Debates of Oct. 1st, 2002

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I need to clarify that the only reason I would like now to be the Leader of the Opposition is that he and the Prime Minister alone in the House have unlimited time to speak. That is the only reason. Let us make that very clear.

With respect to the question, indeed the best investment we as Canadians can make is in the education and the physical health and well-being of our young people and children. I have no quarrel with that whatsoever. However the practice of the Liberal government has been to arrange for students nowadays to graduate from university with a maximum debt. I would do it better. I would assure that the cost of university and college education would be sufficiently covered by various levels of government so that the tuition fees could come down. The students would have much less debt so that when they graduated they could use that money to establish themselves in business and purchase homes, thereby helping our economy.

I could go on for another hour. I regret that time goes by so fast.

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

Mr. Speaker, I sat here as I listened to the debate, including the words by the member for Elk Island, and leafed through the printed copy of the Speech from the Throne. I think it would be appropriate to actually characterize the Speech from the Throne as the Speech from the Throne of the Liberal backbench.

The member for Guelph—Wellington made a reference to the fact that she felt that the Speech from the Throne was really the words of the Prime Minister. When we go through the Speech from the Throne and look at the ideas, what we discover is that many of those ideas come from individual backbench members. For instance, the part in the Speech from the Throne that speaks of steps to strengthen the security of Canada's food system is an idea that was floated in a letter to the Prime Minister by the member for Toronto—Danforth. He circulated the letter to other colleagues and then I see it in the Speech from the Throne. I am sharing my time with the member for Toronto—Danforth and he can explain himself how his ideas were picked up in this document.

Further on we find references to addressing fetal alcohol syndrome which I happen to know was an issue that has been advocated by the member for Mississauga South. Again on the next page the Speech from the Throne is saying that the government will reform family law and put greater emphasis on the best interests of the child. Again, this is an idea that was very much advocated by the member for Mississauga South and the member for Sarnia—Lambton if my memory serves me correctly.

Then there is another section on implementing a national drug strategy. That has been advocated relentlessly by the member for Burlington.

These are the ones that I could identify easily and readily as I looked through the Speech from the Throne. No one should characterize this Speech from the Throne or this side of the House as not willing to listen to the ideas of backbench MPs.

I regret in the early days of the summer there was some talk that there was no point--and this was mostly coming from opposition members, I must say--in backbench MPs on the Liberal side responding to a letter from the Prime Minister encouraging them to submit ideas for the Speech from the Throne. The evidence is in the Speech from the Throne. I am sure I have only singled out half of the members on the Liberal side and I think even some members on the opposition side who find their ideas and their direct suggestions to the Prime Minister incorporated into government policy.

I too had some ideas that I submitted in writing to the Prime Minister. Members know that I have been very engaged in issues of transparency and accountability. In my letter to the Prime Minister I suggested to him, particularly in this time when the markets are so uncertain and confidence in public institutions is shaken by the type of scandals that we have in the United States with WorldCom and Enron, that the Prime Minister should concentrate on a transparency and accountability agenda whereby he would change the Canada Corporations Act and improve standards of corporate governance for both for profit and non-profit corporations.

Lo and behold there it is on page 10 of the Speech from the Throne, where it says that the government will review and, where necessary, change its laws and strengthen enforcement that ensures that governance standards for federally incorporated companies will be followed.

I discover elsewhere, again in my letter I suggested that the Lobbyists Registration Act should be reformed and strengthened, and lo and behold here it is:

The government will strengthen the legislation governing its relationship with lobbyists.

This is long overdue because the Lobbyists Registration Act lacks the teeth to discipline lobbyists who ignore the spirit and the letter of that law, so it is something that has to be done.

Also in my letter I suggested that the government should reintroduce Bill C-61, which would require high standards and proper standards of transparency and accountability of aboriginal communities, both in terms of their financial dealings and their democratic methods. We see that at the top of page 13.

Indeed, if I have one real criticism of the Speech from the Throne, particularly as it pertains to what I feel should be the policy of the government, I do not think the government emphasized it sufficiently that this is indeed a Speech from the Throne that commits the government to a new program, an expanded program and an urgent program of transparency and accountability.

We see that the government is calling for better ethical standards and a code of conduct for MPs. I agree with that and it has been alluded to by the opposition, but it is only one small part of the type of transparency and accountability that we must bring to all public institutions. I do believe that one of the most important institutions of all is the method whereby we elect our representatives in the House, whether it is individual members of Parliament or whether it is leadership candidates, the leadership of parties.

I deplore the fact that we cannot get the campaign financing information out of the Leader of the Opposition. I do not accept the explanation of the member for Elk Island that he is not divulging this because he is afraid the government will penalize the people who might have supported that leadership candidate.

Well, in an election campaign it is very obvious that people are supporting other parties than the party that is in power. I do not think that this government, and I would hope any other government that was ever formed by any opposition party, would penalize any member of the community who donates to a party or to a candidate. The key is transparency.

Unfortunately, we do not know, although we suspect that the Leader of the Opposition received financing from a notorious pressure group called the National Citizens' Coalition which operates out of the west. We cannot see where it gets its money. I think the Leader of the Opposition was the president of that organization. Why should he not tell us whether that organization is supporting him? Why should he not tell us who is supporting that organization? We on this side suspect that it is offshore money.

I remind the member for Elk Island that while the Leader of the Opposition was the leader of the National Citizens' Coalition, the National Citizens' Coalition went to court in order to prevent us from ever knowing who actually finances the National Citizens' Coalition should it be a third party advertiser in an election campaign.

One really needs to walk the talk. It is not just about the ethics of individual MPs. It is about the ethics of leaders. It is a question of transparency of all institutions.

I must say that there is a disappointment for me in this because, while it touched on so many things, the one area that is nearest and dearest to me is that the Speech from the Throne did not clearly commit the government to reforming the Access to Information Act. There is a reference. It says that Canadians want their governments to be open. In the talking points, which are the points given to ministers when they meet the media and which give them some sort of background on how they should respond in the context of what is actually in the Speech from the Throne, it does have a sense of government policy. This particular talking point says:

To serve Canadians better, we will make our public and political institutions more open, transparent, and accountable.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I think my own government should walk the talk. I hope that in the weeks to come, very soon indeed, it will walk that talk and we will not only hear words calling for open government, we will see legislation reforming the Access to Information Act that gives Canadians proper, better access to the inner workings of government. Transparency and accountability is what we all should stand for and I think the Speech from the Throne, short of what it failed to specify in the Access to Information Act, is a long step forward.

[Larry Spencer, Canadian Alliance, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I like that saying, walk the talk. That is good and I agree with it. I will read a line from the throne speech. It reads “The government will reallocate resources to the highest priorities and transform old spending to new purposes.”

If I recall, we saw a mini-budget last fall or sometime just recently. I lose track of what season it is around here. It was suggested, I believe, by the Auditor General that approximately $16 billion should be re-examined and could be reallocated to new spending but that party could not see $1 that it could reallocate.

Does the hon. member really think the government will walk the talk and actually reallocate some of the old spending?

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

I think so, Mr. Speaker, but there are other ways of making major savings. In my reference to the Access to Information Act, another side that is very important to that reform is that it will create enormous efficiencies in government because if we can see the daily operation of government using Internet access, and that is why we need to reform it because Internet is upon us, then we can actually manage government and large corporations laterally rather than hierarchically.

If we can bring in that type of legislation we can save money in the billions. If we can apply that type of transparency to health care, like hospitals, and I proposed this to the Romanow commission, and again if hospitals were transparent in their methods of operation, the efficiencies would be enormous and the savings would be enormous.

So the real way to create new money to spend on new programs is to save money on existing programs.

[Darrel Stinson, Canadian Alliance, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and he talked about walking the talk and what this all means. I well remember in this House the great speeches that came from the other side with regard to an ethics commissioner who was going to take control of a lot of these problems and the excitement that even came from the government side that this could be the answer.

I just want to remind the member of the so-called ethics commissioner who was talked about being put in place and who only reports to the Prime Minister, not to a committee nor to any other parliamentarian in this House of Commons. Everything he says is kept secret unless the Prime Minister decides to let it out.

Maybe the hon. member should get rid of the rose tinted glasses and realize what has been said in the House before and what actually has happened here from throne speeches to budget speeches. Some people are getting awfully sick and tired of it.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, I think the ethics commissioner should report to Parliament. Second, I would remind the member that my problems in forwarding an agenda of increased transparency by reforming the Access to Information Act came to grief when I had a private member's bill before the House that the opposition party, the party of which he is a member, systematically defeated it and brought it down. Now, instead of a private member's bill, I have to rely on a government bill.

I hope the government will come forward with an amended Access to Information Act in the months to come.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am so delighted to have this opportunity because I have just received a message that there was a lady who came to my constituency office in Sherwood Park who is limited to a CPP and the old age security pension. They gave her $2,500 when her husband died. She did not have enough to pay for his funeral. Then the money was deemed as income and it was clawed back. She was left with 13 cents.

In view of that kind of abuse of taxpayers money why can we not have openness in contracts? The member asks for openness. Why can we not have openness and accountability in those contracts for advertising and things where no work is done except signing the cheque and cashing it?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that the government is committed to overhauling the sponsorship contract arrangements, which is precisely what I want to do with the Access to Information Act. I want it opened up to contracting out. This is what we want to do.

However I do not quite understand the connection with the senior citizen who has the problem with the CCRA. I have the same issue in my riding. I think it is a very difficult issue, but this is the government of compassion that will solve it.

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

Mr. Speaker, the issue raised by the hon. member for Elk Island about his constituent who just buried her husband and who had a clawback on $2,500 is the type of issue and the type of constituent that we in the House should be able to rally around.

I have always believed that the reason we are sitting here in the House as members of Parliament is to speak for men and women who do not have a voice; to speak for those men and women who are truly disadvantaged, men and women who cannot afford lobbyists. We must look after constituents such as the woman the member for Elk Island described.

For the last seven or eight years we have had a fiscal obsession in the House of Commons that on more than one occasion has driven me nuts. People cheered when we eliminated the deficit a year ahead of time. I have said in the House many times in the last few years that I did not think it was such a great big deal.

I come from a community in downtown Toronto with many low income families who carried the burden of that accelerated paydown of our deficit. Quite frankly, over the last few months I have been terribly discouraged at the direction of my Liberal government. I felt that we were missing an opportunity with the resurgence in the economy and with the great surpluses to deal with the real, true core value system of why we are Liberals.

When I heard the Speech from the Throne yesterday, I could not believe it. It was almost like a conversion. The Prime Minister has been in public office for 40 years and I thought that the clarity bill was his best crafted jewel, but this Speech from the Throne is a better crafted jewel.

In the latter part of August he sent out a memo to all members of caucus asking us for our ideas and thoughts on what we could do. I sat with some of my constituents over a few days and we decided to send the Prime Minister a tough letter on the issues that voters in my community really felt needed to be addressed. I told them that I did not want to create any expectation because for the last few years we have been hammering the executive of the government on lots of issues, and it has said that it has the fiscal obsession but that it has to keep cutting because it has no money. However, I said that we would try it one more time.

On April 9 we wrote a letter to the Prime Minister and challenged him to have the courage to deal with some of the issues that we raised in our community.

I want to thank all the men and women in my community who came together for a two and a half day crash period that put the ideas together. When I talked to some of them last night they were pretty excited.

Compassionate care for the gravely ill is on page 5 in the Speech from the Throne. We said that Canada is one of the few countries without a national food plan. The security and safety of our national food supply must become a priority and it is on page 4.

Canada does not have a national framework for managing its freshwater resources. It is there on page 7. We have approximately one million children in Canada who cannot participate in organized amateur sports and recreational activities because families cannot afford either the registration fees or the equipment. We talked about health care needs. Helping Canada's kids is on page 5 in the Speech from the Throne.

We all know the challenge we have right across the country regarding affordable housing. The government has extended the commitment to affordable housing on top of the $650 million on page 11.

We put in a note to the Prime Minister a challenge regarding the plan for the redevelopment of the Toronto waterfront by Mr. Fung, Mr. Smith and the Minister of Transport that would see Government of Canada controlled areas turned into wall to wall condominiums for the wealthy. It is addressed on page 7. We would ensure that what is left of the Toronto waterfront becomes environmentally sensitive and recreational for families and kids.

I have been tough on the executive of the government over the years, but I must say that today I stand here and I am pleased. I know my constituents are pleased.

I salute the men and women who helped craft the words and who assisted in putting this renewed vision to what really is an old Liberalism but now will be the new Liberalism. I am hoping that the spirit which exists within this document will have a momentum which will move it into the execution phase. As my colleague from Ancaster--Dundas--Flamborough--Aldershot said earlier, we must now take the commitments that are on this paper, in this crafted jewel, and ensure they happen.

As we execute what is in the Speech from the Throne we will lose some popularity, but for too long around here we have been worried about the polls and we have not been putting enough emphasis on causes. These causes will cost some money and cause some discomfort for some people, especially those who are in the advantaged class in the country, but when Canadians see that these initiatives are for a greater and higher good, after a while the causes will not be as unpopular and Canadians will rally around us. I am in full support of everything that is in the Speech from the Throne.

[Wendy Lill, NDP, Dartmouth, NS]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member about his thoughts on the issue of persons with disabilities.

I have read the throne speech and I see two references to persons with disabilities. There are two promises which I hope happen: support for families with severely disabled children and possible moneys for training Canadians with disabilities in the workforce. However how is it that the same government which seems to see these as goals, on which it may or may not come through, can at the same time be cutting back on the number of people who are able to gain the disability tax credit?

We have heard within the last week or so that the regulations around the disability tax credit are tightening up even more stringently. People's feeding and clothing habits are being looked at through a microscope to see whether they would be eligible for this tiny tax credit.

We have on one hand a government that is scapegoating and almost going to war against people with disabilities, and then we have all the lofty goals the member just talked about. Would the member help me square this incredible dichotomy?

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

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this question because I tried to allude to this point in my opening remarks.

Two weeks ago several men and women with disabilities came into my constituency office on the Danforth. I was horrified when I saw the bureaucratic vision of the new regulations. I called the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and told him this was unacceptable. I have talked to other people in my party and I would be willing to stake anything that on this Liberal watch there is no way that our commitment to those who are the most disadvantaged will be diminished in any way, shape or form. That bureaucratic view of the regulations will be reviewed, repaired and corrected in the not too distant future.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member for his views regarding environmental protection and national parks. He believed that on page 7 the throne speech referenced the Toronto waterfront.

There is a Spring Garden in Windsor, Ontario which is one of the last remaining spots for tall grass prairie. It has endangered species like the massasauga rattler that needs to be protected. The federal government has played a minor role in terms of that preservation. The municipality is bearing the burden of it right now.

I do not see the Toronto waterfront and its protection referenced on page 7 of the throne speech. Does that mean we can expect in Windsor West, for example, that this ecological and biological spot significant to North America will be protected? Can I bring that back to my constituents?

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

Madam Speaker, as I am from Toronto's waterfront I am not qualified to say whether or not there is potential for a national park classification in the member's particular area. We all know our species at risk legislation, which we all essentially passed fell off the Order Paper, will be reintroduced soon. That legislation should deal with that particular problem.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—St. Clair, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to indicate that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg--Transcona.

As I was listening to the delivery of the throne speech yesterday by the Governor General, I had this recurring thought in my mind. After nine years, is this what we have been brought to as a country by this administration? Is this all there is? Could Canada not have expected better after the experience this administration has had over that nine year period?

Because of my area as critic I focussed particularly on the environmental messages that should have been coming from the throne speech, the themes and ideas we were looking forward and that the country was expecting. They were not there. There was a reference to Kyoto. As our leader indicated earlier today, was it the typical Liberal way of dealing with it or was it for real?

I was in Johannesburg with the Prime Minister. I heard him take a position there. When I returned to Canada a few days later I watched him and other ministers of the government weasel out of the commitment he made to the international community and the people of Canada at that time. I was hoping that maybe he had done some rethinking of his obligation to the country and to the planet on the issue of Kyoto, but I did not get any satisfaction out of that in the throne speech.

There was every opportunity in the throne speech for the government to send a clear message that it was serious about dealing with the issue of climate change and global warming. There was a need in the throne speech for specific references on timing for Kyoto, again because of some of the mushiness we have had from this administration and specifically from the Prime Minister, but it was not there.

There were no points about what the plan would be and whether we were ever going to get a plan. There was no specific reference as there should have been to the timing, both of the passage and the implementation. Given the status of concern in the country over the Kyoto protocol, it called for and demanded that those types of points would be covered and in fact they were not.

We have already had one reference in the last few minutes to other issues around the environment in the throne speech. There was a reference to the issue of water quality. We must look at the throne speech in the context of what has happened over the last few years around the issue of water quality. There was Walkerton and the deaths of seven citizens because we did not have safe water. In North Battleford there was serious illness among citizens in that community because we did not have good water quality.

I have lost count of how many water advisories and warnings we have had around the country. In that context again, would the country not have expected something more than a bland statement about dealing with what would clearly be non-mandatory, completely voluntary water guidelines? That is as good as the government could give us.

There was a reference to air quality. Again, in the context, could the country not have expected more? We hear from the medical association that thousands of people die prematurely in Canada every year due to poor air quality.

One reference in the throne speech was about talking to the United States. That was a sore point for me because I come from a community where a great deal of the poor, unhealthy air quality is as a result of practices in the United States.

This administration has spent a fair amount of time talking to the United States but not doing anything about improving the air quality. When we hear that bland statement about talking to the Americans, it does not give us any sense of confidence that those numbers of deaths will go down in the foreseeable future.

There was reference to our park system, a pledge to create 10 new parks and five new marine conservation areas. It sounded hollow to me because of how bad the situation is in not just some but every single national park. Every single one of them is deteriorating. There was no commitment by the government in that speech to turn around that deterioration.

There were other issues beyond the environment that should have been addressed in the speech. I just want to deal with a couple of them.

For all this period of time, we have heard from the former finance minister and the Prime Minister about how great a job they have done dealing with the debt and deficit. We never hear from them, and we did not hear it in this throne speech, about full employment.

I have been travelling a fair amount in the last few weeks. I hear the same thing every time, “What about value added employment and job creation?” I hear it from those communities that are based in the forestry sector and, similarly, in the energy sector. Why do we not have policies that would use the natural resources we have much more effectively than we have up to this point? There was nothing in this speech in that regard. I have heard that all over the country.

Just one more point, and that is on the issue of military spending. What did we get? We got, in spite of where we are at, a pledge to wait until the review was done. What we needed to hear was a recommitment to train, equip and supply our military for peacekeeping and for our international obligations. We did not hear that. We did not hear anything in the way of creativity about dealing with what our military could be doing. It was very bland and very inconclusive.

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

Madam Speaker, I would like to make a few comments about the Speech from the Throne as is my want sometimes in this place. I think there are at least three major areas of failure at the moment on the part of the government which I want to concentrate. There are probably a lot when I get to thinking about it. However I want to talk about health care briefly, Kyoto and also about democracy and the failure of the throne speech to address in any meaningful way the democratic deficit that the member for LaSalle—Émard has just discovered upon his becoming a backbencher.

The first area is medicare. What the government did not do in the Speech from the Throne was to commit to restoring the federal government to the position of being a full federal partner in the federal-provincial partnership that medicare was at the beginning and is no longer, thanks to the progressive unilateral withdrawal of the federal government from the funding of medicare.

I have seen this happen over the 23 years that I have been here, the unilateral reductions in federal transfer payments to the provinces for medicare starting with the Liberal government and the budget of Allan MacEachen in 1981 or 1982 and then by Conservatives and Jake Epp when he was the minister of health. After 1984 there were Tory unilateral reductions and then more Liberal unilateral reductions and finally of course there was the disaster of the budget of 1995 in which the current member for LaSalle—Émard basically gutted the federal contribution to medicare and set the conditions for the crisis in medicare that we now observe, which is that on the Liberal watch the privatizers have been given their opportunity.

Therefore what was needed here was not a commitment to have a first ministers meeting after the Romanow report, although there is nothing wrong with having a first ministers meeting on health care. That would be a good idea. However what was needed here was a commitment on the part of the federal government that it would become full federal partners once again and move toward, if it cannot move immediately to, full fifty-fifty cost sharing of health care which is the cost sharing basis on which medicare came into being. That would constitute the federal government having both the moral high ground and the fiscal high ground and they come together. We do not get the moral high ground without having the fiscal high ground. This is something that the federal government has not been willing to acknowledge. It is only when the Liberals are willing to put the money back into health care that they took out fully, plus, because even if they went back to 1993 levels it would not be fifty-fifty cost sharing, and when they can say to the provinces, “This is the kind of national health care system we want and this is the kind of health care system that we demand of you”. That is what the government has failed to do in the throne speech.

I will very quickly speak about Kyoto, because my colleague from Windsor—St. Clair has dealt with this quite adequately. What I think the government is failing to do is to show some enthusiasm for the accord. It kind of reminds me the way it defended the Nisga'a treaty. It was only when it had to. It let other people defend it and then defended it when it got to the floor of the House of Commons, as it probably will when we have a motion with respect to ratification. Maybe even the Minister of Health will have a positive word to say about it. We will wait and see.

This should be viewed as an opportunity, not as some kind of horrible necessity that the government had to be dragged into. The idea of creating a new economy, built around energy saving technologies, built around renewable energy, built around creating really a new way of life, getting more freight back on the rails and off the highways and creating new modes of public transportation should be seen as something about which to be excited. The idea of creating a way of life in which we do not constantly travel about with the knowledge that we may be contributing to the ultimate destruction of the planet should be something to be excited about and the government should be out there making the case much more strongly. We should not have to be criticizing the government on this. We should just have to be supporting it. We would like to support it, but it should show a little gumption, show a little enthusiasm for the task. This is not being done.

Finally, with respect to the democratic deficit, this is very interesting. I love to watch the member for LaSalle—Émard discover that there is a democratic deficit after having presided as the minister of finance over one of the most undemocratic regimes, parliamentarily speaking of course. Presumably many people on the Liberal backbench felt that there was a democratic deficit. If they feel that there is one now, surely it existed prior to the resignation, or the firing depending on how we look at it, of the minister of finance.

What do we have in the throne speech? There is some hint that we may get some changes with respect to campaign finance and how we finance electoral parties. That is probably directed at the member for LaSalle—Émard himself, for all we know, if the ongoing intrigue within the Liberal Party is any indication.

What we do not have is any tip of the hat or any acknowledgment that there is something profoundly wrong with our electoral system. Canadians want a system in which their vote counts no matter where they cast it and in which their vote contributes in some way to the ultimate makeup of their Parliament, no matter what region they are in and no matter for what party they vote. Of course I am talking about some kind of proportional representation.

At the very least the government could have said, “Why do we not have an all party task force on this? Why do we not have an all party task force that goes about the country and hears from Canadians on what they would like to see in terms of electoral reform?” Maybe it does not want proportional representation but it would at least be an opportunity for those who think it would be a good idea and for those who think that there may be other ways of improving our electoral system to come forward. Regrettably, that is not so.

There was a very good article today in the Globe and Mail by Hugh Segal and Ed Broadbent on this very topic, on what was absent from the government's democratic reform package, although I am being far too kind to call it a package. There really was hardly anything there at all.

There was no mention, for instance, in terms of the democratic deficit of chapter 11 in the paragraph or two about Canada and the world. There was no mention of the trade agreements or any need to improve them. Chapter 11, as the House knows, is the investor's stake dispute settlement mechanism which enables corporations to sue governments if, when acting in the public interest, they get in the way of the profit strategies of certain corporations.

This is a democratic issue. The real democratic deficit is in the trade agreement whereby the ability of democratically elected governments to protect the public interest or act in the common good is restricted by these agreements.

This is not unrelated to what is going on in health care at the moment. The Romanow Commission had a study commissioned which reported that if under NAFTA we permitted these private hospitals to proliferate, as they are now on the Liberal watch which refuses to do anything, and at some point a provincial government did not want to have private hospitals any more and acted to eliminate them, if they were owned by Americans who were making money from those hospitals, the province could not do so without being subjected to the terms and conditions of chapter 11.

Everything is connected to everything else. If the government really wanted to address the democratic deficit, this is one of the things it would have at least mentioned in the throne speech.

Finally, on democratic deficit, we had a unanimous recommendation of the justice committee for the second time in the last several years that the government bring forward corporate criminal liability legislation to deal with the kind of thing that happened at Westray. It was a unanimous recommendation. Where are the Liberal backbenchers? Why are they not up on their hind legs asking that the government respect a unanimous recommendation of a standing committee of this House? Why was there no mention in the throne speech of that?

That should have been one promise that was in the throne speech that grew right out of a recommendation of a committee of the House of Commons. It was not there. Anybody who wants to talk about democratic deficit on the other side should be up saying: “Why is it that the government did not respect the unanimous recommendation of a standing committee of this House?”

Where are the Liberal voices on this one?

[An hon. member]

What if committees ran the whole House?

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

I heard something over there. It would be nice if committees ran something. It would be nice if the unanimous recommendation of a committee was respected from time to time.

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

Madam Speaker, the throne speech was also lacking an industrial strategy, for example when it comes to shipbuilding. The former minister of industry came forth with a committee and a unanimous recommendation in a report that was done with business, the provinces, the municipalities, labour, and with the support of many on the backbench of the Liberal Party. That was called “Breaking Through”. That was to have an industrial strategy toward shipbuilding in this country. It was completely ignored in the throne speech.

That indication toward the shipbuilding policy could have indicated the possibility that thousands of people could be working in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario and on the west coast. I would like my learned colleague to explain why he thinks that was completely ignored by the Liberal government in the throne speech.

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

I do not know exactly why it was ignored, whether it was through malice, stupidity or the usual disregard for the unanimous recommendations of a committee of this House.

I know the committee recommendation of which the member speaks. It seems ironic to me that a country with a coastline as long as Canada's should be a country that is not willing to invest in a shipbuilding strategy of its own. I certainly remember the shipbuilding lobby or whatever one wants to call it. It was not just industry. The unions and communities also came to our caucus to explain the absolute necessity of this happening.

While we are talking about ships and the lack of any national policy with respect to shipbuilding, we certainly would not expect a national policy with respect to shipbuilding from the hon. member for LaSalle--Émard. His policy when it comes to ships is to flag the ships of the Canada Steamship Lines not under the Canadian flag but under the flag of some other country where Canadian taxes can be avoided. This hardly sounds to me like leadership or at least not leadership of the kind one would want to have in charge. It seems to me that someone who aspires to be the leader of the country would not want to be open to the charge that they were actually avoiding contributing to the overall good of Canada by configuring their own company and flagging ships that belong to that company in a way to avoid Canadian taxes.

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

Madam Speaker, in reference to the very same member of which the hon. member speaks, I wonder what sort of a deficit in democracy might exist when one examines the record. It is more like a deficit in credibility when one talks about the number of times which that particular member voted with the government to shut down debate either through time allocation or simply using closure motions in the House of Commons.

The hon. member for Winnipeg--Transcona is a long serving member of the House of Commons. He may want to reference other governments, but let us look at the record of the government in the past 10 years as to how many times the debate itself was forced to collapse by the actions of the government. Voting with the government was the member for LaSalle--Émard.

I also wonder if the member for Winnipeg--Transcona would reference the 1993 promise co-written in the red book by that same member to have an independent ethics counsellor who would report directly to Parliament. When this same motion was drawn verbatim out of that red book co-written by the member for LaSalle--Émard and presented back to the government, the government and that member voted against their own words. Where is the credibility? What credibility deficit has the government sunk to for that occur?

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

Madam Speaker, the member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough makes a good point about the ethics counsellor. There was a promise to create an independent ethics commissioner, and I think that was the original language, that would be an officer of the House and that would report to the House. That was never done. I think that is a source of a lot of the problems the government has had over the last nine years. If it had actually kept its own promise and put that kind of person in place, it would have been able to deal with some of the problems that occurred on the other side.

The member mentioned closure. He was anticipating my response when he said that I might want to reference other governments. He said that because he knows that when he asks me about closure I often refer to the frequency with which Progressive Conservative governments that I was familiar with used closure.

Clearly this has become a feature of parliamentary life which we should abhor. We need to find a way to negotiate, all of us, in such a way that really important issues get the kind of attention they need. Instead what we have is a parliamentary culture in which if something is really important, we debate it for a day and if something is not that important, we debate it forever because when--

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

The hon. member for Parkdale--High Park.

[Sarmite Bulte, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Madam Speaker, it is truly a pleasure to speak in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

I must say that after attending at the Senate chamber yesterday and listening to Her Excellency the Governor General read the Speech from the Throne, the moment I returned to the House I felt very proud to be a member of the Liberal government.

The Speech from the Throne reflected true Liberal values. More important, the values that were reflected and the priorities that were put forward in the Speech from the Throne are the values and the priorities of Canadians.

I want to begin by thanking the Prime Minister for his letter of August 5. He wrote to our caucus requesting our input and suggestions to the main policy areas that the Speech from the Throne should address. I was interested to hear my colleague from Toronto--Danforth talk about how he also acted upon that letter.

I conducted a number of round tables in my riding. As a result of those consultations there were four major priorities my constituents wanted addressed in the Speech from the Throne. Number one was health care. Number two was the environment. Number three was urban policy. Number four was the arts and cultural sector.

For anyone who has read the Speech from the Throne, as the member for Toronto--Danforth pointed out, those issues and priorities were indeed addressed. Within the time I have been allotted I would like to try to address those priorities. I should add that I am sharing my time with the member for Mississauga West.

First and foremost, with respect to health care my constituents were absolutely clear. They did not want the government to abandon the publicly funded, universally accessible health care that we now enjoy. In fact, the Speech from the Throne acknowledged that no issue is more important to Canadians than health care.

This morning we also heard the Prime Minister in his address in reply to the Speech from the Throne talk about the fact that health care is a fundamental right for Canadians. As the Speech from the Throne noted, the Prime Minister will be convening a first ministers meeting early next year for the very purpose of putting into place a comprehensive plan for reform.

In the Speech from the Throne the Prime Minister committed to renewing certain things: the federal health protection legislation; strengthening the security of Canada's food system; putting together a national strategy for healthy living, activity and sport. I cannot stress how important that is. We debated in the House how our children are faced with smoking and how we could make them stop smoking.

It is not just about smoking; it is about obesity. We Canadians tend to become stagnant and we do not do anything about it. We want to ensure that our health care system delivers for us. As individuals we also need to take some responsibility for our own health and put into place some kind of activity and sports strategy, as the member for Toronto--Danforth spoke about. A lot of families simply cannot afford those kinds of activities. What can we do to encourage those activities within our communities?

Last but not least, in the health care section of the Speech from the Throne the Prime Minister talked about the importance of providing compassionate care for a gravely ill child, parent or spouse. In fact a few years ago I posed a question to a predecessor to the current Minister for Human Resources Development about what our government was doing about something that was known as eternity care. It is legislation that has been put in place in Sweden. It is something we could do to ensure that individuals are not penalized because they find it necessary or they want to be at home with their gravely ill loved ones.

Currently my father is very ill and is about to undergo surgery. My mother died. We cared for her. It is so important that we as a society recognize that it does not take away from our health care system. We also must allow individuals to care for their families. I commend the Prime Minister and the government for that recommendation.

With respect to environmental programs, it was absolutely clear in my riding that we have to deal with global warming. Kyoto ratification is important. I heard some of the comments from across the way that there has been no commitment whatsoever, just simply a resolution. Obviously those members were not here during question period today when the Prime Minister explained that ratifying Kyoto is not an act of government. In fact we are going to pass a resolution in the House. We will debate it, talk about it and also be part of the consultative process.

My constituents felt that we also had to take measures to accelerate the use of non-polluting technologies. They also thought it was very important, especially in my urban riding in Toronto, to invest in increased rail travel to reduce the use of heavier polluting air and automobile transport. To my constituents I say, let us look at the Speech From the Throne. We will ratify Kyoto and we will do so by the end of the year.

We will also create 10 new national parks and five new national marine conservation areas. We are still committed to improving the ecological integrity of Canada's existing national parks. We will reintroduce the Canada environmental assessment act and reintroduce the species at risk bill and strengthen the pesticides legislation.

Under the section “Competitive Cities and Healthy Communities” of the Speech from the Throne, there is a commitment to a 10 year program for infrastructure. It specifically notes that we will work with partners to support the development of safe, efficient and environmentally responsible transportation systems that will help reduce congestion in our cities.

Regarding urban policy, the census came out not too long ago and we found, not surprisingly, that an increasing number of our population lives in urban areas. We are seeing the decay of our cities. We are seeing that cities are not able to fund the infrastructure that is necessary. Even before the Speech From the Throne, the Prime Minister appointed a task force headed by our colleague the member for York West to look at these issues. That committee has actually reported. An interim report is out there for discussion purposes. It made 54 recommendations. That was also discussed by my constituents.

What my constituents felt was very important was the need to implement a long term national affordable housing program. My riding is culturally and economically diverse. It is highly dense. We have newcomers, refugees, low income families, seniors and people who are almost homeless because they cannot afford to keep their homes. They do not have the money to repair their homes. It is a very big concern in my riding.

Related to urban policy, investment in public transit is absolutely key.

The other thing that my constituents felt, and which was also noted by the member for York West and her committee in its report, was that we have to recognize how continuing the investment in arts and culture actually serves to revitalize our communities. What does the Speech From the Throne say? Under the section “Competitive Cities and Healthy Communities” it states that dynamic cities and communities are vital to our well-being.

What did we commit to do? We did put in place a 10 year program for infrastructure to accommodate long term strategic initiatives that cities need to have in place. We have agreed to extend investment in affordable housing and also to extend the supporting communities initiative program which came about through our Minister of Labour's hard work also as the minister responsible for homelessness.

The supporting communities partnership initiative is very successful in Toronto and has been very successful in my riding. It has supported projects like Romero House which provides housing for new refugees. It has helped Redwood Shelter which is a home for abused women and children. It has made a difference in my riding.

The other thing that the section talked about was working with large cities to develop strategies to reduce the barriers that new immigrants find when settling. As I said, this is a very important issue in my riding because the area known as Parkdale is where new refugees and immigrants come to start their lives.

Last but not least I would like to talk about the importance of the need for a healthy and vibrant cultural sector. This was addressed in the Speech from the Throne. I noted that the Canadian Conference of the Arts has already sent out its bulletin reviewing the investment in the arts.

While CCA states at the beginning that arts and culture did not have a section dedicated to them, there are a number of things, including copyright. If members have not seen the CCA bulletin, I would ask them to do so. Again, it would appear to us that the Canadian Conference of the Arts is delighted with what it found in the Speech from the Throne.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is obvious that the hon. member who just spoke represents a constituency that is different from mine in many ways. I would like to point out that I have two cities, a number of towns and, in all, 107 local governments. I met throughout the summer with most of them and with many different people.

You talked about the questions people ask you. I would like to ask the member, did no one ask you, because this was asked of me many times, what do you think the government has to do in the way of changing the ethics program and making it possible to show Canadians that it is truly accountable in every way? Did that question never come up in your riding? It came up at virtually every local government I attended.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Bakopanos)]

I will remind the hon. member that questions are to be addressed through the Chair to hon. members.