Debates of Feb. 1st, 2001

Speech From The Throne

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I actually cherish the member's question. It is a very appropriate question and one I am honoured to answer.

The morality that we have to live by is first of all individual and secondly one of society. The moral law is subject to the natural law and does and should apply to all people.

With regard to the pensions, I make abundantly clear to all members of the House that while I was given the opportunity to buy back into that pension I did not do so. I have signed the declaration that says I will not.

The allegation that I have done so is simply false. It is an individual matter. I stand before you, Madam Speaker, before the hon. member who just asked the question, and before every member, to state that I did not do that. I have no intention of doing so. I did not do it because of the principle that I stated earlier. That is what I stand for. That is the issue.

With regard to the other question which has to do with the Leader of the Official Opposition being given money from the insurance fund of the Alberta government, that is essentially a provincial matter. Really the issue has to do with whether the intent of the fund was realized in this issue. That becomes the question. I rest my case.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, my congratulations to you. I am delighted to see you in the chair. I know that you will be fair and patient with some of the goings on that may or may not occur in this place.

I wonder if the member would answer the question. He said that his morals would preclude him from buying back into a pension plan that he and many of his colleagues, including the hon. member from Edmonton North, have criticized vocally, used as an election platform, and told anyone who would listen how awful it was that the plan was accepted. Could the hon. member comment on that?

[Werner Schmidt, Canadian Alliance, Kelowna, BC]

Madam Speaker, I neglected to congratulate you before and I do wish to do so. You grace the chair. It is very nice to see you there and it is good to have you back in the House.

With regard to the question of the hon. member opposite, we do need to recognize that if we break ethical and moral laws the consequences are as clear and direct as when we break a physical law.

I have stated clearly that my position has been and remains that. I wish that everyone in the House would recognize that it is important to be honest and have integrity in everything we do. That is where I stand my case.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today in this new session of parliament. I thank the electors of Nanaimo—Cowichan for returning me to the House and congratulate you, Madam Speaker, upon your appointment to the chair. I know that we can look to you for fairness and justice in this, the people's place, the House of Commons.

The beginning of a new legislative session gives one the opportunity to look back and to look ahead. I am sure all members of the House are here because they have a deep concern for the country and the direction in which it is going. I think it is clear that those in leadership set the tone for the country. That includes moral and ethical directions.

Let us look back for a moment at the election campaign and ask ourselves if this was an indication of the moral and ethical direction of the country. I was personally saddened, as were many Canadians, by the vicious attack on people of faith by those who were opposing our party and our leader. I have always believed that Canada was a country that showed tolerance and understanding of people of all faiths.

However, to publicly scorn and ridicule the people of Christian faith brought the level of debate in the campaign to a new low in Canadian politics. The false accusations that members of the Canadian Alliance were racists and bigots showed a contempt and an intolerance for anyone who happened to disagree with their position. If this was leadership exhibiting honesty, truth and integrity, then we are in serious trouble.

As we think of the campaign of the year 2000 and the way it was conducted, may we all adopt as our motto the words of those who cannot and will not forget the Holocaust of World War II, “Never Again”.

It is with that concern about the past that I now look to the future. May all of us in the House strive to be truly honourable members, admitting our failures, asking forgiveness and working together for the common good of this great nation.

I am the newly appointed chief critic for Indian affairs and northern development for the Canadian Alliance caucus. Some would say that moving into this portfolio does little to advance one's own political career. Let me tell members that it is not for those reasons that I have offered myself to work on behalf of Canadians in this area. I have a vested interest in our native peoples because I have three aboriginal sons and daughters.

My wife and I have known and worked with many native mothers and families in our role as foster parents over the past 27 years. When I talk about third world conditions on reserves, high suicide rates, substance abuse, corruption and many other concerns, I have witnessed these firsthand.

We have talked for so long about these problems but talk is cheap unless it is backed up by concrete actions that allow us to work with our native brothers and sisters to help them achieve equality and opportunity in this land.

With that as a preamble, I would like to turn my attention to the throne speech. Therein we find the themes of innovation and inclusion. While these are good words, I would like to suggest that the Canadian people, both native and non-native, would rather hear us talk about equality and accountability.

Across Canada there are many stories of aboriginal successes. We have many good role models, as aboriginal athletes, actors, professionals, businessmen and women have excelled all across the country. For instance, there are success stories in the Canadian film making industry where four films on aboriginal themes were recently accepted and viewed at the famous Sundance film festival in the United States.

Despite these successes, I am convinced that grassroots aboriginal Canadians do not feel a sense of equality and opportunity in this land. Why would that be? May I suggest that some of it is because of a lack of transparency and accountability in native government systems.

In my own riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan I hear of government money being misused and unaccounted for. People live in mouldy homes and in almost third world conditions while leadership builds new homes and goes on trips abroad. Money that should have been used for health and education goes for other purposes that do not increase the standard of living for band members.

What happens when ordinary aboriginals question their leadership and organize opposition to them? They are ostracized, denied funding, threatened and sometimes physically abused to the point of serious injury and worse. This simply has to stop.

Let us look at some specifics referred to in the throne speech. The government has stated that it will work with aboriginal people to help strengthen their entrepreneurial and business expertise. I agree that economic growth and security are necessary for aboriginal people to achieve self-sustainability. Aboriginal people must be given the full authority, responsibility and accountability for economic developments and partnerships.

It is very important that we come along side of aboriginal business in partnerships that will lead to economic stability among natives. Unfortunately the track record is not good. Just ask Wing Construction Limited of Thunder Bay, Ontario about its experience with the Sagkeeng Band and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It will tell us how difficult it is to develop these partnerships in an atmosphere of mutual trust. The consequence for that company was the bankruptcy of a 50 year old business.

This sends a wrong message to the private sector and has led many non-native companies simply to refuse to do business with native bands.

The government has stated that it would continue to support the community access program and SchoolNet, ensuring that aboriginal Canadians, their communities and their schools could have an on ramp to the information highway. It is all well and good, and a noble aim, but many natives who live in homes without running water or toilet facilities would rather have that problem fixed first before they have Internet capabilities. Let us get our priorities straight.

Government spending in the area of Indian affairs is in excess of $6 billion a year. With all that money at their disposal, why in the world do most of our aboriginal people still live in third world conditions, with a suicide rate four times the national average, an unemployment rate of up to 85%, the incidence of diseases such as diabetes, tuberculosis, AIDS/HIV and hepatitis C running way above the general population, substance abuse that affects 80% of natives either as users or as families of users, and a disproportionate number of native Canadians in prison.

The policies of the government and governments before it are simply not working. We in the Canadian Alliance want to work with aboriginal leaders and their people to find real sustainable solutions. I believe those solutions revolve around the words equality and accountability.

I certainly commend the government for strengthening aboriginal governance by implementing more effective and transparent administrative practices. The government has known for years that there are major problems with the lack of transparency in aboriginal governments on many reserves. Recently the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come encouraged his chiefs to open the books and be accountable to their people. This is something that the Alliance fully supports and has encouraged for a long time.

We also support the minister's musings leading up to the throne speech about having Elections Canada supervise band votes. It has long been advocated by the Canadian Alliance. We are happy to see that the minister has adopted our policy in this regard. If he will commit seriously to the gradual elimination of the reserve system and the abolishment of the Indian Act, we will all rejoice and even give him a free membership in the Canadian Alliance.

Early childhood development programs and services are important, but we also need to be certain they are effectively dealing with the problems that aboriginal people are facing in their communities. For instance, did the head start program assist the children of Davis Inlet? How many other Davis Inlets are there across the country just waiting to explode?

I have experienced fetal alcohol syndrome with native children and know the extra care and burden that it brings. Again it is nothing new. We have known for years that it is a huge problem. The government and governments before it have known it also.

In 1992 the health committee under the Conservative government after serious study presented recommendations which if followed would have made an impact on the problem, but nothing has been done in seven years under either the Conservatives or the Liberals. We will be keeping the government accountable.

Native Canadians want to take full responsibility for their lives and throw off the paternalistic trappings of government intervention that have kept them second class citizens. We in the Canadian Alliance will work with the government, indeed with anyone, to achieve that end.

I was encouraged by the words of the minister of Indian affairs who said that it is time to start walking the walk. I pledge myself and my party to keeping his feet to the fire.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Madam Speaker, first I congratulate the member opposite for taking on the post of aboriginal affairs critic. It is one of the most difficult portfolios on either side of the House. I am sure he will do a very fine and sincere job.

I have one question. In his speech the Leader of the Opposition mentioned that the Canadian Alliance felt there should be home and property ownership on reserves and that individuals should be able to buy and sell property.

Could the hon. member elaborate on that a little? Would that include only residents on reserves? Would it allow newcomers to reserves to buy property? Would it enable property owners to sell to people off reserve?

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from the hon. member. I know a little about his riding having lived in Hamilton and attended McMaster University for seven years. He has a very nice riding.

The Canadian Alliance, and before it the Reform Party, has for a number of years included in its policies the belief that there should be an opportunity for private ownership on reserves.

It is a multi-faceted question in the sense that it has to do with what will happen in treaty negotiations and the kind of self-governance models that are finally put in place at the end of treaty negotiations.

In particular, British Columbia has 100 treaties to be negotiated, approximately 50 of which are now underway. We need to take a good look at that whole area, especially in terms of urban treaties. We are having problems in British Columbia in terms of the settlement of urban treaties. I will probably have the first urban settlement of a treaty in my riding.

One of the problems we see in terms of private property, whether it be something that comes out at the end of the day in the governance model, is that many municipalities do not feel they are being included in the treaty process.

The city of Nanaimo has been asking the minister to include that level of government at the table, for it to have the opportunity to vote at all levels. Quite frankly rage and frustration are building in the non-native population because they are not at the table. They will not be able to make decisions on it or any other issue because they are not present with voting privileges.

Many native people have talked to me personally. They want the right to own personal property. We also have to respect native culture and the communal aspect of native culture.

Across the country there are differences in native culture which must be respected. However as a basic principle we are in favour of private ownership of property. There is some appetite for that in the native community. We are quite willing to sit down with that community and to talk about that issue.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I congratulate the hon. member opposite on his new role as critic. While he was bemoaning a number of things during the election I was thinking of a number of things that happened, including the Betty Granger incident in Winnipeg, the Asian invasion, the fundraiser in Vancouver with the racist comments, Doug Christie and the rally with the white supremacists, and Jim Keegstra saying how proud he was to vote Canadian Alliance.

That aside, would the member in his position now—

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The hon. member for Nanaimo—Cowichan on a very short answer.

[Reed Elley, Canadian Alliance, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very sorry that I did not get the last part of the hon. member's question. Perhaps he would like to talk to me privately.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, congratulations to you. You said you are learning in the job. Many people around here will be doing that over the next months and years to come. However I am sure you are a quick study, having worked with you in our caucus structure, and will pick it up very quickly.

I thank the voters of Mississauga West for once again showing confidence in my leader and my party and in my representative ability to be here in Ottawa and represent the three communities of Erin Mills, Meadowvale and Streetsville. I have had the privilege of representing much of the area of Mississauga West for about 21 out of the last 23 years, as a city councillor, an MPP in Ontario and, since 1997, as a member of this wonderful House.

My wife, of course, is also a municipal councillor in the same community , re-elected for her fourth term on city council with over 92% of the vote. My only hope is that she does not run against me one day.

Our family really has been tremendously active and involved in the community over the past number of years, and we really deem it an honour to represent those communities here in Ottawa, at the municipal level, or indeed at the provincial level.

I am interested, though, in what seems to be the debate du jour or the issue of the week or the focus of the opposition when it comes to this place. Opposition members talk about reform of parliament. They seem to want to hang their hats on the issue that somehow the role of backbench members of parliament has been denigrated, that we have had the thumb pressed down upon us and that our ability to represent our constituents has been somehow mysteriously negated by the PMO or by the system. I take great exception to that.

I would like to share with members and with anyone listening the success stories of some of those so-called backbenchers that I have experienced by being in this place since 1997.

My good friend from Mississauga South was referenced in the Prime Minister's speech yesterday for the books he has written and for the work he has done on fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects on children. He and other members of the social policy caucus have had a tremendous impact on driving the government agenda toward investing in children and toward recognizing that children are our most important assets. The government intends to support children, to eliminate poverty for children and to provide educational opportunities for children and for adults, as was said in the throne speech.

That member would tell us that he did not do it alone. He may have led the issue from the point of view of the fetal alcohol syndrome aspect, but there were many other issues that were dealt with by the group. That was really true, constructive, positive work, done on behalf of the entire caucus, the government and their constituents, in order to drive an issue that they believed in.

There are others. I recall that in the last parliament the member for Trinity—Spadina led a task force dealing with the banking issue and the mergers. Many members of caucus were involved in countless meetings. The caucus committee travelled and met with pro bank advocates and anti bank merger advocates. The committee put together a very thoughtful report, which in my view drove the agenda of the government.

Is that ineffective? Is that a member of parliament or a group of backbenchers having their rights and their powers stripped from them? If some think it is, I beg to differ.

I think of the member for York North and her almost heroic dedication to the environment. I think of the conferences she has held, inviting experts from all over the world to meet in Room 200 in West Block. Many of my colleagues have attended and have seen the tremendous effort, hard work and dedication that this backbench member put into fighting on environmental issues, not only for her constituents, not only for the people of Canada, but for the planet.

On cultural issues, I think of my good friend from Parkdale—High Park. In my view, her sole effort has driven the caucus and the government, with support from backbench members, to re-invest in CBC, to say that we believe CBC is the electronic highway that goes from sea to sea to sea. There are communities that would be isolated without the good work of the CBC. That backbench member, along with many of her colleagues, was indeed successful in doing the job of a member of parliament.

The member from Scarborough East has spent countless hours in meetings on the housing issue. He managed to drive the agenda so that $750 million was made available for the homeless. His efforts as the chair of that committee drove the government to do it. Further, there is an additional investment of $850 million for affordable housing as we work with our partners in the municipal and private sectors to address the issue. Did that item just appear or somehow fall from the sky? Members know that is not the case.

Members know that every one of the issues to which I have referred have been driven hard by backbench members of the government. I categorically reject any of the nonsense that members of parliament and their relevance have been devalued in this place, in the broader precinct of Ottawa and in the country. The talent in this room, on all sides, is abundant. Someone said the other day that here there are 301 A-type personalities in one room, so we should be so surprised that from time to time there are a little heckling, a little fire and a little controversy. What a shock. Could we imagine this place without that?

In true fashion we all know that the distance between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition is the distance there is when a man is standing with a sword in each hand and the tips are barely touching. The symbolism is that we do not kill each other. We do not, although we might like to at times, run across the floor and start punching each other out like members do in some parliaments of the world. This is the greatest example of parliamentary democracy—

[An hon. member]

What about Darrel?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

There are exceptions. I forgot about him, but even he was reined in, grabbed and pulled back, and he realized how silly and nonsensical it was to get violent and physical over the democratic issues we fight about. We do not kill one another. Our weapons, I would like to think, and it is scary to think it, are our minds. Words are our ammunition and we hurl them at one another with some enthusiasm, both during speeches and in question period when the odd bit of heckling occurs.

I reject the attempts by the opposition to paint government backbenchers as ineffective and unimportant and to denigrate their role. To have the confidence of his or her constituents is indeed one of the most honoured positions that a man or woman can have, and in my case my constituency is one of the largest by population in the country. They say to each and every one of us that they want us to fight in Ottawa for a better Canada, for a better Mississauga West or a better Ontario.

On CPAC last night there was a debate among three representatives, our whip from the Liberals, the House leader from the Alliance, and a member from the Bloc. The member from the Bloc made the point that the House is always empty when we stand in our place to speak. It is not completely empty now, but where do people think our colleagues are? They are not sleeping. They are not shopping. They are working.

We have a system that is extremely complex, and frankly, having 300 people sitting in this room to listen to me go on would be a total waste of their time. I am sure hon. members would agree. It might be entertaining and fun from time to time, but it would not be the most productive use of the brain cells that God gave them.

Where should they be? They are in committee. They are in meetings. They are talking to their constituents. They are meeting with staff and the bureaucracy. They are meeting with each other. They are working on the issues I spoke of, whether that be regarding children, the CBC, housing or the agricultural community.

If we want to talk about the effectiveness of a backbencher, let us talk about the member for Toronto—Danforth, who led the charge by hosting an event at the Air Canada Centre. I was there and it was packed. What was it about? It was not about the city of Toronto. It was not about transfer payments. It was not about tax cuts. It was about farmers. We had a well-known member from downtown Toronto leading the charge because our constituents in the urban communities we represent need farmers. They need successful farms.

That is what Canada is about. It is about people helping people, realizing that if we help one another we are going to create jobs, economic growth and benefits and build a better country.

This is another example of a backbencher who has a tremendous contribution to make to this place.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

The member has my vote.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

I thank the member. I find it repugnant when I hear opposition members level these criticisms that they know are not based on honesty or truth. They know this full well because they all work in caucuses where their members are busy working at the job of being a member of parliament. In my experience in this place, the job can start as early as 6 a.m. and wind up as late as midnight, five or six days a week.

I do not look for sympathy from anyone for the hours that I put in. I have been doing this job in one form or another for 23 years. There was a two year period when I was out of office due to health and fatigue reasons—the voters were sick and tired of me—but I came back because I really and honestly believe that it is one of the most honourable professions and important callings that anyone in this country can aspire to. I hope I live long enough to see the day when one of my sons will stand in this place. I hope that happens, but if it does not, maybe one of their children will stand in this place.

At one time I would have had the opportunity to see my own father sitting in the Senate. Unfortunately he had a stroke and was unable to take the seat given to him by Pierre Trudeau. It would have been one of the proudest moments of my life, yet we also unfairly denigrate the role of Senators.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Oh, come on.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Yes, we do, especially that member.

It seems that the best way to get a yuk out of the voters is to run down the job we hold. Anyone who does that does themselves a disservice and a dishonour and in fact does their constituents a disservice and a dishonour because they are not being truthful about what we can accomplish.

Let me just shift gears a little. In addition to the reform of parliament, one of the issues we deal with is respect of parliamentarians. This is addressed in the throne speech. It occurred to me this morning that we have a new game in the House of Commons. It is called “Who wants to be a millionaire?” In the game, an initial question is asked. In the television show it is called the fastest finger question; whoever can answer the question the fastest gets to be the candidate.

Here is the question: who wants to get back into the pension plan? Guess who won? The member for Edmonton North had the fastest finger and managed to turn an $89,000 reinvestment into an asset that has been estimated to be worth more than $1 million. She indeed has become the latest millionaire. It might be more. I have a problem with that. If I was one of her constituents my question would be “Is that your final answer?” I would want to know why she railed against that as being somehow unfair, as being overly rich.

Not only did the member for Edmonton North do it but her entire party platform was built once again on the denigration of MPs and their role and the fact that they tried to remember the pigs, as my hon. friend mentioned, the snorting and the buttons. It was absolutely disgraceful behaviour. We have grown to become accustomed to it. They wear sombreros and drape old jalopy cars in Canadian flags. They use anything it takes to get a little attention. How to get on the nightly news: bring a pig into the House of Commons and snort a little.

One of the members from that caucus failed to respond to a question he was asked by one of my colleagues when he gave a speech about morality. The member stood in his place all high and mighty. This reminds me of the sixties when we had the moral rearmament army driving around the country trying to sell its vision of Christianity.

I heard another member say that he was disgusted that Christianity was attacked. Well I am a Christian and I was not attacked. Why is that? It is simple: I do not put my religion in my platform. I do not say to people, as the Leader of the Opposition does, “here is what I believe in: I do not believe in a woman's right to choose. I believe in three strikes for young offenders then they are out and the key is thrown away. I also believe in capital punishment. If you vote for me these are the things I believe in but I will not implement any of them”. What a remarkable campaign that would be.

Canadians are used to people standing up and saying what they believe in and what they will do if they vote for them. This is a pretty normal, reasonable position for a politician to take. People want to know our beliefs so they can either believe us or not or so they can agree with us or not. To say that one believes in all of this and yet not implement it, Canadians obviously do not buy that.

I said we are judged by the lowest common denominator in this place. Here is another example of why Canadians get upset at politicians. When the Leader of the Opposition was a member of the Alberta legislature, he openly and publicly issued a slanderous letter criticizing a lawyer in the local community and he was sued. He then settled for over $800,000. Guess what he did? He jumped on his horse and rode east to Ottawa claiming to be the new sheriff in town and left the taxpayers of Alberta stuck with a bill of $800,000. That is the kind of denigration that causes people to lose faith in parliamentarians and in the system.

It is not an empty House of Commons. Canadians are smart enough to know that MPs are working hard and not just sitting here wasting their time. They are working hard on behalf of taxpayers. They know that jumping back into a pension plan, that leaving taxpayers with an $800,000 bill, while at the same time claiming to be the great protector of the taxpayer dollar, is frankly not being honest with taxpayers. It is my view that gentleman and that lady will pay the price. When asked “is that your final answer” people will say our final answer is “you're cooked”.

[Michel Bellehumeur, Bloc, Berthier—Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure you will agree with me that the remarks just made by the member for Mississauga West are disappointing.

The job of MP is no doubt a very honourable one. I also know of a number of other very honourable jobs in Quebec and in Canada. There is one thing we will agree on for sure and that is that the speech just given was not honourable. It was petty. The member did not attack the opposition or the Bloc Quebecois in particular, but there are, I think, limits at some point.

I rise in the defence of all those he attacked, because he knows full well that what he said was just about totally false. It is inadmissible.

It is true that nowadays politicians do not command a great deal of respect. But I can understand that voters who listen to the debates in the House of Commons and who hear a speech like the one we have just heard no longer trust us. I can understand that they have lost their faith in us. I would have liked to hear the government member talk about the real issues.

I hope the hon. member read today's newspapers. Many journalists and editorial writers said that the throne speech lacked content, that there was no point to it. It is as though nothing has changed. There were some major oversights in the speech.

I would have liked to hear what the member had to say about employment insurance, about the people who are starving right now. How does the government plan to help them, rather than going after someone who is entitled to a pension?

Here, we work very hard for what we earn. I think that everyone, even people working in the public and private sectors, is entitled to a pension after devoting their working life to a job. I would have been more interested to hear what he had to say about employment insurance and health.

All the provinces, not just Quebec, are complaining that they do not have enough money, because the federal government is too tight-fisted. They are demanding their fair share of transfer payments.

What does the member have to say about that? Absolutely nothing. He is only interested in general attacks on the members opposite, as though the Liberals were the sole holders of the truth. How very arrogant in the first week of this new parliament.

Consideration must also be given to the various demands being made by the provinces. There is Quebec, which is unanimous in its opposition to the Young Offenders Act. The throne speech would have us think the opposite.

I would like the member to reflect a little on his honourable position, to give an honourable speech this session and use his remaining time to talk about actual issues addressed in the throne speech, instead of launching pointless attacks on opposition members.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to admit I do not know if he was listening to the same speech.

I respect his right to disagree with my viewpoints. I respect his right not to like what I am saying. I do not frankly care very much but I respect it.

I would add that this is Thursday of the first week and we will be reintroducing the EI legislation. I hope the member will support the changes. We will be reintroducing the young offenders legislation. I hope the members of his caucus do not do what they did last time. They introduced over 3,000 amendments, most of them changing a comma to a semicolon, which was nonsensical, all because they were throwing a temper tantrum.

The effect of my speech and my opinion, very strongly held I might add, is that when members denigrate members of parliament they do a disservice to all people who elect us to come here. If that member does not agree, I am sure he would rather be elected to serve only in the national assembly in the province of Quebec. I would invite him to retire to his own community and do it in that venue if that is where he is more comfortable.

[Maurice Vellacott, Canadian Alliance, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I find rather interesting some comments made in the middle of the speech by the member for Mississauga West. I will attempt to find points of agreement where I can. He said at a juncture that it was a waste of everybody's time to hear him speak in the House. I find that I cannot disagree with that. Giving him the benefit of the doubt and concurring that may well be the case, for the benefit of the public and the viewing audience, could he expand and give examples as to why it is a waste of time to hear his speech in the House because many of us find ourselves in heartfelt agreement with his comments in that respect.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I knew that one would come back to haunt me as soon as I said it.

The hon. member knows that what I am referring to is that all of our colleagues in all caucuses are not sitting in the House listening to all of us speak. They are working in committees and in their offices, where hopefully they have their televisions on listening to us as we put forth our positions and either defend or attack. This is the process.

Having 301 people sitting in this place would not be the most constructive use of their time and would grind business in the House to a halt. The job here involves a tremendous amount of committee work on legislative committees, a tremendous amount of caucus work on caucus committees, returning phone calls of constituents and meeting with groups who have particular issues, such as the agricultural group that is going around meeting with MPs today. They have things that must be done. The hon. member knows that.

While he is correct in quoting me, he also knows that, in the context of my remarks, I said that it was vitally important that all members do their job as MPs and be respected for that. On CPAC last night, the Bloc member made a big point about the fact that there are not very many members in their seats when speeches are going on. There is a very good and justifiable reason for that and I believe if the taxpayers know the truth, they will support that reason.

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

Mr. Speaker, congratulations to you for your ascent to the noble position of Deputy Speaker of the House. I know you have some experience that you can draw upon in your previous vocation as an NHL referee that will serve you very well in this Chamber.

I would like to congratulate as well the hon. member for Mississauga West for his remarks. It is good to see that he has not lost any steam in the time that he has been out of this place. He has contained much of the usual vitriol, vigour and adrenalin, and some healthy amount of horse feathers.

The hon. member is correct. I must attach myself to the remarks with respect to the work that is done by members in the Chamber. I congratulate him and encourage him to continue to point this out.

However, with respect to the content, I find that it is analogous to the throne speech itself because it was quite vacuous in terms of substantial comment or real substance about what his party and his government's vision is for the country. There are great platitudes found in both documents and the speech that we have just borne witness to.

The difficulty that Canadians are having is seeing any sort of concrete plan laid out before them. Even after an unnecessary election, which did result admittedly in the endorsement of the government, there is still no point on the horizon on which Canadians could focus as to where the government is going in the face of potentially difficult times, and there are already difficult times facing many Canadians. That is where the disappointment lies when one examines in detail the throne speech.

The member pointed to specific references to members of the House who have made a difference and that is admirable. That is in fact something that again we should all be proud of collectively in the Chamber. Regardless of what side of the House, individual members do make a difference in their constituencies and communities.

However, it appears undeniable that individual members, particularly those who take legislative initiatives, are bound into submission by the PMO and by personnel in the Prime Minister's Office who are very restrictive in their support of individual initiatives. We do not have to look any further than a colleague of the hon. member, the member for Mississauga East.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I see the clock running down on questions and comments and wanting to leave a little bit of time for the member for Mississauga West, I wonder if the member could please complete his remarks and then we will get on with the answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member not agree that there is a great deal more that can be done to enhance private members' business and their ability to participate more fully in the Chamber, more fully on legislative initiatives and more fully on committees? Does the hon. member really believe that his government, his House leader and his Prime Minister are sincere when they indicate an openness and willingness to do this?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be the first to congratulate, well in advance, the member opposite on his eventual ascendancy to the position of leader of what is left of the Progressive Conservative Party. In all seriousness, I do appreciate the remarks and the question.

Yes, I do think there are things we can do to improve our opportunities at legislative committees. It was referenced in the throne speech, and I think there are things we can do to improve the House. However, if we approach it from the negative side and say that the role of backbench MPs has been denigrated and that we have been stripped of power and all those kinds of thing, I do not think that is at all helpful.

There are many ways that we can improve the legislative system, particularly at committee, while at the same time recognizing, as I have tried to do, the tremendous contributions by members from all sides of the House in their work, whether in their caucuses or in committee.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to comment on a few elements of the Speech from the Throne. I will not be able to cover everything but there are a few things that are of interest to me and to my party that I will speak to this afternoon.

The first thing of interest had to do with the mention in the throne speech of the government's initiative with respect to the free trade area of the Americas and the upcoming summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001.

The thing we found distressing, apart from our fundamental disagreement with the economic theory and paradigm represented by not just the free trade area of the Americas but by other free trade agreements, like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the WTO, was the total lack of understanding in the throne speech with respect to the concerns that so many Canadians have about the threat that these agreements pose to democracy. This was reinforced yesterday when my leader asked a question of the Prime Minister with respect to Quebec City and his answer was that he did not know there were any problems.

Surely there is a problem. The Prime Minister does not have to agree necessarily with all the people who are unhappy with the free trade area of the Americas and free trade agreements. He does not have to agree with everything that people who are intending to go to Quebec City to protest have to say, but he could at least acknowledge that they exist and that they have some legitimate concerns.

I recall, at the time of the meetings in Seattle, President Clinton, even though he was obviously unhappy about the protests, at least tipping his hat to the fact that he thought that people who were concerned about trying to integrate labour and environmental standards and a number of other things into these trade agreements had a point and a legitimate concern. However, we never get that kind of response from the Liberal government.

Yesterday we could see the potential for a replay of the APEC thing in Vancouver shaping up already. The Prime Minister making little of or showing no consideration for the situation that many people find themselves in when they are trying to make known their opposition to these agreements.

We remember the peppergate scandal and the comments the Prime Minister made in a very flippant way about what happened to some of the protesters in Vancouver. I do not recall him having anything to say about Seattle, but we know that as we speak they are building a wall around Quebec City. It might even be completed. They are also creating special jail cells in anticipation of multiple arrests of protesters who will be trying to make their voices heard.

I stand here today not in defence of violent protest but in defence of peaceful protest. What happened in Seattle and a number of other places is that peaceful protesters have been arrested and incarcerated for various lengths of time. It seems that this is the path that our own government is now on, and the Prime Minister is not even willing to acknowledge that there is a problem. I think that is very unfortunate.

It would have been much better for the Prime Minister to have said that he understood the many concerns about these free trade agreements. He could have then put his own position forward and given his reasons for thinking the concerns were unfounded or how the government intends to meet those concerns, but there has been no acknowledgement whatsoever. find that to be a real absence of leadership on the part of the Prime Minister. One of the roles of leadership in the country is to acknowledge the different opinions. One can take a side but one must also acknowledge the concerns of other people.

We are talking about a lot of young people who are very idealistic. They have been taught since they were knee high to a grasshopper that they live in a democracy, that the people who make decisions are the people who are elected by the people of the country.

They see more and more trade agreements being signed and planned, as is the case with the FTA, agreements which remove power from various elected national and subnational legislatures, whether they be parliaments, the national assembly in Quebec or the provincial legislatures. They see that more and more policy choices and options, which used to be available to elected persons, are no longer available. There are certain things we could do with respect to magazines, to drug patent legislation, to water exports and to environmental regulations that we cannot do any more. The list goes on and on of things that legislators once could do but which have now been struck down, not by some democratically elected world body but by a trade agreement and its enforcers.

Is it so wrong, is it something to be ridiculed that young people from one end of the country to the other are saying that they are worried. Should we mock them for being concerned about democracy? Should we not even acknowledge their concerns in a major political statement such as the throne speech? That is what the government did when it mentioned the FTAA twice, I believe. In neither paragraph did it even acknowledge that there were legitimate concerns that Canadians had about these agreements. This is from a party that made a political career prior to 1993 about expressing those very same concerns when it was in opposition and opposed to the FTA and sort of opposed to NAFTA.

By that time, we were starting to get the drift of where the Liberals really were at. Some of us, of course, knew even in 1988 that the majority of them, with the exception of their leader, Mr. Turner, were really on side with the ideology of the FTA.

We are very concerned about what we see here in the government. We see a wilful ignorance, I believe, with respect to the concerns that so many Canadians have about these agreements. An even more worrisome thing is the growing incidence of what I would call and what some others have called, the criminalization of dissent, particularly when that dissent is expressed on the streets in the form of peaceful protests.

This is something we ought to be very worried about if we want to continue to call ourselves a full and healthy democracy: that we are preparing to treat these international gatherings as some sort of gated political communities, political compounds in which things happen and happen only among those who have credentials. People who do not have the credentials and are not part of the special community are kept out. They cannot even be on the street outside the building. They have to be 10 miles away. They cannot even be seen. This is a very disturbing trend indeed.

It relates to other things that are being said these days about parliamentary reform. I find it odd that we can spend so much time talking about parliamentary reform. This is not to say that we will get parliamentary reform, but we have spent a lot of time talking about it, without addressing the fact that one of the things that has happened to parliament over the last several years, particularly since 1988, is that more and more of the power that parliament used to have has been abdicated and diverted.

I say to my friends on my right in the Canadian Alliance, as I have said at a conference that was sponsored in Edmonton last year or perhaps in the fall of 1999 with respect to the empowering of MPs, that often we hear about the problem of the courts deciding things that should be properly decided in parliament. I think that is a legitimate concern. It is a concern that I share to some degree, not entirely, but in some instances.

People who are concerned about parliamentary power being diverted to the courts should also be concerned about parliamentary power being diverted to the WTO or to the free trade agreements, which are reaching far deeper into the domestic policy making process than ever reached by the previous GATT or previously contemplated free trade agreements.

Free trade agreements of old had to do with the elimination of tariffs. These agreements have to do with investment policy, regulation of investment, energy, culture and natural resources. They have to do with all kinds of things that previous more traditional free trade agreements did not touch on.

We will learn to our great discomfort in the next few years, when some people find out as some of us knew all along, that we will not be able to have the kind of energy policy in Canada that we would like to have because we have signed away our power to have an energy policy in Canada to the free trade agreements.

As the prices of natural gas, oil and home heating fuel and everything else go up, people will ask why certain things cannot be done. The answer is consistently that we cannot do that because that would be against the free trade agreement and we cannot do this because that would be against the free trade agreement.

In 1988 some of us said that it might look all right at the moment with respect to energy, but there will come a day when we will want to have a certain amount of power over our own resources with respect to pricing, export and even distribution, and we will not have that power because of the things that were written into the agreement. It is interesting that we should be in this position now.

I will touch on another matter of great concern to the constituents of all members of parliament, that is the price of home heating fuel and gasoline. The phone is ringing off the hook in my constituency office with respect to the whole question of how the government's one time home heating fuel rebate is being administered.

I suppose we could say in some respects it was a good idea. It was a recognition of the problem that people would have come the winter, given the high cost of home heating fuel. However, linking it to the GST tax credit or linking its distribution or its eligibility to those who receive the GST tax credit in my judgment is now creating a great deal of confusion and resentment.

There is something wrong when one family looks at another and says that it is struggling but did not get the rebate the other family did, or when people who do not even pay heating bills are getting the rebate by virtue of the fact that they qualify for the GST tax credit.

There is something quite disturbing going on out there. Looking at it from an administrative point of view it is not just in terms of bad policy. My real concern is that it is actually turning Canadians against each other. I do not like it when people phone my office saying that a person is getting something and they are not getting it. It is a policy that is actually causing Canadians to be angry, resentful or covetous. It is divisive.

I urge the government to reconsider the policy and look at ways of either broadening the base by making it universal, or at least finding ways to broaden or administer it in a way that does not create the kinds of problems that are obvious to anyone who has talked to their constituency assistant lately. I think all members would find themselves in that category.

It may differ in intensity from constituency to constituency and perhaps even from region to region, but I think it is a problem that all of us are experiencing. In the next little while all of us will have to deal with the high cost of energy and how the government deals with it. We were spared that dilemma or policy problem in the 1990s. It is not something that we will be spared in the early part of the decade.

Going back to the free trade agreement of the Americas, we have indicated our intention to be in solidarity with those people who will be expressing their concerns about that agreement. In the past we have been the only party in the House of Commons to oppose the multilateral agreement on investment, which fortunately never happened, and to other free trade agreements which unfortunately did happen.

I heard my colleague from the Bloc saying that I was not quite right when I talked about the MAI, but at the risk of provoking a debate with members I know one member of the Bloc has been concerned about globalization, to the point where he felt motivated to depart the Chamber with his chair.

It is a fact that these free trade agreements are in place in Canada because of the support they received in Quebec from sovereignists. Jacques Parizeau said over and over again, as recently as a week or so ago, that the free trade agreement was an instrument for Quebec sovereignty. He knew, in a way that Conservatives did not and Liberals used to but now willingly close their eyes, that the free trade agreement and the policy package that came with it in terms of privatization and deregulation has so weakened Canada that it makes it more vulnerable to the kind of plan that Mr. Parizeau has for Canada. That of course is its dismembering.

It may be that the sovereignist threat in Quebec is weak at this point for a variety of other reasons, but there is no question that the free trade agreements were seen by sovereignists and separatists as creating a context in which it would be easier for Quebec to separate. The east-west ties would be broken and more things would be north-south, and the argument for having to remain in Canada would be weaker.

I am glad to see that members of the Bloc are coming along on the issue. If they are concerned about sovereignty there is no point in arguing about the sovereignty of Quebec if at the same time they are uncritical about trade agreements that are reducing the sovereignty of all legislatures, whether they be national or subnational or subnational legislatures that would like to be national.

I welcome the evolution in the consciousness of members of the Bloc Quebecois. I hope at some point they might be full partners with us in opposition to these trade agreements, but they will never be full partners with us until they are attached to the country the way we are.