Mr. Speaker, there seems to be some excited people over there. They want to have a debate within their own party.
The pattern of behaviour that we have seen in this instance is repeated throughout the Speech from the Throne itself. We heard grandiose rhetoric delivering little or even the opposite of what it promises. We heard communication strategies that talked around real issues, ignored previous failures, gave no details, no plans and no price tags. Why? The most obvious explanation is that yesterday's throne speech was not really about anything except two men: one desperate to leave a legacy and the other whose legacy will simply be leading, if only for a short period of time.
What is a legacy? The word is bandied about a lot here. Why does the government not have a legacy after nine years? Creating a real legacy was the reason my party was founded. It was not the lure of power nor the attraction of the spotlight. It was not to pad our resumes, reward our friends or settle the family score. It was to create something that will last, something that will offer tangible and enduring benefits to all Canadians. It was something that will leave our descendants better off and inspire them to attain greater success. That is what a legacy is. It is something that will last. To build one, one must borrow from the experience of the past, deal with the realities and real problems of today and focus on what we will leave to our children and grandchildren.
Those who are serious about building real legacies are not surprised by the so-called new realities that we face. We are prepared for the fact that the world is dangerous and that peace is always precarious. We know that we must spend on our priorities and that we cannot have everything we want. We are not fooled by empty slogans that mask naked ambition, and yes I do put the words democratic deficit in that category.
Real legacies are founded on values that work, values that have survived the rigorous tests of time, values that have been handed down from generation to generation, not values invented by communication strategists for the suppertime news. In other words, it is values that work, not values that just sound good.
What are our values? We say that taxes belong to the people from whom they were raised and that they are held in trust for the benefit of ordinary Canadians, not to build personal monuments for politicians.
We believe in creating real jobs by expanding the economy, rather than by enlarging the government. We believe that this is accomplished by selling products to customers, not by giving subsidies to contributors. We believe in helping the young, the old, the poor and the sick, not out of any superior moral insight, but because we may all be those things in our own time.
We believe in family and relationships. We know that those can never be replaced satisfactorily by institutions and programs. We believe in accountability and know that power should never be exercised without it.
Those are the values of our party. They do not appeal to the chattering classes or the empire builders. They are the values of the ordinary citizens who have joined us and built this party: workers, farmers, business people, public servants and students. From these ranks come the team that I am honoured to lead in this House today: long-standing members of Parliament with a reputation for moving our policies forward, sometimes even getting these fellows in the government to adopt a few things, such as eliminating the deficit and dealing with Quebec separatism to actually have a little bit of a legacy; former provincial cabinet ministers with a reputation and impressive records of accomplishment; and, of course, a vibrant core of the youngest, brightest and most energetic members of Parliament in the House of Commons.
The Liberal version of a legacy is reflected in this throne speech and all those that have preceded it. So-called Liberal values generally mean more money, more gigantic government programs and more grandiose schemes that will never, ever be achieved.
The Liberal modus operandi has become all too predictable. First, identify a cause that trumps all else. Second, demonize anyone who questions the truth of this instant moral insight. Third, proclaim a scheme that would produce a great leap forward. Fourth, and most important, spend heaps of public money as a measure of concern. Finally, forget about looking at the results and move on to more great ventures.
These uncontrollable Liberal tendencies have become even more pronounced in the last few months as the Prime Minister and his chief rival have tried to up one another. The problems are being identified fast and furious. Concern is being expressed with great passion and poetry. The sky is dark with expensive quoted remedies, the environment, innovation, child poverty, municipalities infrastructure, international aid and aboriginal issues. We have heard it all before.
We really have heard it all before in throne speech after throne speech, budget after budget. My office made a tally of 145 previous throne speech promises, of which 79 have been broken, unfulfilled or forgotten. A success rate of 46% would be inept in any institution I have ever attended.
In this throne speech we have 58 new promises, no less than 29 of them recycled from previous throne speeches or previous government announcements.
Let me take a look at some of the great promises that have fallen by the wayside. We all will remember scrapping the GST in 1994 and replacing it in 1996. Today, if there is any talk at all, it is of increasing the rates. Infrastructure programs were addressed in 1994, 1999 and 2001.
In every single throne speech the government is preparing leading edge innovation strategies.
There have been repeated promises to defend Canadian trade. In 1996 the government would take on trade disputes. Today the trade disputes in agriculture and forestry are worse than ever.
In 1994 the government was going to end foreign overfishing. Those of us who travel to the east coast know that it is worst today than it has ever been. The government promised to revitalize fisheries on both coasts in 1996.
Enhanced law enforcement tools to fight terrorism was mentioned in the last throne speech.
One of my favourites is that the gun registry would cost less than $100 million and would end gun crimes. The ineffectiveness of the registry compares only to the inaccuracy of that particular cost estimate.
Regulatory reform was promised in 1994 and 1996. This year Industry Canada has launched a review to be finished in the year 2010, in other words, 16 years after the original promise was made.
In this particular throne speech we have a multitude of initiatives on aboriginal affairs. Let us not forget that we have had repeated promises in throne speech after throne speech, in fact it is the Prime Minister's career dating back to his early days as a cabinet minister, to deal with aboriginal problems, poverty and governance. The typical solution is to spend billions of dollars even though the billions we are already spending has too little accountability.
However what we lack, which is still the case on many reserves, is that we have no common standards of democratic accountability and the Office of the Auditor General does not apply. We have no common standards of financial or electoral accountability. We do not have the chief electoral officer supervising elections and, of course, aboriginal people continue to lack, by and large, property rights and are unable to have things like basic ownership of housing and the accumulation of wealth.
The difference between what we offer and what the Liberals stand for is clear and unmistakable: on the one hand, inflated Liberal rhetoric coupled with grandiose big government solutions versus our Canadian Alliance approach, which will be responsible, achievable plans based on practical values to deal with critical priorities.
This difference in approach is clearly illustrated in the throne speech delivered in this Parliament yesterday. I would like to briefly go over the various issues raised in the Speech from the Throne: Kyoto and the environment, the health care system, the policy on children and families, international affairs and defence, democratic reform, and financial and economic policy. we see the same thing happening in every one of these areas: pompous rhetoric, past failures, new programs, more money and grandiose plans that will never become reality.
By contrast, we will set out the priorities of the Canadian Alliance so that concrete measures can be taken regarding major priorities, along with a plan for economic growth.
Let me begin with the Kyoto energy accord. This is, if anything, the great shining example of what I am talking about, if not the centrepiece of the throne speech. This purports to be nothing less than a grandiose scheme to save the planet itself, but in the end the throne speech tells us more about the government's political strategy on Kyoto than anything about how it intends to implement it and the real cost to Canadians. After all, it is easier to demonize a single province than to explain to Canadians what the Kyoto accord is, how it will work or what it will cost.
Let me just address those matters quickly. What is the Kyoto accord? We understood it was to be about global warming but we do not even say that in the throne speech. We say instead that it is about something much vaguer called climate change. It deals with, not as most Canadians believe, air pollution or controlling smog, but with so-called greenhouse gases, in particular with emissions of CO
2
, carbon dioxide, the breath of life, the gas used in respiration of plants and animals.
I hear the member for Fundy—Royal yammering away back there. Maybe he should straighten out with his own leader what his position is on that accord. This party is opposed to that accord.