Loyola Hearn

[Fisheries, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council made a recommendation to the minister in relation to the state of the northern cod stocks, noting clearly that in the past recommendations made were not adhered to. It also said that no single action, such as closing the recreational fishery, can solve the problem, but a full comprehensive set of strategies must be followed.

Will the minister now tell us clearly that he will accept a clear set of strategies?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member and certainly have absolutely no problem asking the government to do that. It is only a matter of adjusting when it takes out the necessary funds or the percentage of CPP or EI benefits. There is always a three or four month break. Why not give it to people when it is really needed, especially to people on low or fixed incomes?

Let me go a bit further. I am sure that by looking at government programs such as those and by readjusting them, we could find many ways to help people across the country, especially people on low and fixed incomes.

One of the other reasons people suffer with the high costs for fuel is because of government taxes. There should be a ceiling. The government should not be able to rake in windfalls because the price of home heating fuel and gas goes up. There should be a limit which would give the government the same amount of money, but would also give a break to the people who need it.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's very good question is one that has to be answered by the government.

The two words that are being used are “accountability” and “transparency”. We are elected by every individual in this country who is of voting age to come here and make the proper rules and regulations and the laws that govern this country. We are also here to administer the funds that we collect from them and which are spent for their benefit.

One of the ways this could be done and should be done, is as it used to be done. When a government brings forward a budget, that budget should be built upon the needs of the people of the country as collectively input by the people who sit in this place. The estimates should be fully scrutinized and debated right here in this chamber or thoroughly at the committee level. What happens now is the government brings in a budget, rushes through the estimates, and forces its members with the threat of expulsion to vote for funds such as for the gun registry. Nobody has any input.

The place to thoroughly debate these issues is right here so the people of Canada can make the government accountable as well as the members who represent them.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, let me first talk about the positive aspects of the question. He talked about the funding for St. John's Harbour. It has been long fought for, long needed, and is now promised. Hopefully it will be delivered upon.

I would suggest to the member though that the funding came through a special program because former ministers had been telling us in the House that it must come through the regular infrastructure. One cannot take $100 million out of regular infrastructure funding for any project and expect to be able to do everything else that has to be done.

If the member would check Hansard there is one member who recommended to the Minister of Finance, months before he brought in the new program, that we needed a new special infrastructure program to deal with major projects. He would see that I made that recommendation here and so I do take some credit for it.

The member talked about transparency and accountability. These are great words. The government would be transparent and accountable. We saw what it did a couple of days ago in getting $59 million more to put into the administrative side of the gun registry, not counting the other associated costs.

It was quite transparent that the Prime Minister cracked the whip and forced people on their knees to come here under threat of expulsion from caucus, or that he would call an election where a lot of them would know that they would not be back here, and forced them against their will and against the wishes of the country to vote for that kind of funding. It was very transparent but certainly not accountable.

He also talked about balancing the budget and giving money to health care. The government is only giving back a portion of what it took away and that is why it balanced the budget in the first place, along with raking in money from free trade and the GST. At present, HRDC is reducing services in rural Canada and playing games with the local bureaucrats because it has been told to cut programs. It is transparent but it is certainly not accountable to Canadians. No wonder it balanced the budget, but it did so on the people in the country who really need to be helped.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 28th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Brandon--Souris.

I would like to comment on the remarks just recently made by my colleague from the NDP and also on the question asked by the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca. They talked about raising the exemption level in relation to the payment of income tax. That is something which not only will we support but we have also recommended.

We have too many people living on fixed incomes and very low incomes who quite often have to turn to the government for social assistance. The government takes away, as the member for Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca said, on one hand through the income process, only to give back through some social program. It does not make any sense. It would be much better for the psyche of the individuals involved if they could go out, make a living, and hold on to the amount of money that they need in order to make a basic living.

The cost of living in this country and right across the world has gone sky high. We have not adjusted our exemption level in tune with the expenses and the needs of the average family in our country. Certainly, the government must look at that.

The NDP member for Churchill talked about seniors. They are perhaps one of the two groups in the country completely ignored by the government.

When I spoke earlier on the budget, I talked about the need to invest in our youth, to invest in education, and to educate our young people so that they will be contributors to society, rather than going out into the field without an education and forever taking from the system. It is a no-brainer. A young, educated population will be a contributing population

Any statistic we look at shows that individuals with a post-secondary education, plus any extra degrees at a higher level they might want to pick up, have a better chance of employment. If they cannot afford to go to a post-secondary institution they have no other choice except to go out and try to find some work in the workplace. These days such work is quite often intermittent, and therefore they end up on social assistance or drawing employment insurance, and because of the inability to look after themselves, their health costs escalate, and so on.

We have two choices. We can invest up front and have a population that contributes, or we do not invest and have a large portion of our population who, through absolutely no fault of their own but because of geographic or economic circumstances, will be taking from the system more than they will be putting in for the rest of their lives.

The other group includes our seniors. Many of them, especially in the rural areas, live on fixed incomes and old age pensions. Many of them have absolutely nothing else. If they worked in the private sector they probably do not have any extra pension except a small Canada pension which would be minimal. Many older people, particularly women, basically stayed home in their day, raised families, and consequently do not have Canada pension benefits.

These people are on a low fixed income which has not been increased for a considerable amount of time to any degree at all to meet the rapidly rising costs of living in this country. Yet, we expect them to maintain their residences, buy food, clothe themselves, cover the horrendous costs of health care that they face, in particular drugs which are not covered by medicare, and we do nothing to assist them. These are the people who built our country. These are the people we should be helping. We have not been doing it and it is about time we got around to doing it.

Let me talk about a few other concerns. The last time I spoke I gave the government credit for some of the new innovations in the budget. However, one of the concerns I have with the government, and I am sure others share it, is that we see all kinds of fancy announcements, but when we analyze them we realize they would be implemented over the next 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years. By that time the amount of money would diminish considerably in relation to value. When we look at the implementation process, the bureaucracy, and the money that must go to the advertising companies to advertise such programs, there is little left for individuals who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of such programs. It is not what is in the budget; it is what is not in it that is probably more important.

One of the interesting things when we talk about programs and the money going into new programs is that while the government is telling people it is doing this to a certain program and bringing in that new program, it is immediately telling its departments that they must cut $1 billion from programs. It did that, in fact, a couple of days ago. It gave the departments a deadline. The promises are extended over a considerable amount of time with all kinds of dollars that can be moved, taken out and changed. A lot of it has been double promised over the years and promised every time the government makes an announcement. However, the $1 billion is coming out today.

Some programs, for example, within the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are being cut by $17 million. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been begging on its knees for money for the past 10 years. The government has made these cuts from day one. The Coast Guard is at rock bottom. Boats cannot even afford fuel to do their jobs and are tied up in port.

We have security concerns in the country and nobody to address them. We have infrastructure problems and people within the department openly telling the government and the country at hearings that it would take $400 million to bring our facilities up to par. About 21% of our wharves are not safe to walk on.

Then, of course, we have the science branch. Two days ago the FRCC made recommendations on the cod stocks and yesterday in relation to the northern cod. It is basically saying to the government that these cod stocks are not growing. In fact, the northern cod is practically non-existent, less than 1% of the biomass that was there 15 years ago. It will also tell us we do not know very much about what is going on in the ocean simply because we have no science. That is inexcusable. As we run into these problems we need an increase. We do not need the government, telling departments behind everybody's back, to cut and cut from such things as science.

One of the things the government can do to help this country prosper, to help small business, to help business generally and to get out there and create the money that can help seniors, students and our science is to cut out some of the red tape and bureaucracy. We have too much bureaucracy. The more complicated the system the longer the bureaucrats have their jobs.

We must streamline delivery. We must have one stop shopping. We do not need 13 stops to get permits to start developing our minerals or the offshore. We need to cut down on bureaucracy and let the private sector get out there to create jobs, and create the type of economy that can help those who need help.

[Points of Order, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

I would like to give you notice that at the earliest possible opportunity I will be raising a question of privilege based on comments made today by the Prime Minister. I maintain that the Prime Minister gave deceiving information to the House and had it done in an underhanded way. When we get a chance to research Hansard, I will be raising the appropriate question of privilege.

[Iraq, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, sending a field hospital to Iraq would be a welcome contribution by our allies and a concrete, positive step to show Canada will not shy away from the difficult task of reconstructing Iraq.

Canada also has ships in the Persian Gulf to assist with the war on terrorism.

The Minister of National Defence has confirmed he would not engage offensively in the war in Iraq. Has Canada considered volunteering those ships as escorts to provide safe passage for ships carrying humanitarian supplies through the Persian Gulf to Iraqi ports?

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. member just verified for all of us how the government operates on polls. Because this whole situation is extremely new to the Canadian populace, we will see what happens as this transaction progresses.

However, if he wants to talk about polls and if the government is going to react to polls, I hope tomorrow when we vote on the gun registration bill that the hon. member will go along with the polls and support what most of the people in this country say, and that is, to not put any more money into gun registration.

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I may have been remiss. I am not sure when I started if I mentioned I would be splitting my time with the member for South Shore. That is why I ended so early, which leaves me 5 minutes rather than 10 minutes for questions and answers.

In relation to the question from my hon. friend from the Alliance Party, I am sure the complete lack of leadership in the present government is no surprise to him, as it certainly is no surprise to me and it is becoming no surprise to the people of Canada.

We do not have to be warmongers. There is nobody who would love to see a peaceful solution to this present conflict more so than myself. However, to have peace in the world, there sometimes has to be war. If we did not have the great wars of 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945, we would not have the type of peace, protection and freedoms that we have in the world. There comes a time when dictators and people who prey on others have to be stopped.

However Canada, if it did not want to be directly involved in warmongering, it could have been heavily involved in the peaceful side of it, in diplomacy, in reconstruction and in preparation for reconstruction, as was mentioned.

I was in Australia just a short while ago and there were protests against the government. The conflict had not started but it was talking about getting involved. I think 90% of the population was extremely upset. That is not the case today. There is always this initial reaction. As I said in my speech, people react to the initial reactions that usually come from somebody who is against whatever issue. We always get those who are solidly against any decision at first and they colour opinion until people begin to stop, think and analyze it themselves and then make up their own minds. We can see the support changing in the United States, in Great Britain, in Australia, and I would say here in Canada, certainly from my own experience and from what we can see quite obviously on different television shows from the different arenas.

Yes, the performance of government has been abysmal. How can it change? Maybe if public opinion changes, government changes with it. Really, it is supposed to be the other way around. However, if we look at the government we are dealing with, I think that answers the question.

[Supply, March 24th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, like everybody else who participates in this debate, I will say that it is probably a debate we would rather not have to participate in. However, the action is going on and that is why we are here to discuss such issues.

Having listened to the recent speeches from members of the New Democratic Party, I am wondering from which authority they are getting the idea that this is not a legal war. Our own Prime Minister, from whom we should be able to take direction, has said quite clearly in the House that the war is legitimate. The leader of our party, the right hon. member for Calgary Centre, has asked government for a legal opinion. We did not get one but yet the Prime Minister, just a couple of days ago, made it quite clear in the House that he and the government recognize the legitimacy of the war. To say that the war is illegal and that is why the NDP is against it does not hold water.

However, we have concerns about where the government stands on this. In the beginning, before the war had actually started, as questions, comments and debates raged in this House, most parties--and I am not speaking for the NDP or the Bloc--were in agreement when they said that they would support action if sanctioned by the United Nations. That would have been the ideal way to go about this. However, because of procrastination within the United Nations, it did not happen.

Let us look at what was going on in Iraq, and certainly everybody is aware of Saddam Hussein's past. We remember the Kurds he killed, the war with Iran, the invasion of Kuwait, and the slaughter of his own people. I could go on and on. For 12 years we have given him and his regime a chance to clean up their act, but they laughed at the efforts. Then we sent in a group to find the missiles or any kind of weapons of mass destruction. Did they find anything? To some degree, yes, but nothing of any great significance which would lead the other countries to decide to go in and take action.

We were not surprised that they did not find anything. As we watched the search it reminded me of the old days in Newfoundland outports when the Mounties came in looking for the moonshine stills. They knew someone was coming, where they were, what they did and what they were going to do today and tomorrow. Were they going to leave the evidence out in the open for them to see? The answer is quite obvious.

All of this led to the point where somebody had to make a decision. It was the United States and Britain, and let us remember 40 other countries, who decided it was time to take action. A few days ago we had a vote on a motion put forth by the Bloc. The motion read:

That this House call upon the government not to participate in the military intervention initiated by the United States in Iraq.

Let us make a couple of things clear. First, the action was not initiated by the United States but by Saddam Hussein and his regime a long time ago. Second, the government voted for the motion. It voted to call upon the House not to participate, that means to not get involved at all.

Yet the following day, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was asked about Canada's stand. He said:

Mr. Speaker, it is not our view that the vote last night, which clearly was the opinion of the House, was that we should not be sending troops to be a part of this intervention. It would determine all future possibilities for all future time and no Parliament seeks to bind its government in such a way.

In other words, what the minister was saying was that if the motion came up and if the government thought the people of the country might support it at any one given time, it would support it also, but if it wanted to do something else tomorrow it would not make any difference. What kind of leadership are we seeing? For weeks in the House we saw a government jump all over the place and we could not get a clear-cut idea as to where it stood on the whole issue.

The Prime Minister sits on the fence with his finger in the air wondering which way the wind blows. He waits to see what the people of the country say. He is a leader governed by polls. He is one of those who says, there go my people, I must follow them because I am their leader.

We need a leader who leads the parade and not one who sits on the fence and watches it pass. We need people in government who realize that public opinion at any one time is not necessarily reaction to the actual situation. It is reaction to the initial reaction, and broadcasting of any one situation. That is exactly what we are seeing here.

There is a motion before us today. If the government had any influence with the United States or with the United Nations we may not have to worry about either this one or the one with which we dealt on Thursday because we would be looking at an entirely difference scenario. There was a time when Canada led the fray in diplomacy. There was a time when Canada went to the United Nations and it was listened to. There was a time when Canada spoke to the United States or to Great Britain and it was listened to, and Canada offered a leadership role in democracy.

There was an interesting comment in the House this afternoon by the minister responsible for CIDA when talking about the government's involvement following the war. For days again the Prime Minister showed that the government had no idea at all of Canada's involvement following whatever happens in Iraq. Canada has always been a leader when it comes to refocusing and restructuring after world conflicts. Will we be a player this time? The government is now saying, after days and weeks, that Canada will be a player, but the comment today was probably the most applicable one. She said, “Canada will be there after the reconstruction”. She did not say we would be there for the reconstruction.

I know she probably got mixed up in her wording but if we read the blues, she said that Canada will be there after the reconstruction and that is probably what will happen because we are so far behind as a world player these days.

It is extremely unfortunate. Our friend and neighbour to the south who would be there if we were in any kind of a conflict, but we sit by and pay absolutely no attention to them. We do not know where we are actually because there has been absolutely no leadership. The government is saying no that it is not getting involved one day and then the next says it does not know, maybe it will.

When people ask us to follow what government says and to support the government stand, how can we support a stand when we do not know what the stand is, when the government itself does not know what the stand is?

Canadians were always proud participants on the world stage. Canadians, and Newfoundlanders before they joined Canada, in both world conflicts lived the fray. Who went in and helped clean up Europe? Who went in and saved France from the German onslaught. Twice it was Canadians and Newfoundlanders. Let us not forget Vimy Ridge.

To look at how we are wimping out of our part as a player on the world stage, we only need to look at the song that Elvis Presley sang that was taken from the Shakespearean play:

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

That is exactly what we are seeing from the government.

Canada should be a leader. All of us should be supporting a government and a country that plays a leadership role. In a conflict like this, we cannot sit back and let somebody else do it. We have to play our part and we should be involved.

I will go to parts two, three and four of the motion first. The second part expresses our support for the Canadian servicemen and servicewomen. Let us never fail to support our people who are involved in the conflict. Let us never fail to support the other nations who are there to protect the freedom of the world. If they had not been there in 1939 to 1945, what would it be like here? We would not have the freedom we have today to say whatever we want and to make the varying decisions that we make.

Part three states, “extend to the innocent people of Iraq its support and sympathy”. Many people in Iraq are just as glad as others that this is happening because they might have the chance to find freedom and peace in their country and in the surrounding countries.

Part four states, “urge the government to commit itself to help the Iraqi people, including through humanitarian assistance, to build a new Iraq at peace with itself and its neighbours”. That is the wish of all of us. Canada should play a leading role in the reconstruction, even if we did not have the forces. We all know how the government has let our defensive corps fall away to nothing, individually and in relation to the equipment that they must use. We at least could pledge our support and offer to help out as the reconstruction begins. We are not even listened to now. We are a joke on the world stage.

We talk about protest. It is not really hard to get a protest going. I also know there are people with varying views across the country, and I respect that right. However, I saw people in the Montreal Forum booing the American flag. That is unfortunate regardless of how we feel about the United States. Fortunately on Saturday night we saw a change when people in Toronto in the Air Canada Centre stood up and cheered when the American anthem was sung. Then we felt proud that we supported our neighbours. Whether we agree with the war, they are still our neighbours and we will be there to help them.

This is not the message that has been sent forth by the government. Backbenchers are making comments from which all of us distance ourselves. When frontline ministers start making similar comments, we wonder what is happening in our North American relationships.

It is about time that we as Canadians played our part in ensuring the world is a proper, peaceful place to live. We should be a leader in diplomacy. If we are not going to take that leadership role, then at least we should be able to support those who do.