Debates of March 4th, 1999

Supply

[Grant McNally, Reform, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am listening very carefully to the comments of the member for Mississauga West and I am trying to see how marijuana has any relevance to the topic before the House. The member is not addressing the—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I know that there is always some latitude allowed in debate. The hon. member for Mississauga West has only had the floor for 40 seconds. I think it is understandable that perhaps he has not quite reached the topic he is going to address which is the motion before the House. I know he will.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, their strategy to rise on some nonsensical point of order in an attempt to disrupt the flow of my speech will not work. I know that you, Mr. Speaker, will rule them out of order as they continue with this frivolity.

The point is what this motion is about. The member for Calgary Southeast is trying to put forward a softening image. Perhaps he is trying to launch his campaign for leadership of the Reform Party. He is trying to show that he is compassionate man. For the member for Calgary Southeast to be giving advice on whether or not people should stay home with their children is not unlike a Catholic priest giving marital counselling. I would suggest the member should talk to people who have actually walked the walk and talked the talk. Any attempt to try to define the Reform Party as compassionate will be seen as nothing more than an oxymoron which is exactly what it is.

[An hon. member]

Moron is a great word.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Moron, or maybe we should delete oxy, I am not sure.

We know for a fact that the Reform Party's policies would hurt children in this country. The Reform Party has consistently voted against measures announced and taken by this government that benefit children. And Reform Party members chirp on.

Normally what we see on opposition day from the Reform Party are motions to cut this or cut that, to spend this or spend that. I do not know how Reform Party members would pay for the tax cuts they talk about when in fact their tax position would benefit a family earning $215,000 in exactly the same way that it would affect a family earning $15,000.

The Reform Party's tax policies would benefit the rich. Reform members know it. It is flat line. Of course that is fitting with their flat earth mentality.

We understand that they do not understand a progressive tax policy that benefits people who need it. Child care, day care, child tax credits; they vote against all of them; they talk against all of them. For them to all of a sudden arrive in this place and try to tell us and Canadians that they indeed are kinder, gentler, more caring and softer does not add up.

Members opposite have proposed in the past that 50% of what they refer to as a surplus should be used to reduce debt. Another 50% should be used to reduce taxes. A third 50% should be used toward health care. Another 50% should be used to cut defence spending, to cut the heritage ministry, things that they get on as their hobby horses. Now they are trying to perpetrate what amounts to a fraud that they somehow care about children.

And here we go with a point of order.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I could handle the hon. member's lack of knowledge of mathematics, but I cannot accept the word fraud to be used in reference to my party.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am afraid that word has been used quite a lot and I have real difficulty ruling that one out of order. I think that perhaps we have to be a little tougher in our thinking, but I have heard it used in relation to many parties in the House, including that of the hon. member for Prince George—Bulkley Valley and the government party and some of the others. I do not think the point of order is well taken.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, in that case do I have your approval to use the term stable waste when referring to the items in his speech?

[The Deputy Speaker]

I know the hon. member will not want to get into that discussion.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, whatever it is, it is probably on the hon. member's boots. I would have a look. In any event we know where they spend most of their time and what certainly clouds their thinking.

Let me share if I can some of the other so-called progressive tax policies the Reform Party would try to sell to people during an election campaign. The Reform Party opposed all positive initiatives by the government, everything that we have introduced to enhance the lives of children.

Reform Party members voted against the child tax credit. Why would they do that? They voted against funding a community action program for children. Unbelievably they voted against funding for prenatal nutrition care. Yet today, as I say, they somehow miraculously have arrived at this wonderful position that they are the saviours for stay at home parents and their kids.

Who do hon. members think might have faced the brunt of a $3.5 billion cut to the social assistance program? Might it just be children in need? I suspect it might. That was a policy of the Reform Party. Maybe the Reform Party has cancelled that policy. It is one of those “we have got principles and if you do not like them we have got others”. Maybe Reform has done that. Maybe the Reform members have made that shift, but I have not heard it in terms of anything they have said in here.

How would Reform Party members propose to cut $1 billion in equalization payments to the have not provinces and another $1 billion to aboriginal programs? Does it occur to them that cutting $1 billion out of aboriginal programs might have a trickle down impact on aboriginal children, some of whom are the most needy children in this country?

One of the Reform Party's basic principles, as I said before, would give the same benefits to a family earning $215,000 as one earning $15,000. How can Reform members possibly justify that and then stand here as if somehow they have a plan that will help families and it will save taxpayers?

The Reform Party in putting this motion forward is calling for $26 billion in tax cuts, $19 billion to pay down the national debt and an additional $2 billion for health care, yet it wants to eliminate government revenues. If Reform members had it their way, as those of us who had the wonderful privilege of being at the united alternative conference saw—and I see the member for Markham who was with us—they would simply turn everything over to the provincial governments. The opening keynote speaker for their wonderful conference was the Premier of Alberta. Guess what. He thinks Alberta should run the country. It is quite clear this is a provincial parochial minded group of politicians who only want power for the provinces. They think that the federal government should be eliminated.

Who do they think would be harmed by user fees and two tier health care? If families with three kids have to go to emergency they pay user fees. Alberta tried to bring in user fees and this government said it could not do that. It was this government that said it was violating the Canada Health Act and that Canadians would not stand for it. It was this government that made Alberta retract that decision.

Who would be hurt? Might families with three kids, with or without stay home mothers, be under some duress if they had to go to hospital and fork out money for user fees?

They want to take a balanced, progressive tax system and turn it on its ear because they have come across an idea they think is politically sexy and politically attractive. It is not based on party principles. They did not hear it discussed at the united alternative conference which clearly failed because they could not take two rights and create a wrong. That will not work, but that is what they tried to do.

They did not hear this kind of moderate social policy at the conference. They did hear Premier Klein try to convince members in the united—

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Would you clarify for the House whether this member is hopefully sharing his time?

[The Deputy Speaker]

He has a 10 minute speech and has a minute left in his time.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have only one minute left. I know they will be disappointed.

I am attempting to point out what I think most Canadians understand. They cannot say cut, slash and burn on one side of the coin and then somehow try to pretend that they are a new image, that they are softer, kinder and gentler. We know better.

Some 30 years ago my wife and I made a very difficult decision that she would stay home with our kids. It was a good decision. I have three young men of whom I am very proud. I believe that by my wife's staying home for many years in their formative years, with great assistance from me, actually helped raise what I consider to be a pretty darn good family.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In view of the enthusiasm we will go with one minute questions and one minute answers.

[Diane Ablonczy, Reform, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am our party's social policy critic. The last speaker chose to parrot the misrepresentation put forward yesterday that the Reform Party was not supportive of the national child benefit and other programs and voted against them.

I have two question for the member. When did we vote against programs that we agree with? That never happened. He also said something about the Reform Party cutting social assistance programs. What happened to the cuts his government made to the health and social transfer which supports welfare programs in the provinces?

How can he accuse other parties of doing something which they have not done and defend the cuts that his government has made to social assistance?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did something really radical. I read the blue book, the policy book. Some of them should. I hate it when people actually read the stuff we put out and expect us to stand behind it! It is really difficult.

In their policy program in the last election campaign were $3.5 billion in cuts to social assistance. The member can deny that her party voted against the child tax credit, the prenatal program or any of this. The facts speak for themselves. Members of that party simply vote negatively the minute they get out bed every morning without any thought of the consequences and the impact on children and families.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite taken aback by the fact that the hon. member said it was a difficult decision to raise his own children. My wife and I decided to raise our own children and it was not difficult to make that decision. It was an honour and a privilege we had raising our own children.

I did some reading as well. I read the 1993 red book of the Liberal Party. My question was not answered before by the member from Parkdale so I would like this member to answer it now. Why did the Liberal government break its promise on day care facilities for Canadian families?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, talk about misrepresentation. Let us be clear. The difficult decision that my wife should stay home with our children was a financial one. It simply meant that we had to make sacrifices financially. I say that it was the right thing to do and a good thing to do.

The member should not try to pretend, as NDP members often do, that they sanctimoniously have that particular market cornered. Many of us on this side have made decisions like that to raise our families. There is no question they are tough decisions. It is easier to just stick to the income side of it.

On the issue of what the government has done, the government has realized that we cannot function with a $42 billion deficit. The government came into office and realized that we owed it to Canadian families and Canadian children to be able to afford to provide day care programs, to be able to afford to provide social assistance, to be able to put money back into health care as we did in the last budget to which members opposite are opposed.

We have to make tough decisions in government, unlike members opposite who will never find themselves in those difficult decision making positions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I sat here and listened to the hon. member's speech. He talked eloquently about the caring, sharing aspect of the Liberal government when it comes to families.

Let us look at their tax situation right now. Let us look at what it has created. It has created child prostitution. It has created children being out on the streets. They are called latchkey kids.

Let us talk about the caring, sharing member over there who turned down help for hepatitis C victims and who turned down our motion to stop child pornography. It is dead against families; that is all the government has ever been since I have been in the House.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to see that at least I am raising a bit of passion although it might be somewhat misplaced. The government has put the ship of state in the right direction. We have built a financial foundation that will serve Canadian families for years and years to come.

When the member attempts to do what others have suggested, that is misrepresent the position of the government, he knows it is nothing more than hyperbole and nonsense. The government is committed to families, to children and to this great country.

[Keith Martin, Reform, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is time to educate the member across the way. It is the Reform Party that stood for fiscal responsibility because fiscal responsibility is social responsibility. We ended the decades of Liberal fiscal overspending that compromised social programs.

The Reform Party prefers the national head start program which will have one of the biggest positive effects on children that we have ever seen. The Reform Party is defending aboriginal women by voting against Bill C-49. The Reform Party wants to scrap the Indian Act because it is racist. The Reform Party wants to decrease taxes for the poorest in the country because they are the most compromised.

Those are the facts. The member should put that in his pipe and smoke it.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did not hear a question, but I am delighted the member used the word racist because I would not want to use it. The member failed to point out that, if given a chance, his party would have cut a billion dollars out of the aboriginal budget. It would have slashed those programs.

Many of those members represent communities with many aboriginal Canadians living in them. They stand here unashamedly and try to perpetrate a fraud, as I said before, on Canadian people that somehow they are responsible and compassionate. I do not buy that and neither do Canadians.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I think we can call the debate concluded at this point.

[Grant McNally, Reform, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a very brief point of order. I think the words “perpetrating a fraud” crossed the boundary of parliamentary language.