Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Laval.
I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to this subject matter.
I understand why the Liberals are lighting their hair on fire and getting upset about this issue because it really brings out the government's hypocrisy, which is what part of today's motion is about. The Conservatives criticized the Liberals for things they were doing when they were in office but the Conservatives are now doing the very same things.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien called the Challenger jet a “flying Taj Mahal”.
This is about whether we can trust the Conservative government. Questions are raised when a government does the exact opposite of what it said it would do before it took power.
There are a lot of important matters to talk about in this chamber and I will touch on some of them, such as where the resources could go. I am also going to talk about Conservative hypocrisy, about doing the opposite of what they said they would do.
I will be in the House 12 years this coming May. I have been here during a Liberal majority, a Liberal minority, a Conservative minority, and a Conservative majority. I have seen the back and forth that goes on. It reminds me of the days of Tommy Douglas, when he talked about Mouseland and the white cats and the black cats; the only two choices that people had.
The government goes back and forth on many different issues. What really burns the Liberals about this issue is that it brings out their hypocrisy as well.
I am going to read the motion brought forward by the member for Timmins—James Bay carefully:
That, in the opinion of the House, government planes, and in particular the plane used by the Prime Minister, should only be used for government purposes and should not be used to transport anyone other than those associated with such purposes or those required for the safety and security of the Prime Minister and his family.
It is interesting to note that in question period today, the Prime Minister said in response to a question by the Leader of the Opposition that he was lowering the cost by bringing his buddies along. That is condescending. The public knows it is pretty hard to get a $260 ticket on a plane that is fully catered, fully staffed, private, and provides special privileges. That is not real.
The former premier of Alberta recently resigned over costs to Alberta taxpayers. It must be in Conservatives' DNA. I do not know why the Conservatives are wired that way.
It is clear that this is an important issue to talk about because it is about trust. It is about the Conservative government being unaccountable to taxpayers.
Mark Kihn is one individual who is on the plane quite often. He goes back to the Prime Minister's roots. He was a party fundraiser and was also involved in the Prime Minister's election campaign. He raised millions of dollars for the Prime Minister. He is not an ordinary individual. If he can raise millions of dollars for the Prime Minister, then why can he not pay the equivalent of a first-class ticket on the Prime Minister's plane instead of paying the economy fare? It is also important to note that he and everybody else on that plane has the Prime Minister's ear. They could be VIPs, corporate and such. These individuals have access to privileged meetings with the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister once fought against this. Here is what he said:
My wife, Laureen, and I ran our own small businesses. We had to pay our own health care premiums. We had to purchase our own supplemental health care coverage, like most people in the country. We cannot afford to fly to clinics in the United States to get health care when things go wrong and we certainly cannot afford to get on Challenger jets to do it.
That was what the Prime Minister said in 2002. Interestingly enough, that was shortly after he came back into the House of Commons. There was a group of seven of us at that time in the May byelections 12 years ago, and he said that as the member representing the Canadian Alliance party. Members will remember the Canadian Alliance party. Well, they are here. They actually devoured the Conservative Party, essentially, and that is what we have right now. The Prime Minister, at that time, made that comment.
A couple of years after that, he also said the following:
We have seen the Prime Minister flying around the country on Challenger jets doing a few hours of government work, then spending the rest of the time campaigning and fundraising, often at exclusive cocktail parties where big Liberal donors pay $5,000 a ticket to discuss public business. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.The Liberal culture of entitlement goes on. The public must be given a chance to put an end to it.
That is what the Prime Minister said then.
I understand why the Liberals feel they have something stuck in their teeth on this. It is because their behaviour was called out at that time by the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister has lost his way. There is no doubt about it. He has lost his edge in terms of wanting to clean up Ottawa. Ottawa has clearly cleaned the Conservatives up. This is what has taken place, and we have seen that erosion take place over time. It is unfortunate. Whether it be democratic reform most recently or cuts, this money is consequential, and I want to touch on that briefly.
Let us look at what is taking place in my riding of Windsor West. The Conservatives have closed the veterans office. They recruited out of my riding very heavily. Two years ago, they closed the recruiting office. Just over a month ago, they closed the veterans office, with over 4,000 cases worked on by that office per year. People now have to go to London, Ontario, or have somebody come from London, Ontario—over a two-hour drive away—to see someone. How is it possible that there is no money to support our veterans?
Postal services are being cut. Get this. There is no money to sort the mail in Windsor any more and despite having the highest efficiency rate in the country, the mail is gathered up, driven to London Monday to Thursday, it is sorted, driven all the way back to Windsor on Highway 401, mixed in with just-in-time delivery trucks for the auto industry, the aerospace industry and other types of industries, and finally gets distributed around the community. That is all because there was not enough money to purchase a new sorting machine that would have increased efficiency. Businesses are getting their cheques later, people are getting their bills later, and now there is going to be a reduction of home delivery services as well. The consul general's office closed in Detroit. Service Canada, with one of the highest records of staff, two years ago received an award for efficiency. Do members know what the result was? It was that approximately 73 employees got pink slips in a high unemployment area.
When we talk about this issue, we talk about it in terms of what the Conservatives said they would do when they got to power versus what they are doing right now, and that is really about trust. It is why more and more Canadians do not trust the Prime Minister and the government anymore, because they have lost their way. The small things do matter. They matter in the House of Commons and they matter in life. Although some may say this is a small thing and brush it off, it is part of a pattern of behaviour that needs to end, and the New Democrats will do that.