House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2006, with 45% of the vote.
Interest Rates February 21st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I hope I can get a "yes" to my third question.
While tackling the deficit by significantly reducing expenditures, does the Minister of Finance intend proposing to the Bank of Canada that it adopt a monetary policy that is less restrictive, less focused on the fight against inflation and more concerned with economic development and job creation?
Interest Rates February 21st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, I note that the Minister of Finance favours a yes.
Interest Rates February 21st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, will the Minister of Finance acknowledge that the pressure from the financial community is a signal that he should tackle the deficit problem by making massive cuts in government spending, which has to be the preferred approach, rather than raise the taxes of the middle class, as he himself proposed, which would considerably delay an economic upturn?
Interest Rates February 21st, 1995
Mr. Speaker, with Moody's now monitoring the credit rating of the Canadian government, interest rates have moved upwards. Today, the Bank of Canada has just increased the bank rate from 8.07 per cent to 8.38 per cent.
Does the Minister of Finance acknowledge that this pressure from the financial community, which caused interest rates to rise last week, is growing and, with the approach of his upcoming budget, is he prepared to cut the operating costs of the federal system, including in the area of overlap and duplication, before interest rates rise significantly?
Canadian Security Intelligence Service February 20th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, you must admit it does not take much to satisfy the Solicitor General.
Would the Solicitor General agree that the only way to get to the bottom of these allegations concerning Mr. Bristow, a CSIS agent, and his activities within the racist Heritage Front organization is to set up a genuine commission of inquiry to find out what is going on there, since obviously the Security Intelligence Review Committee is not well informed and its investigation techniques are not up to scratch?
Canadian Security Intelligence Service February 20th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, a video exists that was brought to the attention of quite a few people, and it shows that Mr. Bristow was, at the time, making speeches to promote violence and the commission of unlawful acts.
How does the Solicitor General expect the public to trust the Security Intelligence Review Committee when this is the second time the committee's findings have been contradicted? After it was denied that there was a file on Preston Manning, we are now told that Mr. Bristow, and this was shown on the video, committed totally reprehensible acts when he was an informer for CSIS, although we had been given assurances this was not so.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service February 20th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, Michel Robert, spokesperson for the Security Intelligence Review Committee, the same Michel Robert who denied the existence of a secret file bearing the name of Preston Manning, said that Grant Bristow did nothing that was reprehensible. However, a recent video contradicts this statement and shows that Mr. Bristow committed acts that are unlawful and unacceptable in a democratic society like ours.
My question is directed to the Solicitor General. Will the Solicitor General finally admit that when he was a CSIS informer, Mr. Bristow acted in a way that was reprehensible and unlawful by engaging in a campaign to promote violence, more specifically against the Canadian Jewish Congress?
Federalism February 16th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, may I remind the Prime Minister that the Quebec Premier who turned down the agreement with the Liberal government was the former Liberal Premier of Quebec, the Prime Minister's partner on the no committee for the Quebec referendum?
Will the Prime Minister admit that this manoeuvring by his Minister of Foreign Affairs was an attempted rerun of the referendum speech by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1980?
Federalism February 16th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, seriously. The Prime Minister should take this seriously.
If it is so easy to transform Canada by signing administrative agreements and if the Prime Minister is sincere about this, could he explain why, fifteen months after his party came to power, he has yet to recognize the unanimous demands for full jurisdiction
over manpower training from all stakeholders in Quebec? All stakeholders in Quebec are asking him to withdraw from this area of jurisdiction. If it is so easy and if he is so serious about it, why has nothing been done? Why?
Federalism February 16th, 1995
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. In a prereferendum speech to the Metropolitan Quebec Chamber of Commerce, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said, and I quote: "-no one in Canada is going to discuss the status quo. There will be no more status quo. There will be major changes-".
Does this statement by the Minister of Foreign Affairs mean that the Prime Minister has changed his mind and that his government will now support major changes in the way federalism operates, this after doggedly defending the status quo?