Loyola Hearn

[Electoral System, February 17th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the member as he talked about commending one group after another. I commend the member for bringing forward such a motion which we solidly support. I think it is a tremendous idea.

I believe that in the last election only 25% of our population under 30 voted. Some of that is disinterest in politics generally; however, I believe a lot of it is many of our young people really do not understand the system. It is not something that is taught, unfortunately, in many schools.

That is basically my question for the member. How can we at this level draw attention to the deficit that is out there? How can we get young people involved? They are the people who really should be interested because it is their future that we deal with in this great establishment.

Besides creating the awareness here and hopefully, with cooperation, at the provincial level also, we must create the mechanism to get people involved. Perhaps if federal and provincial elections were to coincide, good habits would be formed. It is crucial that good habits be formed.

Sometimes during the elections, mini elections are held but they are usually held in kindergarten classes and the lower grades. The kids get caught up in it.

If we gave students in the whole system the chance to vote when issues were being discussed, we might not only get students interested, but we might get the teachers more interested. Students would come out of our schools understanding our parliamentary system, which many of them do not understand now.

Does the member think we should push it at this end to encourage the educational system to concentrate more on teaching our young people about the importance of democracy and the importance of the great parliamentary system we have? Then they could participate in making the decisions which will affect their future.

[Points of Order, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough rose on a point of order concerning differences between bills, Bill C-34 of the second session, and Bill C-4, which the government tendered as a duplicate of Bill C-34 to comply with the special order of the House allowing reinstatement of bills.

My colleague drew the attention of the Speaker to difficulties in the printed versions, particularly in clause 19(2).

I want to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to variations with the versions of Bill C-4 on the website.

The PDF electronic version of the bill is different from the HTML version, again in clause 19(2), and I know the Speaker is quite familiar with these versions so I will not explain to him what they are.

The order of the House permitting reinstatement is very clear. The bill must be in the same form. It cannot have different language or alterations that have not been approved by the House of Commons. It is not open to tinker with the bill in any way.

The House was very specific in requiring the bill to be reintroduced as it was at prorogation.

The subject matter of this bill is ethical conduct, so I call on the government to take this opportunity to bring in a new bill reflecting the Prime Minister's views on ethics, not those of the previous Chrétien government.

I ask the Speaker to declare the proceedings of Bill C-4 to be null and void.

[Privilege, February 16th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, this was a question of privilege raised last week. I find it a bit odd that at this late stage in the game the member is trying to tell the Speaker how to rule on the question of privilege that was raised. We know the Speaker has spent a lot of time and energy determining whether or not the points raised constitute a prima facie case of privilege.

I am not sure what we are seeing here, unless it is an attempt to deflect attention away from the very serious business that the House wants to get down to.

[Equalization Payments, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, we will watch that closely.

Seven years ago only two provinces were not accessible by the Trans-Canada Highway, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. Today only Newfoundland needs a ferry service, which should be treated as the extension of the Trans-Canada Highway.

The cost of getting to P.E.I. by the fixed link has gone up over the last five years by 11%. To get to Newfoundland by ferry costs an additional 30%.

In light of the money squandered through the sponsorship program by the Liberal government, how can it justify putting this extra burden on the shoulders of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador?

[Equalization Payments, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, cases of Birks watches purchased by the then minister Gagliano have been found in storage. However the minister did not buy them directly from Birks. He had Groupaction buy them and he paid them a fee of $16,000.

It does not take a Birks watch to tell that time is running out on this government, but time is also running out on the equalization agreement.

Why does the Prime Minister not make a deal with the provinces now rather than postponing it until after the election, as he is doing with everything else?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, February 13th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, anybody who did not know the difference and who listened to what we just heard from the government member would think we have a wonderful government. It is giving all this money to the provinces and now, because it thought there might be some disruption in the program, it will extend the current program for another year.

Has this not been a very familiar ring in the Chamber over the last few months? The government is going to extend, going to put off, going to refer to the courts. When is the government going to make a decision on something? What more important decision can it make than on the equalization payments to the provinces?

The provinces have known for years that the present equalization payment agreement would end at the end of this fiscal year. They have been working extremely hard and have been placated by little bits and pieces.

The member says that the government is giving more in equalization payments than it ever did before. If people worked for me in 1970 and I paid them $5 an hour and I now give them $5.25 would I ask them why they were complaining since I was paying them more? We must look at the effect in real dollars. The provinces have been shafted entirely.

Let me read into the record what the Constitution says. Section 36(2) states:

Parliament and the Government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.

It does not say comparable levels of service. It says reasonable, meaning close.

Perhaps we should look at some of the provinces we refer to as have not provinces. Why are they have not provinces? It is because we have not. The federal government takes it away.

One of the reasons we have to fight for equalization is to make sure we can provide these reasonably comparable levels of services. Can it be done? Let me be parochial and talk about Newfoundland and Labrador. Can we provide reasonably comparable levels of services? The answer is a blatant no.

Why is that? One just has to look at the geography of our province and the infrastructure necessary to deliver reasonably comparable levels of service to our people. Let us look at the health care funding, which the government has scuttled. The CHST payments have been reduced to almost non-existence despite the promises of an extra $2 billion that we have heard about for three years.

Most of the premiers come up and take the money begrudgingly and go home. However the bottom line is that they are worse off than they were before they took the money. We are not even close to keeping up with regular payments. In fact, at one time the provinces and the federal government shared the cost 50:50. Now some of the provinces are down to a 14% federal contribution. The burden is on the provinces and then, of course, it is on the municipalities and on the taxpayers and the services cannot be provided. Is this reasonably comparable? That is poppycock. Services are not reasonably comparable.

When we again look at the geography of Newfoundland and Labrador, or anywhere in rural Canada, can we provide reasonably comparable services under the present system? The answer is no.

What are the premiers looking for? The premiers and the ministers of finance are looking to the government to give them what the Constitution requires, nothing more and nothing less. They only want adequate funding to provide reasonably comparable levels of service.

What difference does it make to Newfoundland, under the present arrangement, where we see the average based upon not only five provinces, but which also excludes a number of different factors that affect what we would call equalization?

When look at the 10 provinces and we base it on equality, the difference to Newfoundland and Labrador is about $200 million annually. Where can we find that money? It is about the same amount as we have now seen wasted on the sponsorship program. Right now we are talking over $100 million, and every day we see other bits and pieces come out. With the sponsorship program alone, the money that has been squandered and covered up could have equalized the payments to Newfoundland and Labrador.

That $200 million is only 20%, or one-fifth, of the money spent on the gun registry. If we had taken the gun registry money alone, five provinces, like Newfoundland and Labrador, would have received proper and adequate equalization payments. It is incredible to think that the government blatantly can throw away such money.

The Liberals can go behind closed doors and in five minutes make a decision to bring in the foolish long gun registry that has wasted $1 billion. They can go behind closed doors and pass out $100 million to their friends. It is unbelievable. Yet they cannot, within two years, sit down with the provinces and come up with a reasonable agreement on equalization. This is completely and utterly unheard of.

What can they do to correct this inadequacy?

First, if they moved to the 10 province formula instead of the five province formula, it would be a major factor and it would help all the provinces.

Second, and more important, let us take this designation of have not away from the provinces by letting them develop their own resources. The development of natural resources and the economy generated by that should be taken out of the equalization formula if they are non-renewable resources. Let the provinces benefit from their own resources. If that happened, provinces like Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador and the developing north would do very well on their own. Not only would we be equal in the economic standards of the country, we would be contributing partners. We would not have other provinces complaining about paying more than their share, and perhaps rightly so. They would not have them dumping into the public purse to equalize provinces like ours. We would be able to pay our own way and help maybe a few provinces who could not.

The Liberals look at us, the new Conservative Party, and ask where our policies are. They will see them when we hit the campaign trail. However, I will tell them one right now. In relation to equalization, we would move to the 10 province formula for which all the provinces have asked. We would remove non-renewable natural resources from the equalization agreement which would give provinces that have these resources a chance to get on their feet and become contributing partners. Then the services across the country would be comparable. We would be contributors and would not be held subservient to a central government that just does not care.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just mentioned free votes. Of course one of the big planks in the Speech from the Throne and undoubtedly one of the planks the government will try to use as we head into an election and talk about the democratic deficit is free votes. Free votes should be the central part of any dealings with improving the situation in the House, but then we find that the party opposite, the governing party, is being told that there will not be a free vote on the funding for the gun registry. I wonder what the member thinks of that.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, over the last number of years the agriculture industry in the west has been in a crisis situation. This has been aggravated greatly by the BSE problem. I am not comforted by what I see in the throne speech as it relates to agriculture, and representing the west, I was wondering how the member feels about it.

[Business of the House, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, on the weekly statement, I have two questions. The first question is to the hon. government House leader. What is the business for the rest of today, tomorrow and next week, if the government is still in existence?

The second question deals with whether or not we will be having a take note debate on Tuesday night. I gave the hon. member some time to think about this.

Tuesday is an opposition day. Usually an opposition day is a day when the concentration is on an issue brought forth by one of the opposition parties. However, we now see government, without any consultation, as has been the process in the past, bringing in a take note debate which deflects from the actual opposition day itself.

I would ask the hon. House leader if he would rearrange to have a government take note debate or any take note debate at any time other than on opposition days, because I believe there is a major contrast, and it sets a bad precedent.

[Privilege, February 12th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, page 221 of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , describes that:

A prima facie case of privilege in the parliamentary sense is one where the evidence on its face as outlined by the Member is sufficiently strong for the House to be asked to debate the matter and to send it to a committee--

What we have here with respect to the sponsorship program is a scandal and a cover-up, a cover-up that no one denies exists.

We also have the Auditor General reporting that misleading information involving the sponsorship program was provided to Parliament.

A cover-up involves deceit. On page 141 of the 19th edition of Erskine May, it is stated:

Conspiracy to deceive either House or any committees of either House will also be treated as a breach of privilege.

It is not inconceivable that the people involved in the sponsorship program scandal were deceitful and knowingly provided misleading information to someone in the department who, knowingly or unknowingly, provided that information to Parliament.

It is not important at this phase to conclude that a minister knew or did not know. As with the case of the RCMP precedent, it was sufficient to argue that someone along the line provided misleading information deliberately.

No one can argue that there is sufficient cause to believe that the people involved in this scandal and the cover-up of the scandal would deliberately provide misleading information about their activities.

Under the circumstances, I would argue that the evidence on its face is sufficiently strong for the House to be asked to debate the matter and to send it to committee.