week preceding Remembrance Day as veterans week.

The main reason that motivated Parliament in its decision was to educate the present generation, which has been fortunate enough to live without any major conflict for more than half a century, on the sense of duty and the freedom dearly won by Quebec and Canadian military personnel. To preserve the present peace that is still too fragile, we must remember the lessons of history and apply its teachings.

Let us remind all that democracy has a cost and, as such, it must be preserved at all cost.

More than 1.5 million Canadians served during the two world wars and in the Korean war and, we will never say this often enough, more than 110,000 soldiers lost their lives during the two major world conflicts, while several hundreds of others died during the Korean conflict and in peace missions under the United Nations.

We must not forget either all the civilians who gave their lives for the cause and those who, behind enemy lines, steadfastly prepared the final victory of the allied forces and democracy.

We must not forget the scope of human misery, the extensive human losses and the horrible suffering endured by all populations during these wars. During the second world war alone, civilian losses were estimated at more than 40 million.

It is up to us to remind each new generation of young Quebeckers and Canadians of the sacrifices made for a noble cause by an entire generation, be it at Dieppe, in Hong Kong, Korea, concentration camps, not to mention the deportations, and the list goes on.

One of the primary responsibilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs is in fact to keep the memory of their deeds and sacrifices alive.

Those are memories I had in mind when, last August, I participated in the ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of the landing in Dieppe, in Normandy, and with equal gratitude, this weekend, I will be attending ceremonies on the old continent with parliamentarian colleagues and veterans, as part of the Canadian delegation.

Humbly I shall pray at the military funeral service for Canadian airmen who died in the second world war but whose remains were just recently found in Belgium, reminding myself that the future of our children was built on the tombstones of our dead.

This week, let us pay tribute to our veterans. We must learn from these dark hours of history so that never again we will have to relive such sad events.

Our thanks to all veterans and to those who are no longer with us. At the going down of the sun, we will remember them.

[Peter Mancini, NDP, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party across Canada, my colleagues and I join with all members of the House in recognizing this coming Tuesday as Remembrance Day.

We believe that we would do well to pause and reflect on its meaning. I will do so myself. I had four uncles who served in the second world war, three of whom were prisoners of war. They do not discuss those days with me very much but I know that they have paid a great price for the freedom that I have to be here today.

We should also remember and honour all those who have made the supreme sacrifice and who willingly gave everything for the cause of peace, and for the cause of democracy.

We must remember the sacrifices and commitment of all those who pursued peace on our behalf in all of the wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions around the globe.

Also we must not forget the contribution of those Canadians who served in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion in the Spanish civil war and the members of the merchant marine.

I take this opportunity to remember someone familiar to this House who worked tirelessly for veterans and who showed, perhaps, what we can do, a Canadian who devoted much of his life to securing benefits for those gentlemen and ladies who served in the war and their families. That is the late Stanley Knowles. He was a tireless champion on behalf of our veterans and achieved much on their behalf.

We believe that it is part of our obligation to try and build the kind of world for which our veterans gave their lives. We believe this is a time for us to renew our commitment and our efforts in the pursuit of peace and democracy around the globe. We hope we will find a way to make life better for those who suffered and continue to suffer as a result of war.

We are honoured to join in this moment of recognition and remembrance for those who died and for those who served and are still with us. In the tradition of Remembrance Day, we say from our hearts, we will remember them. Their spirits watch us in this House and watch how we deal with the legacy left to us.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Madam Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to pay tribute to the many Canadians who risked their lives, and for those who fell in the cause of peace and freedom that we enjoy today in Canada.

This Remembrance Week commemorates those who sacrificed their lives so that we might enjoy the ways of freedom and the many who gave their lives at an early age. Myself and many Canadians at the age of 18 or 19 were finishing school, heading off to university or starting a career. Although we share the same age, the lives of those who served may have ended. Clearly the ultimate sacrifice made by earlier generations in our country has helped to ensure peace, security and the opportunity for subsequent generations.

Historians often note that Canada is one of the few countries in the world that came about peacefully, without bloodshed. While Confederation did not directly result from military battles on our soil, Remembrance Week reminds us that today Canada was forged by yesterday's battles beyond our borders.

The muddy fields of the Somme, the dark skies over the Rhineland, the cold, murky deeps of the North Atlantic, Hong Kong at Christmas; these are the many places where our soldiers, sailors, airmen, merchant marines, nurses and doctors put their lives on the line. They fought for their families, their communities and their country. They defended Canada against aggression as members of the army, navy, air force and the fourth arm of our fighting services, the merchant navy. Many never returned from battle.

The central structure of these Parliament Buildings, the Peace Tower, houses the memorial chamber. In that chamber are the books of remembrance which hold the names of every Canadian who died for our freedom. Each day a new page is turned.

The altars hold the books for the Boer war, the first great war, the second world war, the Newfoundland memorial, Korea and the merchant marine. Some of the names on those pages today include William Locke, flying officer; Edmund Masters, able seaman; Alphonse Roy, soldier; William Worden, private; James Daniel, second engineer; Germain Houle, private.

We remember them and honour them not just today, not just this week and not on November 11 but here in Parliament each and every day. Alexander Yorkton, corporal; William Zorn, sergeant; Richard Nankervis, lance corporal; Pierre Joquet, chief engineer; Francis Holland, private; Joseph Jackman, able ordinary seaman.

These names, along with the more than 100,000 names that appear on these tear stained pages are the many reasons that we remember our war dead, our veterans and their families, not just November 11, but 365 days of each year.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

I would now ask the House to rise and observe one minute of silence in memory of the departed.

I wish to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 33(2)(b) because of the ministerial statement government orders will be extended by 20 minutes.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Supply

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to say a few words on the Bloc motion.

Before I start into my little speech, I want to commend my hon. colleague from Calgary Southeast on his comments on this motion. I would like to point out to this House that here is a young man who was led down the broad path of taxation and spending. He followed the advice of political pundits who said that this was the way their life would be regulated, that this is the direction that our youth would have to take.

He came to the pinnacle of truth, he looked down and saw the big debt hole and said, “Hold it, I am not jumping”. He looked back and saw Reform and he said, “There is my answer. Live within your means. Be comfortable. That is the way the government should be run”.

What did this young man do about it? He became active in politics. And here he is. Here is the man who is going to change the future for many young people down the road. Here is the man who is probably going to be on that other side some day and will say, “Look at what those people did. Look at the suffering they have created”. He will fix it like some of our other young colleagues who are sitting with me in this House. And I am proud to be a colleague of theirs.

I would now like to say a few things about the Bloc motion. I kind of feel sorry for the Quebec government, that it got rooked into this deal.

I do not agree that the deal should ever have been made but I know they have been suffering. If members want to hear what the Liberals said in opposition, here is what one of the members said and he is still in the House today: “We created a monster. Now we have an underground economy so big that no one can even account for it”. That is exactly what we heard.

[An hon. member]

Who said that?

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

He is presently the public works and government services minister. Yes, that was his view of the GST when he was on this side.

[An hon. member]

So it definitely was a Liberal.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Here is another Liberal who graduated to that other place after they were elected. This is what he said: “The GST has undermined Canadians' confidence in the fairness of our tax system”. That is exactly what this motion is talking about, the unfairness.

There is an old saying my dad used to remind us of. He said that if you are going to play with fire you are probably going to get burnt. This is what the Quebec government was doing with the GST. It saw the federal government raking in the dollars and it figured, why not harmonize it, broaden it a bit and then rake in some more money. All of a sudden, it realized that its economy was stopping, that it was deadening itself, it was killing itself. That is what was happening. Then the pain started coming and it did not know how to cure that pain.

This reminds me of another little incident with my two older children when they were about five or six years old. My wife came to me one noon and said, “Jake, we have a pocket gopher in our garden eating all our vegetables. You better get a gopher trap and catch that varmint”. What did I do? I went out and put a trap in the hole the gopher had dug and covered it up, never suspecting that my two youngsters were watching to see how I did it. That is what the Quebec government was doing. It was watching the federal government putting on taxes.

Within an hour my kids thought there should be some results. When you do something you have to have results. They tried to uncover the hole and they got their hands in the gopher trap and ow, it hurt. My son and daughter came screaming home, “Dad, help, help”. That is what the Bloc is saying today, “Help. There is pain”.

What did I do? I had to reduce my kids' pain. I took the trap off. But if we look at what the Bloc did to soften the pain, they put a gopher trap on the other hand and then they really had pain. And now it is really hurting. They created it themselves. How can they blame the federal government? They looked in the mirror to see how it was working.

[An hon. member]

A partner in crime.

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

A partner in crime. A very good comment.

I did the right thing. I took the gopher trap off my kids' hands which relieved the pain totally and made them happy again. That is what the Quebec government should have done. It should have removed the tax. Instead it harmonized it and created twice the pain. If you want to help heal a problem, you do not make it bigger, you put something on it to cure it.

I want to give another couple of examples of how they could have listened to the Liberals when they were in opposition and how they could have solved the problem. This is what the present finance minister said in the Montreal Gazette on April 4, 1990: “I would abolish the GST. The manufacturers sales tax is a bad tax and there is no excuse to repeal one bad thing by bringing in another”. The finance minister admitted that.

The finance minister had a good idea. He knew what he was talking about. On June 21, 1994, after he was elected he became the finance minister, and this is what he said in the Ottawa Citizen : “It is almost impossible to design a tax that is more costly and more inefficient than the GST”. He had the answer.

We were sitting on this side, waiting for the GST to be killed, to be abolished, to be scrapped. What did the Bloc and the Quebec government do? They said, “Let us jump on the gravy train. Let us get some extra taxes. Let us make things roll in this country. Throw in another tax. That is the way to go”.

Here is what a writer said in 1996 about the GST. I am citing this to show how destructive the GST has been to our economy. He said: “My message to the Prime Minister comes after yesterday's chilling report from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation which shows that new home construction across the country crashed to a 35-year low last year. That makes 1995 the worst year for our homebuilders since 1960, outstripping the pain of 1994 when we hit a 10-year low, and for Toronto it means a loss of another 10,000 construction jobs”.

Are we surprised why the Quebec government is feeling the pain? I am sure it hit Montreal. I am sure it hit Quebec. That is just in the housing industry. What did it do to the service industries?

I can remember that in Winnipeg in my own province it killed tourism. It killed restaurants, small businesses and the service sector. As the member said, we cannot even afford to get a haircut because we have to pay tax on it.

[An hon. member]

So why did they not kill the tax?

[Jake Hoeppner, Reform, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I do not know why they did not kill the tax. They were talked into trying to jump on the tax train and grab as much as they could, forgetting that it would hurt more in the end. I feel sorry for the Quebec government but it is not just Quebec that has been hurt, it has hurt us right across the country. It is the taxpayers who are suffering. They will continue to suffer until we dismantle, scrap, kill or abolish the GST. That will probably only happen when the Liberals are back here and we are over there.

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Madam Speaker, I could not help but listen intently to the very informative speech from my hon. colleague.

Out west there is a little parasite. It gets onto human beings and livestock and will suck the lifeblood right out of you. We call it a tick. I often wonder if maybe it got its name from politics, from governments trying to suck the lifeblood out of people through taxation.

We know that basically we work more than six months out of the year just to pay taxes in this country. That means out of every eight hours that a person works, four hours are going to pay taxes in order to keep the governments of our country going.

Does the hon. member think it is fair for the people of this country to work so hard and put in the time that they do to pay over 50% back in taxes to the government to absolutely squander in any way it sees fit without having any input from the taxpayers themselves?