Debates of Nov. 21st, 2005

Intergovernmental Affairs

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is no. The statement is unacceptable. In a democracy, a person cannot act outside the law. Indeed, the Bloc leader has remained strangely silent over the remarks by his new ally, who does not wish to obey the laws of democracy.

The Supreme Court said very clearly that a constitutional amendment is required in matters of secession and must be negotiated with clear and unequivocal support, and the Clarity Act is based on the decision of the Supreme Court.

I as a Quebecker cannot have my rights or my Canada taken away unlawfully.

Automobile Industry

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, back in November 2004, the Minister of Industry promised the following to a question I posed in the House of Commons:

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be putting together the final touches on an automotive industrial strategy for all of Canada.

That was November 2004, more than one year ago. Where is our national auto policy? We are losing jobs. Where is the minister's credibility? When will he table the policy in the House?

[David Emerson, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might ask himself why he and his party are so anxious to go to an election two weeks from the time when I told the hon. member that I was going to cabinet with an automotive strategy.

I will say that we have invested over $400 million in the automotive sector and levered over $5 billion of investment. Just this afternoon, DaimlerChrysler will be announcing another investment of over $800 million and the Government of Canada will be investing $46 million.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians will not put up with this political blackmail any more.

Back in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2004 the government promised a national auto strategy. It has not delivered and is playing politic with Canadian jobs.

Where is the minister's credibility? He has broken his promise in the House.

[David Emerson, Liberal, Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member might want to explain to Buzz Hargrove, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, why his party will take this Parliament to an election at a time when we are making major investments for the betterment of Canadian auto workers.

The hon. member and his party ought to explain that because they have a lot of explaining to do.

National Defence

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the Minister of National Defence will be seeking approval from cabinet for the acquisition of 16 transport aircraft.

He claims that this is a competition. However he has fixed the requirements so there is only one possible outcome.

By declaring the budget firm and the total number of aircraft is 16, the Boeing C-17 will be eliminated. By demanding the aircraft must be certified at contract award and not delivery, they have eliminated the EADS A400M from competition.

Why is this sole source contract for the Lockheed C130J aircraft being spun as a competition when it is not?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member prefaced his question by saying that I will be taking it to cabinet this afternoon.

When cabinet approves it, maybe the hon. member will then be in a position to either criticize it or comment on it. However, until it has been brought out by cabinet, I respectfully request the hon. member to wait and see what the proposal is.

I can assure the hon. member and members of the House that the proposal will be a performance based requirement and it will call for tenders that will allow ample competition in the bid.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Lanark, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that in the next two months nothing of substance will happen with respect to this project.

He also knows that a new Conservative government will move quickly to acquire airlift and yet he is rushing to get cabinet approval of this, hoping something will change the airlift situation dramatically. It will not.

The only practical reason that this project is being pushed before the election is that the military want the Liberal government's signature on a document so it cannot back out of the commitment.

The minister recently said that large procurement should be held off until after the election. What has changed? Are we seeing more Liberal electioneering?

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is right about something. The military of this country does want its government's signature on something that will enable it to get the equipment it needs to do its job.

I ask the hon. members opposite why they are standing in the way and trying to stop, for political reasons, our ability to deliver to our military what it needs to do its job for its country, not for politics.

Child Care

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the national Fund the Child Coalition is made up of an alliance of grassroots organizations that held rallies in 17 cities across Canada this weekend. The coalition represents the millions of families who feel excluded by the Liberal day care plan. They are concerned that this plan has been pushed through without a debate.

Today this coalition of women from across Canada is here in Ottawa and is challenging the minister to hold a nationally televised debate on child care. Will the minister agree?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite should know that in terms of benefits for stay at home parents, the Canadian child tax benefit and the spousal tax benefit, on average, mean more than $2,000 a year for stay at home parents. Parental leaves and maternity benefits are 50 weeks. For the average family this means more than $15,000. The cost to the government is over $2 billion a year, and that is only for stay at home parents.

As well as that, we want to do is support parents who want their children in good quality developmental child care.

[Rona Ambrose, Conservative, Edmonton—Spruce Grove, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will let the women know that he would be happy to debate them.

Women from the national Fund the Child Coalition are in Ottawa today to ask this government for choice in child care. These women receive no funding and are solely motivated by their belief in equality and choice. They say that the Liberal one size fits all day care plan discriminates against millions of Canadian families. They are asking for a progressive, flexible plan which sees funding go straight to the child.

When will the minister acknowledge the voices of women from across the country and offer them choice in child care?

[Ken Dryden, Liberal, Minister of Social Development]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder why the party opposite has chosen to pit one style of family life against another? The great majority of parents, even with young children, are both in the workplace, and that is a fact. Is the member suggesting that this great majority of parents who have their children in child care are wrong? Are they self-indulgent, are they selfish or are they just plain stupid?

Aboriginal Affairs

[Jim Prentice, Conservative, Calgary North Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has long spoken of a historic meeting in Kelowna. The department is saying it works in collaboration with the native peoples. What collaboration? The native peoples of Quebec do not even want to participate. Why? Because after the dozen years it took to prepare this meeting, the Liberal agenda remains unclear. What a surprise. The Liberal agenda is never clear.

How will the Prime Minister resolve the problems of Canadian native peoples without having all first nations at the table?

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians]

Mr. Speaker, no one should prejudge the outcome of a meeting. The meeting that will take place is an historic one. The Government of Canada has acknowledged that the living conditions on many reserves are unacceptable. That is why we have been working for two years with many organizations and the leadership to get to this historic conference this week. They will have the plans that will affect the lives of Canadians.

May I remind the members opposite, when Canadians look to a government, they look for a vision. The do not look for negative comments all the time.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, last Thursday the Minister responsible for Status of Women claimed that her government provided $12 million to a domestic violence prevention initiative run by the Native Women's Association of Canada. This is not true.

The only funding given to the Native Women's Association is $5 million spread over five years. Oddly enough, that funding did not start until last Thursday, over half a year after it was promised.

The minister's own department has confirmed in writing that no further funding has gone to the organization. There was no additional $7 million given from her department. Why did the minister say that there was?

[Liza Frulla, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister responsible for Status of Women]

Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member understood French, she would have understood that I said that $5 million has already been given to Sisters in Spirit. In addition, Status of Women Canada has a $7 million program to prevent violence against women. Some money from this program is used to address violence against women, including those in native communities.

There is therefore some $12 million for the entire violence prevention program. In addition, a federal-provincial conference is at risk because—

[The Speaker]

The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

Taxation

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in 2001, the government did something never before done in the history of Canada. Rather than repay what it owed school boards, in accordance with a ruling by the courts, it preferred to make a retroactive amendment to the Excise Tax Act.

If the Minister of Finance does not want education to suffer, why is he not repaying the school boards the full amount of their GST overpayments, instead of making retroactive changes to legislation in complete disregard for rulings by the courts and his own commitments?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the government assists education across the country in a variety of ways, some of it through the direct transfer system between levels of government and some through tax rebates. In the case of the elementary and secondary school system, a rebate is in place. It is not the full 100% that applies to municipalities, but it is at a very generous level. I believe the number is 68%.

[Yvan Loubier, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, here is another example: the government is full of noble statements about education, but it does not hesitate to tax books. A tax on books is a tax on literacy, as they say.

Will the Minister of Finance agree that, if education were truly important to him, he would abolish the GST on books, as Quebec did with the QST?

[Ralph Goodale, Liberal, Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, the government tries to maintain consumption taxes at the lowest possible level. That involves having a tax base that is fairly broad to ensure that the rate can be as low as it can be. On the other hand, there are exemptions and exceptions. Exceptions are made in the case of certain materials that are used with respect to education.

International Trade

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, today's global marketplace is evolving at a swift pace and presenting new and exciting opportunities. Other nations are seizing these opportunities. Canada needs to do the same and it needs to do it better than its competitors.

How does the government's emergence market strategy address the needs of the business community, in particular our small and medium size enterprises?

[Jim Peterson, Liberal, Minister of International Trade]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her interest in helping SMEs.

In the economic update the finance minister made an unprecedented investment in helping small and medium sized enterprises cope with this rapidly changing global economy. In particular, we are going to put a lot more trade commissioners on the ground to help our SMEs in markets such as India and China and we are going to partner upfront with small and medium sized enterprises to help them defer the added cost of going overseas. We are there with them.

Agriculture

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal culture of entitlement is alive and well as the government goes about treating public institutions as its own private assets. For six weeks, we have demanded that the government raise the Canadian Wheat Board initial prices for western farmers. The government will not give farmers their own money because it is too busy spreading it out to its friends.

Farmers have been paying for David Herle, the king of untendered contracts and the Prime Minister's campaign manager, to attend Canadian Wheat Board meetings. Farmers are going broke while the Prime Minister's friends belly up to the trough. Why is the Prime Minister making things so hard for farmers but so easy for his friends?