Debates of June 21st, 2005

An Act to Authorize the Minister of Finance to Make Certain Payments

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to question the member opposite on some of the statements he made during his speech. The member used the phrase that the NDP wanted to be players in Parliament. In the last election I thought the Canadian public made it clear that they wanted the minority government to work and that there would have to be cooperation.

What I recollect to have happened and transpired here was the Conservatives were not happy with the role of the leader of the opposition as the leader of the opposition. There were a couple of polls that showed their party ahead and that is when they yanked their support.

What the Conservatives were looking for was a new role. They were willing to sell out their corporate friends. How would he explain the role they played in selling out their friends just for the sake of having their leader become the prime minister?

[Gary Lunn, Conservative, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, let me say on the record that I am very proud of our leader, what he has done, what he represents and what he stands for. We have a leader with honesty and integrity and who is principled. Whenever there is legislation before the House, he expects all members of his caucus to do what is in the best interests of Canadians. That is what we will continue to do.

The polls will move up and down day by day. If the member wants to believe all the polls he reads, I welcome him to do that. The polls will go up and we will be ahead and his party will be behind. I have no doubt they will change 10 more times before the next election.

What is really important is what a party stands for and its record in this Parliament.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I consider myself very fortunate to be given an opportunity to speak to Bill C-48, a very important bill building on government priorities.

I have had an opportunity to listen to some of the comments made by members of the opposition. There has been a great deal of rhetoric and a lot of partisan comments have been made. We need to deal with some of the facts. How did we get to this particular point? How did we get to this point in the House of Commons where we can debate a budget bill that would allow the government to spend billions of dollars on social programs?

I think it is important to acknowledge the hard work of the government after it inherited billions of dollars worth of deficit in the early nineties. This government reduced the deficit. It then went above and beyond that and started to reduce the debt. We have saved about $66 billion or about $3 billion worth of interest payments and savings on an annual basis.

Above and beyond that, the government conducted a recent internal expenditure review which was in the 2005 budget. That is also the foundation of this budget bill. We saved $11 billion over a five year period on that as well. The government has saved billions of dollars which has enabled it to now make investments.

The backdrop of this particular debate has to do with the economy. The opposition talks about productivity and about having sound fiscal management in place. It talks about the importance of being accountable to taxpayers. Let us look at the economic story here and deal with some of the facts.

Canada led the G-7 nations in average annual growth in employment from 1997 and 2004 at 2.2%. The Canadian unemployment rate is currently at 6.8%. In the month of May, not too long ago, the government, through its policies and its initiatives, helped generate 35,000 new jobs for Canadians from coast to coast. That was a tremendous achievement.

The Canada-U.S. gap in terms of the unemployment rate was at five percentage points in 1996 when we inherited the deficit and the fiscal problem from the Conservative government and it is now down to 1.5%.

Canada's average productivity performance has improved significantly in recent years. Overall, from 1997 to 2004 the average business sector labour productivity growth was 2.1% per year, up from 1.2% from 1990 and 199696.

Those are some of the economic indicators as to where we are headed as a nation. Where do we come from and how did we get to this particular moment in time where we are in a sound financial position to make investments?

The opposition continuously asks us what government is all about, where we are headed and what we want to accomplish. We are a party that is socially very progressive, although I do not want to get into social issues, we also are financially very sound. We have the trust of the Canadian public. Which party reduced the deficit? It was our party. Which party helped reduce the debt? It was our party.

We are now in a position to invest in key initiatives. We took it upon ourselves to work with the NDP and come up with a deal to further enhance areas of common interest. It was not a new budget. It did not come out of the blue. It was based on common ground. This new deal focused on areas where both parties could work together to make sound investments. It amounted to a $4.5 billion investment four key areas: affordable housing, post-secondary education, the environment and foreign aid.

I just do not understand what the opposition members are concerned about. Are they concerned about affordable housing? People in Mississauga--Brampton South and in other parts of the country need affordable housing.

Are they concerned about post-secondary education? Not too long ago I did my under-grad at York University and my MB at the University of Windsor. I recall the increasing tuition fees so I know firsthand that we have an obligation to students.

Are the opposition members concerned about the environment? We have heard about the smog in Toronto and other parts of the country. The environment is an important issue so I do not see what the problem is from the opposition side.

Is the opposition concerned about foreign aid? Even today the opposition talked about the 0.7% for foreign aid. The only way we can get there is by investing so we invested in those areas.

What does $4.5 billion amount to? Those members make it seem like we are out of control and our expenses are out of control but that is not the case. The $4.6 billion will come out of the anticipated surpluses. How do we generate those surpluses? Some economists think we are too conservative. They believe that in our approach we are too cautious in that we do not want deficits. They are exactly right, of course we do not want deficits.

We were the government that came into power and eliminated deficits. Therefore it is based on our methodology and on the way we calculate our budgets that we come up with these surpluses.

By the way, the $4.6 billion amounts to approximately 1% of our base budget over a two year period because we spend approximately $200 billion on an annual basis. I cannot understand why the opposition would lose sleep over 1%.

On top of that, we have made a commitment to further reduce the debt by $4 billion over a two year period.

As I have said before, in the four areas in which we will be investing money, $1.6 billion of the $4.6 billion amount will go toward affordable housing. It will definitely help a lot of low income families in my riding who are having difficulties. My colleagues in the past have talked about some of the initiatives that we are taking. This is a sound investment above and beyond what the government has committed in the budget already.

It will also be investing in post-secondary education. Not in my riding per se but in a riding nearby is the Erindale campus for the University of Toronto where I meet many of the students. Some of them even help me out during my campaign. It is just ridiculous the amount of debt they have after they complete their studies at post-secondary institutions, especially the students attending the University of Toronto. For them this bill will be a huge relief.

We talk about the fact that youth are not engaged in politics. This is an issue that speaks to youth concerns. This is a concern that they have and the fact that we are making a sound investment speaks to the fact that we are listening to them.

Then there is the environment. We are spending about $900 million in that area and the focus is on public transit. I know in the riding of Mississauga—Brampton South that is very important. The fact is that the region is growing at a very fast pace. When we look at it on an annual basis, we have 240,000 immigrants that come to this country and close to 100,000 choose to call Toronto, or the GTA, their home. Naturally that has caused the growth in that area. We need to make sound investments in transit so people have a viable alternative as opposed to driving their car and that definitely has an impact on our environment.

I recall a couple of weeks ago a few constituents came to my office. They said that they had come from countries abroad and they were talking specifically about India. They were astonished about the fact that we care about the environment, that we invest money in the environment, that it is a priority of ours and it speaks to the kind of country we have built. They were very proud of that fact because of where they came from. They came from a large urban centre. One person was describing a particular instance of going out wearing a white T-shirt. He said that after a couple of hours he came back and his T-shirt was dark black. That is the kind of environmental concerns they have in other countries.

Therefore the environment should be a priority and I am glad we are spending $900 million in that area as well.

The fourth plank in this agreement that we had with the NDP is foreign aid. We will be investing $500 million in foreign aid.

As I have said before, the government has a responsibility and a role to play not only in domestic affairs but a role to play abroad as well. We have an obligation to those countries that need our assistance and to those people who rely on us for assistance.

I think $500 million in foreign aid is a sound investment. It is something that speaks to again the type of country we are. We are the country that our former prime minister, Mr. Pearson, helped to build and develop our role in the world. That tradition has continued for many years and is resonating with our current Prime Minister as well. He has had the ability to travel abroad.

I have had the privilege of travelling abroad as well with the Prime Minister to Southeast Asia during the tsunami disaster and the fact that it devastated the lives of so many people. Many people lost their homes, many were displaced and many needed aid and assistance.

Because we are a privileged country and a country that is in a sound fiscal management position where we have millions if not billions of dollars in surplus, we have a responsibility. Again, this speaks to the Prime Minister's commitment.

Today we are here debating not about the budget but we are debating the kind of country we want to build. An additional $4.6 billion investment into the economy and into social infrastructure is very important.

Through this budget, the government will be investing in key areas and those key areas have been further enhanced by our coalition with the NDP to get the budget through. It was not a sign of desperation. It was a sign of our philosophy and our commitment to the Canadian people.

We are part of a minority Parliament because people wanted us to work with opposition members. They wanted us to work with other parties so we made a deal with the NDP. Where did we make it? We made a deal on education. I do not see what is wrong with that. We made a deal on the environment and we strengthened our role in the world. I am very proud of that and I stand by the budget.

I again want to commend the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance for their hard work in putting together this budget.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on his presentation today.

I found one aspect of his speech especially interesting. It was when he said that the people of Canada had chosen a minority government, that is, a government that turned out to be a minority because of its representation here in this House. Of course, the public does not choose the government directly, but elects a number of members of each party, which then determines the distribution of the members in the House.

That said, my colleague and I will agree that the public decided this Parliament should function. The ballot was not marked, “We do not want this Parliament to function”. So the public gave all parliamentarians, collectively, the mandate to get Parliament to work.

In his presentation, my colleague has just pointed out that an integral part of the mandate is to negotiate with the other political parties in this House to ensure good governance of the country. Does he not agree with me that Bill C-48 is in a way evidence of this desire to have Parliament work and in the best interests of Canadians?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member highlights a very key issue about the notion of how a minority Parliament is supposed to work. It is very straightforward. We do not have the majority of seats in the House so we have an obligation to work with other parties. Are we going to work with the separatists? Probably not, because they want to destroy this country.

We tried to work with the Conservatives but they just do not see how our social agenda works in making investments in these key areas. One moment they are supporting us and the next moment they abstain. Somehow their legs give out and they do not support us. A few weeks later they come to the realization that the budget is a good one and they are in trouble now because we have further strengthened the budget with our NDP friends and all of a sudden they are getting nervous again and they flip-flop. They support Bill C-43 but have an issue with Bill C-48.

I think the Conservatives deserve the term flip-flop but we have clearly demonstrated our ability to work with other parties in ensuring we strengthen the social foundation in this country and to ensuring we make sound investments in certain key areas, the areas I spoke to in my presentation, such as affordable housing. I do not see how they can have any problems with that.

Another area is post-secondary education. If I recall, some member said that their children were currently students. I know they make reasonable amounts of money as members of Parliament, but that is still a sound investment in post-secondary education. We are also investing in the environment and in foreign aid.

Those are all key area in which we have made investments and I am proud that we worked with the NDP. I hope the budget will go through but we are not flip-flopping. It is unfortunate that the Conservatives are not supporting the budget.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I quite liked the hon. member's speech. I thought it was significant that he addressed issues the NDP has been working on since it arrived in this Parliament. We have worked on getting more resources for housing. We know there is a growing number of poor families, poor children, and homeless people in Canada. Investments needed to be made in this area.

There is also a crisis in post-secondary education, college and university training and education. In Quebec and throughout Canada, there is a crisis. This Parliament absolutely must begin addressing these issues.

The environment is another key factor. We know that, unfortunately, greenhouse gas emissions have increased in this country. They were supposed to decrease by 20%, but instead they have increased by 20% over the past five years.

All these investments that the NDP has worked on incorporating in this budget through Bill C-48 are very important. I know that the hon. member is also aware of the fact that throughout Quebec, more and more organizations that work on behalf of the poor or disabled, organizations such as FRAPRU, which takes care of housing, are calling on all members from every political party in this House to support the budget, or Bill C-48.

As the hon. member mentioned, the Conservative Party and, unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois are opposed. How do they explain this opposition, especially in the Bloc, when so many Quebeckers truly want this bill to be passed?

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member clearly demonstrates his desire to focus on a few key areas, but I would like to remind him that there are always competing priorities with limited resources. The government, the Liberal Party under the leadership of the Prime Minister and the finance minister have clearly shown the ability to balance all these priorities.

Everything cannot be a crisis. Everything cannot be important. The member must recognize and appreciate the fact that the commitments we have talked about with respect to this particular budget, Bill C-48, and building on government priorities of affordable housing, post-secondary education, the environment and foreign aid, were all important components in our base budget. Many people understand that and that is why the Conservative Party supported us initially. I do not know what it will be doing tomorrow or the day after that.

These are areas of common concern. We must be mindful of the fact that we need to balance the budget. We must be mindful of the fact that we cannot continue to spend money at a pace which will put us in a financial situation where we will bring about a deficit.

Again, it is about competing priorities. It is about the fact that not everything is considered a crisis, but about making sound investments in key common areas.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to add my dialogue to this debate at report stage of Bill C-48 on behalf of the people of Yellowhead.

I would like to begin where my hon. colleague finished and ask a question. How did we get into this mess? How did we actually get to position where we are deciding and trying to discern what to do with this piece of legislation?

I see it a little differently than my colleague. He said that it is all about a minority government and that the Canadian people want a minority government to work. To that point, I would agree.

If that was a fact and the government wanted to work together collaboratively with the parties to bring forward legislation in the best interests of Canadians, it would have added that negotiating power and negotiations would have happened in Bill C-43, not Bill C-48. A plan could have been set out along with the criteria around that plan and how it would be delivered.

It would not have happened in a Toronto hotel room as a desperation move by a government that will go down in history as the most corrupt government to serve the Canadian public. It would not have been done with the input of the labour movement.

It would have had some of the accountability measures that we need to have in place with all legislation, particularly in light of what has happened with the government with regard to the lack of accountability and the lack of planning that we have seen. If we are to be honest in this place when we come here to debate, we should do it with the knowledge and the full understanding of what actually happened.

The NDP members decided that they were going to sell themselves with regard to their votes and prop up this corrupt government. They said “What can we get for that? Let's go into the hotel room and see what we can get. Let's name our price”.

Let us take a look at that price and take a look at what they actually got. Once the NDP members were prepared to sell themselves, in the sense of giving a vote to prop the government up when things looked very desperate, they said “Let's set our priorities”.

I know what happened with the priorities in my riding. We have gone through significant difficulty in rural Alberta with regard to the BSE crisis. Before that we had two years of drought and grasshopper problems, and Atlantic Canada and central Canada had to help to contribute to some of the causes with the hay aid program.

It was a devastating situation for agriculture. Agriculture has never been in the situation that it is right now. We have a government that has failed farmers time and time again. In fact, the farmers of my riding are so desperate that they are really not sure what to do. Many are at the stage where they are losing everything.

When a farmer loses everything, it is not just that he loses his job, but he loses his whole life and in many cases the family history. Many of these farms are generational farms. It is a devastating situation.

What is the NDP priority? There is not a word for agriculture. There is not a bit of help for agriculture. It is not only western Canadians involved with agriculture in Alberta. Agriculture from coast to coast in this country is facing the same situation and the same difficulties.

After deciding to do what was in the best interests of Canadians, surely the NDP would have this as a part of its priority. It was not so. We have seen that it cooked up this little deal with 400 words on a sheet of paper and brought it forward saying that it would bring in this new piece of legislation, Bill C-48. It has no criteria on how it will be spent. It has no accountability and no plan. I suggest also that its priorities are not necessarily in the best interests of Canadians.

If it was about a government that wanted to do what was in the best interests of Canadians, this budget would have been negotiated in Bill C-43. We have to be honest here. The honest part of Bill C-48 is that is not what happened.

How much money was actually spent in this House in the last two months for the benefit of Canadians? If we look at it from that perspective, we can see that the price tag on this was $4.5 billion. However, we have to accumulate that on top of all the announcements that the government made to buy votes, not only the NDP votes which cost $4.5 billion. We must add to that another $22 billion. A total of $26 billion of Canadian money has been spent to illegitimately prop up the government. That is the reality of the situation we are in.

However, it did not stop there because that was not quite enough. The Liberals needed the 19 votes from the NDP to stay in power. However, that still was not good enough. They had to buy some opposition members. We saw that happen, as well, in this House.

It is the most disgraceful thing because it is not about the money and it is not about where the money went. It is about respecting the role of a parliamentarian in this House and respecting the very democracy that we try to protect for the benefit of all the people back home in each of our ridings.

I have become as cynical as some of the people back home when I talk to them about politicians because it reflects badly not only on the Liberal Party and the NDP but on every one of us in this House. I almost feel like we have to go home on weekends and shower multiple times just to get some of the sleaze off from what we see happening in this House because it is not in the best interests of Canadians. It is not in the best interest of this House or democracy, or this great nation, one of the greatest nations in this world.

What can we do? We should be concerned about the content of the actual piece of legislation, Bill C-48, because of what we have seen the government do with regard to other knee-jerk reactive measures and programs. If we want to know what individuals are going to do, look at what they have done and that will tell us where they are going.

If we look at the Davis Inlet project, the government's knee-jerk reaction was to relocate the Inuit natives at a cost of $400,000 per individual. That did not solve the problem. HRDC was another scandal. The gun registry that was promised at a cost of $2 million and that has ended up costing $2 billion is an absolute disaster. That is continuing on a daily basis and a yearly basis. I think last year it cost 125 million more dollars.

Then we look at ad scam, the mother of all scandals, trying to buy off Quebeckers. No wonder Quebeckers are so slighted by what is happening because they take it as a personal slight. The government cheapened Quebeckers by the way it handled the ad scam.

Not only did the Liberals try to buy Quebeckers, in the last two months they tried to buy Canadians and then opposition members. It is an absolute abomination to this House and everything that is good about this place and good about Canada.

That is why the opposition is so upset with this piece of legislation. The piece of legislation is coming forward with no plan and no accountability measures. It will just go down as a $4.6 billion ad scam or a $4.6 billion gun registry because of what will actually happen.

If we want to know what will happen with this money, just look at what the government has done with past projects and that will tell us exactly where it is going. It is unfortunate that we see this sort of thing happen in this House because it is a terrible situation for Canadians.

How are we going to fix that? At report stage, we have an opportunity, after coming out of committee, to put forward some amendments in order to put some sanity around the ridiculous situation that we have seen in this House over the last couple of months.

We put forward a plan. We must repay the debt load that governments in the past have built up. We have to look at how we deal with that. We put forward an amendment for that one. We put forward an amendment to put a plan around this money so that we do not allow it to turn into another scandal. We want to put some accountability in there as well.

We moved three amendments that would address all three of those things and we hoped that the government would accept those as we moved forward in the debate at report stage, so that we could actually see some good come out of it.

I believe that Canada is the greatest nation in the world and I believe most people in this House and most people in this country do as well. However, it has not achieved what it should have achieved. The reason it has not is that we have a government that has not really taken the opportunity to develop, what I like to call, the Canadian dream. This cooked-up deal will take 3,000 plus dollars out of the pockets of every family in this country.

That is exactly what has happened. That is money that could have been used to raise the standard of living, money that could have been used to help every Canadian achieve their Canadian dream and be the envy of the world. I would challenge anyone to say what population of 32 million people has the amount of resources that Canadians have.

We should be the envy of the world. We should have the highest standard of living in the world, which we do not, even though we have the best of everything. The government should be leading this nation instead of being an abomination on some of the issues where it is not doing the job.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

That has raised a bit of a note with the Liberals, I see. I believe that is appropriate, because they should be feeling shameful about the way they have treated this country.

They should have used that money for better jobs and post-secondary education. It should be used to help people start families, buy a house or save for retirement. It was $3,200 plus per year that came right out of the pockets of the families of this country. It is absolutely an abomination. It should stop. It is not about the money as much as it is the corruption. I have had enough of it.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened quite attentively to what the hon. member had to say about the bill. He said that the priority in the negotiations between the government and the New Democratic Party, as he referred to it, was buying, or selling in the case of the New Democrats, their support. Under that rationale, presumably, since he agreed with Bill C-43, he was similarly selling his support because he was supporting something that he himself agreed with.

Perhaps he could explain to us why it is that something is immoral in his view when it involves two other parties supporting each other but the rationale is different if he himself is one of the parties involved. Perhaps he could explain to us how that particular construct works in his own mind, because this has some of us a little bewildered.

Second, the hon. member talked about the amendments that he and his party wanted to make to the bill. I am looking at some of the amendments. I would be very curious to hear him indicate to us how he feels that passing these amendments, which he said were with the view of improving the bill, would in fact make it better.

The third proposition I have to raise with him is this. He said that the priorities of the government, a government that he says has sold out to the NDP or however he put it, are wrong because that money is for the NDP.

As far as I know, when I look at the list of items here, (a), (b), (c) and (d), I do not think the NDP is going to get a cent of the extra $900 million for the environment. There is money for supporting training programs, post-secondary education, aboriginal Canadians and so on, at $1.5 billion. I do not think NDP members are studying now; they are doing their work in the House. On the issue of $1.6 billion for affordable housing, does he not think these are Canadian citizens receiving these benefits?

Finally, on the issue of foreign aid, this is not an amount to be given outright. It is to be assigned to the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA. At one time I was the minister responsible for CIDA. It is to be assigned to CIDA to administer and increase the programs by which non-governmental organizations and others do good work on behalf of the people of Canada.

Worldwide, CIDA is one of the most respected international development organizations that exists. It has an excellent reputation. I have travelled around the world leading that group and I know its reputation. Does the hon. member not think that CIDA, which already administers over $3 billion a year, cannot administer the funds in this budget bill?

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's questions give me an opportunity to actually help him a little. I know that he has been here for some considerable amount of time, but perhaps he has missed some of what actually takes place in this place.

I have only been here since 2000, so I see things from a fresh perspective. Let us look at what happened with this piece of legislation compared to what happened with Bill C-43, which went through all the stages of the process. The committee members travelled and we dialogued with Canadians from coast to coast on Bill C-43 to see if it would address the situation of where to spend the money in this next year. Budgets are very important because they lay that out for Canadians.

This bill, Bill C-48, did not go through that process. It went through an amazing process: a hotel room with three individuals, four hundred words, no accountability, no planning and no deciding on how the money should be spent or what priorities should be set.

That is why this is an abomination. Because it did not go through the proper process, what it did was make a mockery of the budgets of this country. It also made a mockery of this place, because it was about buying votes. It was not about the Canadian people. As for anyone who gets up on the other side and says this is about the Canadian people, I will tell them that it is not. The money was spent there, but it was not for them. It was actually for buying favour to be able to keep a government illegitimately in power. That absolutely has to stop. It has to be addressed.

Who is going to address it? There is only one group that is powerful enough to address it. That is the Canadian public. Members of the Canadian public see what is going on. They understand exactly what went on here and they will address it at an appropriate time. In the next election, I look forward to explaining that to the people of Canada. The people of Canada are not fooled by this sort of thing. They will address it. I very much look forward to that.

The hon. member talked about some of the amendments. Our amendments were made to try to add some sanity to what went on in that hotel room. First of all, one amendment was about paying off the debt. That was in clause one. Clause two was to put a plan together to make sure that money was not wasted or misspent. Clause three was to add some accountability to what was going on with this piece of legislation and the dollars being spent.

That is the answer for my hon. colleague. I am absolutely appalled that he would ask such a question, because he has been around this place long enough that he should have known those exact facts.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak to Bill C-48 this evening. I have been reflecting on what impressions the Canadian people would have through what they are seeing with respect to this debate, particularly the last interchange and the comments made by the last speaker.

Something should be obvious in regard to the rhetoric that has been used in characterizing the government as corrupt and its record with respect to past budgets as abominable. To all of those informed individuals who are taking stock with respect to the impact on the Canadian public, they should be very honest in terms of recognizing that the members of the Canadian public have said two things.

First, they have said clearly that they want this government to establish clear priorities. Second, they want those priorities articulated through the budget and they want the budget dealt with. They will judge the government on the basis of that record of service through the budget to the Canadian public.

As for the polls, we do not do things solely by polls, but they are one of those instruments used to judge how people feel about what we are doing. It is clear from the polls that people want us to get back to basics with respect to reinforcing the institutions that Canadians have depended on, in particular through social programs and programs aimed at improving the environment.

Let us detach ourselves for a moment and talk to the Canadian people about what their priorities are, but not in terms of a continuous finger-pointing exercise with respect to corruption and so on. If we do this, the Canadian people in their collective wisdom will at some particular time take our record of accomplishment and our defence of those areas where we want to do better and we will be judged in totality.

I think that the fear on the opposition side, if I may say so, is the fear that we in fact will be relating better to the Canadian people than the opposition members will be. That will be based on how clearly we have articulated the needs of the Canadian people.

I find it very difficult to accept that these are not the issues the Canadian people want us to talk about when we talk about affordable housing and the impact of affordable housing as it relates to the homeless issues in the great urban communities across this country, or when we talk about post-secondary education and we have young people coming through here and reminding us. We had a lobby day, with the university students' association reminding us about the ever escalating debt that students are having to amass. When we talk about the concerns of post-secondary students, we are talking about the concerns of their parents in terms of being able to manage the aspirations and hopes that those people have.

Is that not getting back to the basics of what Canadians want to hear us talking to them about?

When we talk about the environment, look at Bill C-48 and see the extra $800 million that has been put into it, as that is relating to the ability of cities to manage their transportation and planning agenda in a more sustainable way, is that not what the Canadian people want to see us addressing through every particular instrument that we can mobilize and deliver upon to match the aspirations of those many hundreds of communities? Those are the issues that Canadians want to see us address.

This not just sleight of hand using a political manipulation. This is talking to the Canadian people. I think the opposition is afraid that we are starting to talk the right language to and the same language as Canadians.

Business of the House

[Karen Redman, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, discussions have taken place among all parties and I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, at the conclusion of oral questions on Thursday, June 23, 2005, the House shall hear a brief statement by a representative of each party to mark the 20th anniversary of the Air-India tragedy.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to)

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed a bill, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.

It being 5:32 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private members' business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from May 30 consideration of the motion.

Symbol for the House of Commons

[Bev Oda, Conservative, Clarington—Scugog—Uxbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 228 put forward by a member of the Liberal government. The motion suggests that Canada develop and promote a new national symbol, under the guise of warranting a symbol for the House of Commons. I question why Canada needs a new national symbol.

Let us look at our existing symbols. I reviewed the symbols that Canada has, symbols around which Canadians can visualize their pride in their nation, symbols that draw Canadians across the country together, symbols that represent their sense of nationhood, common values and aspirations, not only domestically but internationally.

We all recall how our pride swells individually and collectively when we see the Canadian flag being marched into a stadium at the opening ceremonies of every Olympic Games, or when we see the maple leaf flag being raised behind our medallists on the podium.

People in my riding, as do many Canadians across the country, come to my riding office asking for Canadian made Canada flag pins to take with them when they travel abroad. These pins are sought after by citizens of many other countries as they represent a country that is admired around the world.

What value does our most important symbol, our flag, have to Canadians here in our cities, towns and provinces? For most, the flag is respected and proudly displayed, but this past weekend I was shocked to read an article in the Montreal Gazette, its headline being “Maplephobia a symptom of Gomeryitis”. The article states:

Pity the poor Maple Leaf, the latest victim of the Gomery scandal.

Our flag's image has been so tainted by the sponsorship fiasco no one wants to be caught waving it at our city's Canada Day parade. Last Thursday, a front-page Gazette story said organizers are struggling to find anyone to sponsor floats with Canadian flags, because corporations are “spooked” by the sponsorship scandal.

Our once-proud national symbol now conjures up cash-filled envelopes. In the words of one parade organizer: “Companies are reluctant to sponsor a Canada Day parade float if it means being associated with a Maple Leaf”.

Is it not ironic that a member of the same party that caused such disdain and reluctance to associate with our flag would now propose a new national symbol? The Liberal Party and its way of using taxpayers' dollars to bolster its own coffers and those of a favoured few is the root cause of this shameful situation.

Let me remind all of us that the sponsorship scandal came out of that party's government establishing a program to promote Canada and citizenship in the province of Quebec. To achieve that, we have heard through the Gomery inquiry that the government undertook its mission to promote Canada by imprinting Canada's symbol on everything, including golf balls.

We do not and cannot support substituting a new national symbol when our national flag itself is being shunned.

Before the opposition would consider a new national symbol, we believe that the government has a responsibility to accept this sorry state of affairs. The only way to rehabilitate Canada's flag in this country, particularly in Quebec, is to rehabilitate the government.

Before we need a new symbol to represent the House, we need to rehabilitate how the House works. We need to restore it on a foundation of integrity and accountability. We have to demonstrate that the House is about working on behalf of all Canadians and not just vote buying to stay in power.

If we do not restore a good honest government into the House, then we will have to adopt a symbol none of us would be proud of. In fact, the media has put forward its own suggestion in the form of farm animals feeding at a trough. This is not what Canadians want nor deserve.

The member's motion proposes a new national symbol to reflect the role, heritage and authority of the House. We have seen how the government implements its role, the heritage it will leave in our history and the authority it exercises. We can only imagine what symbols might be used to represent corruption and deception, the biggest scandal in Canadian political history and using its authority to spend billions of taxpayers' dollars at a rate of $1 billion a day to buy votes. This is not a legacy we would choose to symbolically adopt.

Moreover, the motion asks for the protection and promulgation of a new national symbol. We have seen how the government uses Canadian symbols to spend tax dollars and how our tax dollars are not only wasted but misused in such activities.

For this and the fundamental reason that we see our first responsibility is to maintain and rejuvenate all Canadians' pride in this country, its institutions and its flag, before adopting any new symbols we must once again restore the pride of all Canadians in this House, this country and our national flag, so that every float in every parade across Canada proudly carries a national symbol, our Canadian flag, on Canada Day.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wish I could congratulate the member opposite on her speech, but if I did, I would be lying.

Just before Canada Day, she is claiming that the image of my country's flag has been tainted. I do not accept this.

Many members of the House have questions about the administration of a program. However, that does not give us the right to claim that our institutions and, even less, our country's flag have been soiled. If some outside the House say that, then it is the duty of everyone in here to debunk that myth and to ensure that our country's symbols remain dear to us all.

Mr. Speaker, I know personally one of the two people who are the authors of that flag beside you. I am thinking here of Colonel Matheson who is the cousin of our Speaker. He lives in Kingston and might be watching these proceedings.

On Canada Day of the millennium year, His Honour Colonel Matheson, who was a judge after he ceased being an MP, was in my constituency at the opening of the Glengarry Highland Games. I had arranged with our Sergeant-at-Arms to give him the flag that had flown on the Peace Tower on Canada Day of the year 2000. The symbol to me was that John Matheson had given Canada its flag and on Canada Day of the millennium year, the least we could do was to give him back a little bit of what he had given us. That is the way I see this symbol of our country.

I do not think it is appropriate at all for us to put this in the debate that we are having today. I want to get back to the debate that we are having, although I am somewhat angry at the tone that was taken on the previous issue. I say that I support the hon. member for Scarborough--Rouge River in what he is attempting to do.

I do not think that Canada has a surplus of symbols. I am one of those who believe strongly in our heritage. I have a degree in history, which I earned by the way when I was sitting here in the House studying as an MP and for the last number of years as a cabinet minister. I believe very much in these symbols that form part of us.

The United Kingdom House of Commons has its very distinctive symbol. It is the gate with which we are familiar and which we find on all the material from the House of Commons.

The debate generated by our colleague from Scarborough--Rouge River is to ensure that the House of Commons of Canada has something similar. How it will manifest itself, we are already wearing a symbol. The hon. member across who gave the speech and I are wearing the mace and the maple leaf. It is part of the dress code around here that members are provided with the security badge which we all wear in the form of a decorative pin. I could see that as the basis of a symbol that we would want.

I have a copy of the McGrath committee report made by James McGrath, a Conservative MP who chaired one of the first committees on the reform of the House 20 years ago. Most of the recommendations were adopted, although the Mulroney government did not adopt all of them at the time, as we will recall.

On the cover of the McGrath committee report is an enlarged reproduction of the badge that we are wearing as MPs. I consult that report frequently. There is one in my desk, which of course I cannot pull out because we cannot use props in the House of Commons. It still remains that those kinds of designs are important symbols for all of us.

I wonder if any of our colleagues have read the book written by John Matheson about the history of our flag and the struggle to put together this very important symbol of our country. He speaks about how all members of Parliament had to take it seriously at the time because it deserved no less. He speaks about how he and others struggled to get the bill and the design of the flag approved, the one that is today recognized across the world. It is the symbol of the great country in which we live.

That was a wonderful thing for us. Prior to our Canadian flag, three or four designs had been previously used to identify Canadians. We all know where the maple on our Canadian flag comes from just as the maple leaf on our lapel pin. It comes from the symbol that was on the tombs of the soldiers in France and elsewhere after World War I. I visited many of these sites. I saw the maple leaf. That is largely where the idea came from for Colonel Matheson to produce the Canadian flag. It is that kind of inspiration and outlook that we should have when we design a symbol for the House of Commons to make this institution even greater rather than to belittle it in the way that I heard in the previous speech.

I had not even intended to speak on this issue. I am obviously not doing so with prepared notes. By the time we adopt this and get it done, I will not be here as an MP. As all my colleagues know, I am retiring. However, I still think it should be done. I still think it is a wise idea to prepare and institute these symbols that form part of our nation, whether it is the American eagle, the Canadian peace tower, the three colours of the flag of France or other symbols like that, countries are identified by symbols. Groups are identified by symbols. Various associations have their own flags.

Two years ago, the Ontario legislature adopted the Franco-Ontarian flag, thanks to an initiative by my provincial colleague. This flag will be raised at the legislature on June 24, a few days from now; it is a symbol.

The member for Scarborough—Rouge River is suggesting we adopt a similar symbol, as others have done, for this beautiful and great institution in which we have the honour and privilege to sit. I support him. I hope that, one day, he will be successful. I know that this is a long-term project. We can laugh all we want about the desire to adopt a new symbol but, ultimately, when it comes down to it, people will love it. It will not be happen overnight. Everyone has very fixed ideas about this. That is why it will take time.

I congratulate the member for Scarborough—Rouge River and everyone else who intends to vote in favour of this motion. I hope that the symbol he wants us to adopt will be adopted and that, one day, people will think it was a really great idea to give the House of Commons this distinctive symbol, which will forever be associated with this great institution in which we are called to serve on behalf of Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Marcel Proulx)]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.