Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam. What a mouthful. Maybe he should have gone first. It is a lot easier to say Wild Rose .
It is a pleasure to speak to the throne speech today, a throne speech, I might add, while listening to the words coming over the microphone and trying to absorb as much as I could through the droning that went on, I thought was a rerun from 1993, 1997, 2000 and a few in between. Over and over it was the same kind of throne speech with a couple of things that might have been new. I think maybe 5% of the throne speech was something I had not heard before but about 90% or 95% of it was all old stuff that has been hashed and rehashed.
In my riding, a big farming district, I encouraged people to pay close attention to the throne speech when it was read. I asked the members of my farming communities to listen carefully because, with the crisis in the cattle industry and in the lumber industry, which have had an effect on my riding, surely the government would be making some announcements that might be interesting to them and that they might want to hear. I am sorry to say that after the throne speech was all over I was reminded of an old commercial “Where's the beef?” There was nothing there, nothing whatsoever.
It was a nice election platform and, of course, doing what anybody who would be running for prime minister of this country would do, the throne speech announced that a gift of $2 billion will be given to the provinces for health care. That is something desperately needed, and what a great time to do it. There was a great deal of campaigning going on during the speech, and that is what it is, an election platform. It is not, in my opinion, a good delivery of the vision of the nation at all. It does not address any vision at all. It talks about the same old things.
I spent a good portion of my tour here as a member of Parliament going across the country. I think you, Mr. Speaker, would probably well remember the years I spent going from Indian reserve to Indian reserve, visiting several hundreds of them, visiting with the grassroots natives in their homes and their huts. The hospitality of these people was just phenomenal. Back in the early to mid-1990s, up to about 1998, we did all this. I listened to the throne speech about how desperately necessary it was to do something. I have to say that I was amazed, when I looked at the throne speech on page 9, that the government dared make a statement in the House of Commons in the year 2004 stating:
The conditions in far too many aboriginal communities can only be described as shameful.
Good grief, that is what we heard in the 1993 speech and in 1997. All kinds of reports have been delivered to the House about the horrible conditions on these reserves. Even the United Nations has declared in the past that although Canada was elected to be the best country in the world in which to live, if we factored in the Indian reserves we would be about 35th. Where is the dedication to dealing with the problems that were old 10 years ago when I first came? I am sure there are members here who can assure me that these problems existed before that.
When the government stands in this place to deliver a throne speech saying something to the effect that there are one million children living in poverty in this country, that homelessness is overwhelming and that it will see that it is fixed, which was said in 1993, and 14 years later there is not a million starving children living in poverty, there are a million and a half. Is that progress? That is really moving. That is really successful.
What a wonderful government. It made these announcements years ago of what was to be accomplished and here we sit today with things worse than ever. Good grief, I hope the Canadian people realize that when this government talks about being committed to a cause what we should do is just put a period after committed. The government should be committed. That is an absolute, dismal failure. It is only one example.
It was boldly stated in 1993 how proud we are of our military forces. And boy, we are: the men and women in this country should be applauded forever for their efforts. But my goodness, what the forces have had to put up with in terms of looking after their needs and what is necessary to maintain a good, strong military unit: it is another dismal failure.
I hope the Canadian people across this country realize what failures these guys are. I forgot, though, that the government did one thing. It balanced the books. That is good; we wanted to get rid of the deficit. Never mind the fact that the government increased taxes so darn many times and so much on the backs of taxpayers and cut transfer payments to all the provinces so severely. The government takes it off the backs of the provinces and from hard-working Canadians and then boldly stands in this place and says, “What a bunch of heroes we are”.
If Canadians cannot see all through that, I am really feeling sorry for this country. I really hope Canadians are paying attention to what is going on.
Let us talk a little more about children. If I have said it once in the past few years in the House of Commons, I have said it a hundred times: we have to start dealing seriously with issues that are affecting our children, particularly their safety.
My party has brought motions before the House, accepted by all members, saying that we should have a registry of sexual offenders and predators who prey upon our women and children across this country. What kind of registry did we get? Rifles and shotguns. This is a perfect example of going after law-abiding, hard-working Canadians and making sure they are doing their job. In 2004 we still do not have a national registry of these offenders who affect the security and the safety of our children. This is another dismal failure. Promises, promises: they do not mean a thing to the government.
I cannot tell members how disappointed I was to read page 8 of the throne speech when we in the House of Commons unanimously agreed that we should do everything to remove all defences for the possession of, manufacturing of and distribution of child pornography for exploiting our children. We all agreed on that.
What do we get? The government says it is once again committed to ensure the safety of children by bringing back and reinstating the child protection legislation. The government has not had any child protection legislation. What the government has done is make a commitment to this kind of thing, through unanimous support, including that of the government of the day, and it has failed to produce. What the government is going to do is rehash old legislation. The government is going to bring it back and we are going to go through all of that again.
With regard to child pornography issue in the Criminal Code, possession except for medical or educational purposes will not be allowed. I can buy that, but what happened? Over the time period of that case, it was decided in the courts that this little section must include the words “artistic merit”. We had quite a thrash over that, but then the courts put it in. It has become part of the Criminal Code. We wanted it out. The government brings in legislation and put in “public good”. The government is not getting the message. We want to abolish child pornography now and forever. We want it wiped off the face of the earth. We want to make every effort possible to do that.
Where is the commitment? Where are these people when the voice of the nation has spoken through their elected representatives and says that the people want legislation to abolish it?
I say, be committed for a change. I am committed to do my very best as long as I am in the House of Commons to wipe child pornography off the face of this earth. I am not going to allow nine unelected individuals sitting in a courtroom to determine whether we should or should not do that. I am going to allow the people of this country to have their voices heard. It is high time that the silent majority was heard in this land. It has been unheard for too many years and we are going to start bringing it back to life.