Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Waterloo—Wellington.
I am pleased to rise on this very important issue but puzzled as to how we have arrived at this moment in our history where we are debating a motion that would arbitrarily and artificially impose a deadline on negotiations that are currently going on across the country.
I listened to the previous speaker and I have listened to him on many occasions and heard thoughtful comments in this place from that member of the Reform Party. I see the member for Calgary East who I know does not always agree with his party's positions, particularly some of the more extreme ones. I heard the member for Macleod, the health critic, talk in terms of his party's not wanting two tier health care and various other things he was denouncing.
It has occurred to me as I listen to this debate that this whole thing is about double standards. I want to share with the House a couple of comments, and this is a direct quote, which would seem to run in the face of the comments by the member for Macleod when he said the Reform Party is not advocating a two tier health system. This relates very clearly to the social union negotiations that were going on.
The leader of the Reform Party to the Saskatoon Business Association on April 2, 1995 said: “We want to amend those sections of the act”, the Canada Health Act, “that deny the provinces the flexibility to require some Canadians to pay at least a portion of their own health care costs”.
How would members interpret that in any way other than two tier health care? I find it a complete contradiction in terms, a denial of his own leader's recorded statements, when the health critic for the Reform Party stands here urging the government to move ahead unilaterally on an issue that would clearly impact the delivery of health care and he is denying his leader actually said this by claiming that the Reform Party is not in support of dismantling the Canada Health Act and establishing a two tier health system.
On February 23, 1998 the member for Vancouver North said: “I had to go into a hospital in Florida. It really put a shame to what happens in my riding in North Vancouver with socialist medicine. I do not think there is any harm in having some competition”.
Once again it is a matter quite clearly of the words not matching the music, of saying one thing and believing another. I see that the health critic is here and I want him to know that I believe he cares about Canadians' health. He is a medical doctor. I believe he has serious concerns. But I do not understand how he reconciles the difference between the statements made.
How he reconciles these double standards is a problem that the Reform Party in my view must wrestle with in its caucus meetings. It must be fascinating to be a fly on the wall to listen to “on the one hand we want to do it this way, but on the other hand we think we can sell it better if we announce it another way”.
Frankly, that is what we are seeing here with the issue of putting some kind of arbitrary deadline. All members in this place want to see a deal done on behalf of all Canadians that makes Canada work.
I believe even members of the Reform Party believe that all members who were sent here as federal politicians, anyone who comes here with a federal interest in making this federation work, want to see some kind of a deal structure. There may be exceptions with Bloc Quebecois members obviously who were sent here more as regional or provincial politicians.
I recall very clearly that I was unable to go to Montreal when the big rally took place at the last minute during the referendum. My wife, a member of council, and a number of her colleagues went on a bus and a number of people from my riding went.
They told me what an incredibly moving experience that was. Yet the Reform Party, instead of joining hands with Canadians in Montreal, worked against not only us but against this entire nation. It ran a deficit in its own budget. It went over its own budget. It spent money it did not have which again points out a double standard to try to destroy the Charlottetown accord. I think it succeeded in doing that.
During one of the parliamentary recesses, when we are getting messages from around the world about the financial stability of this country, we saw the leader of the Reform Party at a speech somewhere in Asia totally tearing down the social and economic fabric of Canada. This is someone who would purport to be a prime minister. This is outrageous.
I want to share with members a couple of quotes that came about as a result of the events last evening in the province of Quebec. We all know what we saw in the province of Quebec last night was a clear message. It was a message from the people of Quebec to the separatists that they do not want a referendum.
I say that to my colleagues in the Bloc. It is a clear message. They do not want a referendum. I did not see anybody strutting around. I watched the news. I did not see great yelling and cheering at the supposed victory parties.
In fact, what I saw was puzzlement from the separatists who said “We thought Quebecers really wanted a referendum and they really wanted to separate. Maybe the don't”. What they really want is government to get on with the job. In a vast majority, if someone looks at the numbers, 55% of the people in the province of Quebec last evening voted against the PQ. That is a pretty clear message.
I want to share a couple of quotes. The first one I want to share is a quote from the provincial premier who happens to be the chair of the provincial premiers as they meet this year. It is interesting that next year's chair will be newly elected, re-elected Premier Bouchard.
This year's chair, Premier Roy Romanow, said in talking about the election:
I think what it means is that the task ahead of us is to, if I may use a little bit of play on Premier Bouchard's campaign slogan, winning conditions for referendum, for me the focus now is winning conditions for Canada. And the first order of business is the social union, negotiating it as quickly as we can. Not under any artificial deadlines or timetables. Doing it with dispatch, doing it with determination. The Prime Minister wants to do it, his ministers want to do it. The premiers want to do it. Premier Bouchard signed on, here in Saskatoon in August, to the bargaining position. I underline those words, the bargaining position of the provinces and the territorial governments.
What we've had here is the people of the province of Quebec engage in election and elect their government for the next four years. We haven't had tonight, based on this result, in my mind, something more than that. On the question of social union, and the negotiation that's ongoing, I think that's something that we'll get back to early in the new year without artificial deadlines.
Why would we wind up today in the House of Commons with a resolution? The opposition is continually hammering the government for, in its words, being heavy handed. Should we ignore the negotiations that are going on very well at the table as we speak and impose some artificial deadline whether it is a Reform one or, as the member for Macleod says, a Liberal one? That is absolute nonsense and it is not the way to negotiate a social union contract for the betterment of the country.