Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Niagara Falls.
First, I would like to thank the constituents of my new constituency of Edmonton--St. Albert for allowing me to come back here for the fourth time. I was first elected in 1993 for the constituency of St. Albert, which is a suburb of the city of Edmonton. The constituency of St. Albert also covers off a number of small towns on the west side and north side of the city of Edmonton, namely, Spruce Grove, Stony Plain, Morinville and Legal.
As many people know, I had a problem with the redistribution because it divided the francophone community. There is a strong francophone community on the edge of Edmonton. In fact, in the town of Legal one is more likely to hear French spoken on the streets than English, even though it is only 15 or 20 miles from the city; I see that the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs is pleased with that.
Nonetheless, after losing my battle with the electoral commission I now represent part of the city of Edmonton and the city of St. Albert. I am pleased to do that and to have these new constituents. Over the ensuing time that we have in this Parliament--I do not know if we will be counting it in years but perhaps we will--I hope to serve them well and continue on the work we have been doing to hold the government accountable. Through the work of the public accounts committee I chaired in the last session, there was a serious change in the voters' perceptions of the Liberal government. As a result, we now have a minority and, as a previous speaker pointed out, we must have a new working relationship between the government and the opposition.
On the Speech from the Throne, we also have to take a look at things it did not say. One I want to talk about is the absence of what is said about strengthening our military. In my constituency of Edmonton—St. Albert we are right next to the base of the Edmonton garrison, where 7,000 personnel are based. Many of them live in the northwestern part of Edmonton and in the city of St. Albert. They were looking for a greater commitment by the government other than a few comments in the throne speech.
Let me quote from the throne speech: “...we have to invest more in our military...” and increase the number of troops “by 5,000...and our reserves by 3,000”. But surely we need something stronger and better than “...we need to invest more in our military...”. Where is the commitment? Where is the vision of this government saying, “This is why we are here. This is what we want to do as a government. This is how we are going to lead this country forward”. It is not in this throne speech.
Then, of course, after the speech we had the disaster with the Chicoutimi that cost the life of one of our sailors. These submarines are used goods. On top of the Sea Kings, which should be in the museum, we have these submarines. We have to seriously question if these submarines are going to be of value to us when the minister of defence from the United Kingdom apparently said yesterday or the day before that contracts are contracts, it is buyer beware, and we get what we buy on used goods.
That is not good enough for a country like Canada, which at one point in time had the third largest military in the second world war and was a beacon to the world. It has been a beacon to the world for the last 40 to 50 years. It has been eroding. Now we are down to buying used equipment that puts the lives of our military personnel on the line. That is not good enough, just not good enough.
Then, of course, to add insult to injury, last year the former prime minister saw fit to use $100 million right out of the military budget to buy two new Challengers because, it was said, perhaps a little air pressure was lost on the jet the government had before and therefore it was unsafe, and the former prime minister needed $100 million just on a whim. Within one week the government made the decision to spend $100 million to buy two new planes for the prime minister, but there was nothing for the military.
My constituents are looking for more and they are looking for better and they are looking for vision and a commitment out of this government. We do not find that in the throne speech.
Then, of course, there is health care. Health care is prominent in the throne speech, rightly so, because health care is a major concern to Canadians. But the Prime Minister talks about his “plan” for health care. It is interesting to note that he had a plan before he met with the provincial premiers two or three weeks ago, a plan that was going to cost us something in the range of $13 billion or $14 billion, and within three or four days at the end of the conference suddenly that plan was a $30 billion plan, or even more than that. I cannot remember the specific number.
In the space of four days he changed his plan dramatically and completely and he also got into what he is now calling asymmetrical federalism, where it is one deal for the Quebec and another deal for the rest of the country. That was not in his plan on the Monday morning but it was in his plan on the Friday afternoon. Now, is this vision? Is this clear-sightedness that he knows where he wants to take this country when in the space of one week he can do a complete flip-flop?
Again, it is not good enough. We Canadians all say that we deserve the best health care and we are prepared to pay for the health care, but the Prime Minister has no plan and he has no vision. He does not know what he wants to do except when he is being pressured by someone else, that being the premiers or someone else in the country.
Then he talks about our aboriginals. Rightly so. They have been treated shamefully over many years and it is appropriate that we redress that. But we have always seemed to say that redress comes through the courts, so let us have it out; we will negotiate and if they do not like it then we will see them in court. The Auditor General points out that today the identified claims are somewhere in the region of $200 billion if they are settled in the way the claims are made today. Other Canadians are saying, “Two hundred billion dollars?” And the fight goes on.
There many things we do not know. For example, the previous Auditor General, Mr. Denis Desautels, pointed out a few years ago when he brought down a report that 40% of our aboriginal people do not finish elementary school; that is, not high school but elementary school. Let me ask members this: how do we expect people who do not finish elementary school to be a success in this complex world we live in? How do we expect them to go to university? How do we expect them to get a career? How do we expect them to even get a trade when they do not finish elementary school?
Surely there should be a commitment by the government to educate our aboriginals the same way as we have a commitment to educate the rest of Canadians. Why not? I do not know. But then I think back to Davis Inlet. Do we remember Davis Inlet where the kids were sniffing gasoline? They were shipped out to Poundmaker's Lodge in my constituency, just about a mile from my constituency office, to try to help them get over this addiction.
It was a major international scandal. The government said it was going to do something. It said it would spend $80 million fixing that problem. I think the total bill was around $120 million. But it did not fix the problem. They built a new town on the other side of the inlet and moved everyone, lock, stock and barrel. The Auditor General pointed out that this did absolutely nothing to address the cultural, social and pathological problems in that society. It just gave them new bricks and boards so they had new houses and it started all over again. The problem in Davis Inlet is as bad today as it was then.
The Speech from the Throne has no vision. There is nothing that gets me excited as a Canadian to say I should follow this government. It is a very disappointing turnout indeed.