Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this private member's bill, Bill C-343.
It was only December 10 that we were all assembled here. Primarily the same players who are making speeches tonight were making speeches that night. After that whole process, the Prime Minister prorogued the House, and here we are back again to repeat where we left off.
I have to commiserate with the member when the parliamentary secretary says to be patient, that the government is going to deal with the issue, is going to bring in a bill that she will like, so maybe she should drop her bill and give the government leeway to bring in its own bill. The same result may happen again. The Prime Minister may prorogue the House or we may get into an election and the government will escape once again.
I am mindful of the social programs in Canada being somewhat behind those in other countries. For example, the national health care system in England, I believe, was brought in in 1949 right after the war when the economy was in bad shape. England had the foresight to bring in a national health care program. In Canada it was 1966.
France has a terrific health care program, social program. For those members who have not seen Michael Moore's movie Sicko, I think it is worth seeing. He profiles France's system, where people who have cancer are treated. This particular gentleman, after his recovery, was sent to the Riviera for three months to recover. In France, pregnant women have people who come in and do the laundry and cook meals. Members can see it is a totally different thought process, a different approach than we have in North America.
In France, the Scandinavian countries and England, the approach is more to try to stay healthy, and people get through their lives and are more productive if they are healthy in body and mind. The North American approach seems to be the opposite. It is basically the rat race, the little hamster on the wheel. We race our way to the end of our lives, perform our work and have as little government as possible.
Canada has the right wing, the neo-Reaganites I guess we would call them, trying to roll back the clock. I can just imagine if these people had a majority government. The country has been saved now twice from a Conservative majority, and I really am very happy about that. Hopefully we can save the country in the future from a Conservative majority. The Conservative agenda is to roll things back. We see it right now with the race to the bottom in corporate tax rates. There is no enemy out there, but I guess the Conservatives see one.
The United States has a corporate tax rate of 35%. What did the Conservative government do? It took the rate down to 15%. That is supposed to create jobs, but it has no proof that that is being done.
Just look at the parliamentary secretary's arguments. I read Hansard and I was here when he spoke back on December 10. He was talking about how this bill is going to cost $400 million and saying, whoa, that is scary and we cannot do this. First of all, how does he quantify that?
With all the crime bills the Conservative government is bringing in, the parliamentary secretary has said the crime rate will go down. If that is the case, then all the great crime bills it is going to bring in will reduce the crime rates in the country, so the cost for the bill should be even less. But no. He obviously has a different view of where the crime rates are going because while the proponent of the bill suggests that the cost will be around $50 million, he says it is $400 million. He has it eight times as high. What does he think, that the crime rate is going to go up eight times, that we have to incur costs because of this bill?
I would recommend to the government, and I would certainly recommend to the House, that we proceed with this bill to second reading, that we make any amendments that we need, that we proceed and pass this bill, and get it as far along the way as possible while the government is considering its options.
I must say to the government, while it is considering its options, it should look at England, France, and countries that have really developed social programs, when it is developing its program, it should try to come up with and bring in ideas that work.
We already know that corporate tax cuts do not necessarily produce results that the government thought it would. We know that mandatory minimums, that were tried 25 years ago by Ronald Reagan, have resulted in huge expansive private prisons in the United States, filled to the capacity with inmates. The crime rates have gone up. There are so many prisoners that the governor of California, who we just saw a couple of weeks ago at the governors conference, is letting people out. The state cannot afford to keep them anymore.
Can you not learn from the mistakes of others? Do you not know that if you develop the prison system the way California has and fill it up with people, you are going to bankrupt the country and you will not be able to keep the people in prison anyway, at the end of the day?