Mr. Speaker, I am really pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this motion because it gives me a chance to submit a kind of wish list, the 12 things that I would do if I was Prime Minister, so the opposition will just have to bear with me as I go through because they have had their opportunity to say what they would do if they formed the government.
If I led a government on this side what I would first do is reform the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. That is number one. These two bits of legislation, when they were originally introduced, the Access to Information Act in 1983, it was the second piece of legislation of its kind in the world, the second freedom of information legislation.
Now, it is sad to say it is now lagging behind just about every freedom of information legislation elsewhere in the world, and similarly the Privacy Act. It is most important and in the interests of the nation to amend both pieces of legislation in order not only to enhance the public's right to know but to create efficiencies in government in order to make Canada a globally competitive nation.
Secondly, I would write legislation requiring charities to be answerable in terms of transparency and corporate governance. We have a $100 billion industry, actually a $122 billion industry if we count the non profit organizations, that is run without any kind of legislative transparency whatsoever.
We know anecdotally that there are problems all through that industry. We know of small scam charities, but most importantly the large hospitals, the health care institutions in this country which spend some $40 billion a year are charities, and they are not transparent or they are not required to conform to legislative standards of corporate governance. I believe if they were then our problems with financing health care would be solved because we would save billions if only we could rein in the way administrators manage the health care industry. I just in passing point out that the CEO of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, for example, makes $500,000 a year, twice that of the Prime Minister.
Thirdly, I would amend the old Bill C-31, the amendment to the Indian Act that was passed in 1985 that created over 100,000 new Indians, many of them with no connection to reserves, no connections to their Indian heritage whatsoever. It was intended to correct a problem with respect to the spouses of people who married off the reserve. It has created a nightmare where we are now passing in the House race based legislation that discriminates based on race in our urban communities.
I was the only one on this side of the House to vote against the youth justice bill Senate amendments that came to the House because what they did is they required the courts to consider race, whether a person is an aboriginal or not, in sentencing and I would say that is unacceptable.
Fourthly, the federal government must rein in gambling. It is an issue that is not talked about at all in the House anymore but you will remember that a change in the criminal code actually has passed to the provinces this incredible cash cow which is called casino gambling and video lottery terminals. This has now created a $27 billion industry, if we will, that preys on the weaknesses of our fellow Canadians.
I have travelled around the country and I always go to casinos to see what the casinos are like, and each of those casinos preys on a different sector of the community, and for example the casino in Winnipeg has video lottery terminals that are operated by a nickel. In other words, the clientele in Winnipeg is not sufficiently wealthy to put in $1 or $5 so the terminals are directed towards getting the money from the people on social welfare, the really poor people, and so we have nickel terminals and we are creating a massive addiction.
The provinces are pretending that this is okay because they are taking the profits and giving them to charities, and I deplore the fact that charities are financing themselves on money that is obviously coming from people who are either addicted or cannot afford the losses that they incur when they go to casino gambling.
Fifthly, I would change the general federal policy with respect to aboriginal affairs. We have to look at it again because what has happened is that it is not working. I spent three years on the Indian and Northern Affairs committee and my heart really went out to the witnesses from the various aboriginal communities across the country that came to the committee. Something is very, very wrong with our policy because what we are doing is we are creating a culture of dependence rather than a culture of pride. That should be a number one priority for any new government, to actually come back and re-examine where we are going wrong in our aboriginal affairs policy.
Sixth, I would revisit the Supreme Court Act. This parliament forgets that the supreme court is beneath parliament. In other words parliament is the supreme court of this land, not like in the United States. We have the supreme court making decisions when it does not even have a majority of the judges onside, decisions that the Government of Canada interprets as binding decisions, as binding interpretations of the charter of rights and freedoms.
Madam Speaker, I should tell you that the supreme court judges themselves can make these incredibly important decisions based on only three hours of testimony, most of the work actually being done by law clerks. We have to take a look as a parliament and satisfy ourselves that the supreme court is serving the nation the way it must.
Seventh, on that note I think we should return to the Singh decision. The Singh decision was a Supreme Court of Canada minority decision in the mid-1980s that the Government of Canada has used as justification for saying that anyone who lands on Canadian soil, any foreign alien, must be treated as though that person were a citizen and have access to all due processes of law and all the benefits of Canadian society.
Madam Speaker, if you actually examined the Singh decision you would find real doubt that this was the intention of the court at the time, but we have to go back to that because we are one of the few nations in the world where foreign aliens can come onto our soil and have all the rights of citizenship. We have to address that problem because it is causing all kinds of difficulties in immigration and refugee policy.
Number eight, I would take back the tax points that we have given to the provinces on health care. We have to take control of health care in the provinces because what we know as a federal parliament is we are putting money out to the provinces for health care and they are using it in other ways, so we have to get control of health care spending. We have to make the medical health of Canadians a federal responsibility centrally because I believe the provinces are failing in their obligation in that regard, and they are forever saying that the federal government is not giving enough to the provinces but in fact if we took back the tax points that we have given the provinces I think we would more than bring the spending on health care under control, and we could combine that with better transparency with hospital administration.
Number nine, I would declare that Canada is indivisible. I was never comfortable with the clarity bill in its suggestion, and it is a suggestion only, that this House could actually decide that one province or another could walk away from the Confederation. As a government or a prime minister I would say simply that as long as I was around and as long as my government was around this would never be on the table. This is one country.
Number ten, I would dump our equity employment policy and all gender based government programs. Our gender based programs were brought in way back in 1973 as a result of a report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. In 1973 they were undoubtedly relevant but they are not relevant in 2002. I do not believe the women of this country by and large, by the grand large, actually feel that they have to be treated in special fashion. They do not. This is a land in which there is equality of opportunity regardless of gender, and I think it is a disgrace that we suggest that women are in some way inferior and that they have to have special treatment, so I would scrap that entire program.
Concerning number 11, I would dismantle the arm's length agencies like the CRTC. Here again there has been a long policy of the government avoiding its responsibility and its accountability.
The last one is that I would change the oath of citizenship so that it reflected the values of Canadians, the values of the charter of rights and freedoms.