Reed Elley

[Speech From The Throne, October 3rd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think I have had the opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment. We certainly look forward to your impartial judgments on all of our proceedings. That was not a tongue in cheek comment.

I believe Canadians all across this country are very concerned and have some very grave reservations not only about the health of our country in terms of our national unity but also about the health and well-being of the many important matters that fall under this minister's purview.

We have had in the past few years some very strong confidence shaking concerns in matters of health in this country. We have seen the whole blood transfusion system in this country put in grave jeopardy. Perhaps the results of the Krever report and the recent supreme court judgment will finally give Canadians some real answers about where blame should be laid in that very important area.

Those of us, including myself, who take natural health products, 25 percent of all Canadians and 34 percent of all Americans, cannot understand why this government continues in many cases to deny each one of us freedom of choice in the purchase and use of natural products which many of us have been consuming all of our lives and which people around the world have in some instances been consuming for 2000 years.

The owners of health food stores in my riding of Nanaimo—Cowichan have told me about the arbitrary removal of hundreds of products from their shelves by the health protection branch. The ministry is cutting not only into their profits but more important also into Canadians' right of access to natural health products and their freedom of choice.

This problem has to be resolved by the minister and the government. As the deputy health critic for the Reform Party, I and the rest of the members of the Reform Party will hold the government and the minister accountable for actions in this matter.

Recently we heard from a senior official who at one time was the assistant head of the health protection branch of the Department of Health, Dr. Michèle Brill-Edwards. She continued to express some very grave concerns about inadequate testing of drugs which Canadians use daily. Standards often are not as high as we find in neighbouring jurisdictions such as the United States.

Recently in an interview she talked about the drug Imitrex which is used to combat the debilitating effects of migraine headaches. My wife is a user of this drug. As her husband I want to be assured that it is safe. When I hear a former official of the health protection branch expressing grave concerns, I worry about the competence of the minister and his ministry.

I want to assure the minister that we will do all we can to co-operate in his agenda but we are going to be keeping his feet to the fire on these issues.

[Speech From The Throne, October 2nd, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I find it very offensive for this member to speak on one hand about co-operation in this House and raising the level of debate and making Canada work, and then to make accusations of the Reform Party that we are not a party that wants the country to keep together.

It is as if he is trying to say to me, coming from 200 years of United Empire Loyalists stock, someone who has lived in three provinces of this country, who lived 32 years in this province before moving west, that I am not dedicated to keeping this country together.

We are a party that wants to keep this country together. It is hypocritical for the member to say on the one hand that he wants to have a great debate and yet to raise such provocative issues like this when he knows that this party is a federalist party.

[Speech From The Throne, September 26th, 1997]

Madam Speaker, I want to add my own congratulations to you on your appointment as one of our deputy speakers and look forward to your very fair and impartial judgments on our deliberations.

As a fellow colleague from the coast and Vancouver Island I have, of course, much sympathy for what the hon. member for Surrey North has been sharing with us this afternoon. We were all treated to that terrible travesty of justice recently where Clifford Olson was brought into our living rooms by television and other means to plead his case for early parole. It is the insensitivity of the government that has allowed this kind of thing to happen in Canadian society.

I have a question for my hon. colleague. I wonder if, in view of the tragic circumstances that his family has endured in the past few years, he has any light to shed on whether or not the penal system in this country does rehabilitate criminals.

[Mother Teresa, September 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today so that the House and its members might pay tribute to the life and memory of Mother Teresa.

It was with great sadness that Canadians learned of her recent death. This godly and gracious woman was a beacon of hope to the sick and the poor living in the streets of Calcutta and whose suffering she tried to ease and deeply felt.

Her message to humanity was simple: yes, there is someone who cares. It is a message that in our world will continue to resonate loudly and will no doubt serve as her lasting legacy.

With the passing of Mother Teresa the world will indeed be a colder place because the beacon of goodness, though not extinguished, burns a little less brightly today.

I am sure all Canadians join me in being thankful for her life. I ask for all members to observe a time of silence in their own thoughts and pay tribute to the remarkable legacy of caring and giving that was Mother Teresa.