Bob Mills

[Remembrance Day, November 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, next Thursday Canadians will take a moment to remember and thank veterans for the incredible service they have given our country.

In World War I, World War II and Korea our soldiers performed exceptionally well. They made Canada the country it is today. Our young soldiers left their homes from across Canada to go and fight in these conflicts. Their sacrifices were gigantic and not all of them came home.

Recently, my constituency office staff had the honour of a visit from Rudy Deutsch who served in Italy during World War II. This gentleman recounted some of the experiences he faced during the war. The stories were amazing. It is because of people like Mr. Deutsch and many others that we live in freedom today.

I urge all members to attend Remembrance Day events in their communities. It is the perfect time and place to show their appreciation to our veterans.

[Migratory Birds Convention Act, 1994, November 2nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-15. I want to go through a bit of the history of the bill. I think I asked my first question on oiled birds in the Atlantic in 1995 or 1996. From there I drew up a private member's bill which basically dealt with this. From there I drew up a policy which I was able to recommend to our party and which became party policy regarding oiled birds.

First I looked at Bill C-34. That was introduced the day before the House prorogued. Needless to say I was pleased there was a bill but went rather ballistic in that the bill was introduced at a time when I knew for sure, and everybody else knew, it could not be passed and that it would simply die on the order paper.

I must say that I am pleased to see that Bill C-15 has now surfaced, at what I hope is a better time so that is has a greater opportunity of moving through the House and through committee. Obviously any minor amendments that are needed can be made during the committee process. We will finally have a piece of legislation that we hope will help stop the problem which has gone on literally for decades in our Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Today I stand somewhat with relief that after so many questions in the House and so much work on this issue, finally we have a piece of legislation which, while not perfect, does come closer than anything else we have in place.

I want to touch on a bit of the background and a few of the areas that concern me about the bill. I am sure they will also concern members on all sides of the House when they look at the bill.

We should recognize there has been a lot of documentation. I am holding in my hands a document to which most members could refer. Certainly there is the web page done by the World Wildlife Fund entitled, “Seabirds and Atlantic Canada's Ship-Source Oil Pollution”. It details a lot references and provides a background to some of the history of the problem and why passage of this bill by the Canadian Parliament is so essential.

As well we need to recognize that a tiny oil spot on migratory birds means death. A bird need not be totally oiled for it to die. One tiny drop of oil will break the bird's insulation and will result very quickly in hypothermia and the death of that bird.

I spent time in Newfoundland and did an hour and a half radio show. At one point I literally saw the thousands of birds that wash up on the shore. I talked to many of the local people and heard how troubled they were that this was happening over and over again and nobody was doing anything about it.

Today a documentary is being produced on that very issue and of course it fits right in with this legislation. I will not be cynical and say that one of the motivations for this bill to show up so quickly may have been that it is a fairly high profile documentary being done on oiled birds in the Atlantic.

Before I move on we should also remember that the same problem exists on our Pacific coast. The problem there as I understand it is it is more scientifically difficult to document because the birds sink. The wave patterns and current patterns are different and therefore not nearly the number of birds are showing up on the Pacific coast, yet we believe the problem is probably just as great, if not greater, in that part of the world.

We have heard lots about the Exxon Valdez and that sort of thing. However, it would be very naive to believe that there are not other more minor oil spills occurring that would affect the birds there as well.

The number used in the Atlantic is 300,000. That is a documented scientific number. The local people would tell us that it is much higher than that. Some people would use figures like a million birds a year. None of these populations can sustain that sort of death toll and expect to remain viable.

Certainly for the people of the area, and I think for all Canadians, they would like to have the seabirds remain a viable population for a long time into the future.

What is the real problem? Why does this problem exist? It comes down to dollars and cents for shipping companies. Many of them do not even dock in Canada, but simply pass through our waters from the U.S. and Europe on the pathway that they travel.

The ships have bilge oil which they need to get rid of. For the shipping companies it is a matter of having to go to port, having to pump it out in port, having to pay for that, but most important, the time it takes to do it. For many of the companies, time appears to be their biggest problem.

It is understandable, I guess, from the captain's perspective that if he is expected to get between point A and point B in a certain amount of time, rather than go to port to dump the bilge, he is going to dump it into the ocean. It would also be reasonable to expect that when he knows that surveillance is very minimal and even if caught the fine is very small, he will take that chance.

It appears that is what has been happening for decades. There are records of oil release right from the 1950s on up, if we look at some of the reference material, and they probably occurred long before that. Therefore, it is the cost factor and the time factor for these ships.

This piece of legislation I hope will fix those two basic concerns that we have. First, the fines are going to be higher and if we make them comparable to the U.S. fines, we could be looking at fines of up to $1 million. With fines like that, they would not run the risk. If the fine was $3,000, well, it would be worth it to take the chance because they probably would not get caught. If the fine was $1 million, as they have been in some of the U.S. cases, they would really think about that. They would probably not be captain of the ship after doing that, if the company took action. Obviously the fine structure will help.

The next thing that is important is that we provide adequate facilities for these ships to move as quickly as they can to get rid of their bilge oil so they can move on. Obviously, we would be asking questions in committee as to what facilities are planned. Are they adequate? Do we need more? Are they as modern as they should be? What is the cost involved? Who is going to pay for that? Obviously, we would hope that the user could pay for a great deal of this because it should be in the best interest of the shipping business to speed this up.

We then also have to look at the surveillance. How are we going to catch these people? We do not have the number of Coast Guard staff, planes and so on that we would need, but there is a technological way to do this. I am not a technician; I do not understand how radarsat works exactly, but I understand it is accurate enough to find out who did it and to send a plane out.

Finally, the enforcement of all of this becomes most important. We have to stop the turf wars within departments. When one of the ships, the Tecam Sea , was brought in, justice was fighting, the Coast Guard was fighting, the military was fighting, environment was fighting over who was in control. As a result, the ship sailed away without ever paying the fine.

That sort of thing has to end. We must have surveillance. The penalties must be there. We must have the facilities that these shipping companies can use.

We will be supporting the bill. We will be looking at where we might improve it in committee. I congratulate the government for bringing it back so soon in this session. It is a much needed bill.

[The Environment, October 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, another committee just will not cut it.

In her report the environment commissioner studied five out of the more than 100 international agreements that this country has signed. She found most of them lacking. She said that Transport Canada does not know how much oil is being dumped in the oceans; Environment Canada cannot even define what wetland conservation is; and the DFO does not know how many fish we have.

The government is about to embark on the Kyoto implementation plan. It is about the government. It just does not know where it is going. Why do you not come clean with Canadians and tell them--

[The Environment, October 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, the OECD places us at the bottom of the environmental chart. Today the commissioner of the environment blasted the government for its environmental performance. I quote again what the commissioner said, “I am left to conclude that the reasons are lack of leadership, lack of priority, and lack of will”.

Why has the government not lived up to some of its environmental commitments and shown some leadership, some priorities and some vision?

[Canadian Heritage Act, October 26th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-7. As has been pointed out, this would transfer Parks Canada from Heritage Canada to Environment Canada. In looking at this it seems that is the obvious place where it should be. It has been there in the past and that makes a lot of sense.

Let us review what parks mean and what parks are for our country. What do people think about Canada when we travel internationally? One of things that indicates our national identity is to say that we are pristine, that we have clean water, babbling brooks, lots of forests and all of those green things that represent Canada. All of us know there are some flaws in that thinking but as long as we are travelling internationally we will continue to promote the fact that Canada has all of those good things.

Our parks probably represent the focal point of that thought internationally and so very often when we are travelling people will tell us that they have been to Pelee Island, Banff, Jasper or to one of the many resorts and parks that we have across Canada.

When Canadians are asked about our park system they will say that this is a place to preserve habitat for future generations to enjoy. It is for our children and grandchildren to enjoy. It is a place to protect wildlife and a place where wildlife can live, prosper and remain for future generations. It is also a living, breathing ecosystem that we can look at, understand better and sometimes it even provides great benefits for our own population in terms of pharmaceuticals and so on.

The controversy I think is what role humans have in parks. This has been something for debate. We have talked about it many times. We have attempted, as we have encroached on our park areas, to make them more friendly for the people, animals and habitat.

We have had some problems. I can think of the wildlife crossings that we have built over our Trans-Canada Highway. Those crossings are for animals but we forgot to put anything there for humans to get across the highway. As a result we have humans crossing on the animal crossovers, thus leaving their scent and sometimes their garbage, and obviously animals are not using the crossovers because they do not want to be where humans have had such close contact.

There are a lot of planning issues that we need to have in our parks so that humans play a role within that park system. That is open to a lot of debate. How much or how little humans use our parks can be discussed at much greater length but that is not the purpose of the bill.

Whether it is picking cranberries or whatever, the most important thing is the consultation process we need to have with Canadians regarding their parks. We need to promote consultation and cooperation as opposed to the confrontation which often leads to some very unpleasant things happening within our park system.

We must also be very aware that our park system represents a major source of foreign income for Canada and the many people who work in and depend upon the national parks have to be considered in any equation with regard to what we do. Many young Canadians have jobs in our parks system through the summer in order to pay for their university. They learn about the parks and they make them better for all of us.

As well, there is the wilderness experience. As more and more people live in urban communities, it becomes more important to have natural areas in our parks system for them to enjoy and experience what the real wilderness might be like.

I am talking about a balanced approach, one that takes science and the ecological integrity of the area into consideration and one that consults the people who are part of that parks system.

In speaking to the bill, obviously I think Environment Canada is better able to consider the environmental integrity and the use of the parks than Heritage Canada. For that reason, it makes sense to support the bill and to support the transfer.

We will always have people who are the extremes, people who do not want anyone to go into parks at any time, in any way. They literally want to build walls around these parks. They probably would go so far as to say they want such a pristine environment that we should all live in caves, not drive cars, be without electricity, et cetera. The other extreme of course are the people who say that we do not need parks so we should get rid of them and not preserve them. Obviously that is not acceptable either.

We need to have trade-offs. We must consider both sides of the issue. I am sure Environment Canada can come up with the ecological integrity in these parks and maintain them with humans using them.

As well, we need to look at some of the issues that parks face. One that I am very aware of is the situation where they have limited budgets, where their infrastructure has serious problems and has declined over the years. Some of the problems are due to a lack of money while others are problems of allocation. I guess the most obvious one is the fact that some of the highways being maintained by parks are throughways through parks.

Jasper Park in my province has a major highway running through it. The truckers and others who are on that highway do not want to drive through a park. They would rather use another road but with the mountains being where they are, they have to use that highway. Likewise, if they take the Trans-Canada Highway, they must to drive through Banff Park, which they do not particularly want to because they have to slow down for the animals and tourists.

Parks Canada's budget is used to clean the snow and repair the roads because the roads are inside the park. I do not know how much of its budget is used that way, but I think it is something that the committee can look at to say that money really is part of transport. This must happen right across Canada. The money should in fact stay in the parks and not be used for things like roads.

I think those are the kinds of examples where we can probably provide, even within the present budget, money to be used to improve those parks. I would hope Environment Canada would look at those things when Parks Canada becomes part of its new mandate.

I tried to find out what the concerns were with this transfer and who would not like it. I could summarize it in a couple of areas that we could look at. The first one would be Environment Canada's reputation. Some would say that within Environment Canada there are a number of fanatic environmentalists, people who would live in a cave and who do not want anyone within parks. That is a major concern because, as I said earlier, we want to be somewhere in the middle. Trade-offs have to be made. We do not want to live in a cave. We want our standard of living and we want to be able to enjoy the national parks.

It would be important to deliver the message to Environment Canada that it must find a balance. It cannot be 100% concerned about the pristine preservation of an area. Areas can be restricted and people can be controlled but we cannot go so far as to keep people out. It is my general feeling that the minister will probably set the tone for that development.

Some members on the other side might agree with me that one former heritage minister set the tone for the parks and created a lot of problems. Ms. Copps created a real concern that the minister could stop development and prevent things from happening without any consultation. It became a very confrontational approach to how parks should be dealt with. That minister is no longer here and I do not believe the new minister will take that approach.

However it is a concern and one we need to address. We as parliamentarians need to be sure that Environment Canada understands there is a middle ground involved, the middle ground being what is acceptable, not the extremes on either end where parks are over-used or under-used.

The second concern I heard when I was researching this subject was about some of the heritage sites. I was asked what concern Environment Canada would have for an historic railway station and how that would mesh with that department as opposed to Heritage Canada. I did not have a good answer for that question. When I pursued it further I was told that Environment Canada would be the poor cousin and that it would not get the resources or the dedication by bureaucrats to preserve historic sites. If that were to happen that would be a major concern and a concern that should be addressed.

One of the historic sites in the former boundary of my riding is a very important part of the parks system and it is utilized that way. I understand there are other historic sites that may not be close to the park and may become poor cousins in Environment Canada. Because this would be all inclusive, we should ask those questions and ensure Environment Canada gets the message that this is not acceptable.

As we send Bill C-7 off to committee after second reading, it is important that it shows concern for all of the different stakeholders. The committee needs to look at cottage owners who live in many of our parks, the businesses that depend upon our parks, and the many students who are employed in our parks. This would be an opportunity for the committee to listen to what those people think and maybe use it as a lever to make sure there are different and better considerations for these kinds of things. There will not be a lot of other parks bills in the House in the upcoming years so this is an opportunity for the committee to look at some of the things that I have raised. This could be a real positive thing for the committee to look at.

Should the committee hold extensive hearings? The hearings do not have to be extensive but the committee should listen to all the stakeholders with the intention of working with Environment Canada to improve the administration of our parks. The committee must send the environment bureaucrats the message of what Canadians want.

Committee members need to listen and make decisions. The committee must send to the environment bureaucrats the message that this is what Canadians want.

We could use the example of the member who raised cranberries. That is a fairly small issue to the whole of Canada. However, it is likely a huge issue to the person who has done that for five generations. Obviously, we must tell Parks Canada that it needs some flexibility, it needs to be reasonable, and it must use common sense in its approach to how it deals with parks.

I would see the committee serving the function of sending that message to the minister and employees of Parks Canada and, of course, to Environment Canada who are the administrators of this whole thing. People are concerned about what happens to our national parks. People are concerned about the decline of the infrastructure. People are concerned about a number of things. I am sure that any members who have a park in their riding have heard of these concerns.

We must be sure that Environment Canada understands that there is a place for recreation, tourism and access. While it can be controlled and limited, it obviously must be a part of any plan. I think this is better off under Environment Canada. That department should be able to look at a broader base of considerations than possibly Heritage Canada could, with the exception of perhaps some of those heritage sites which I am still a little concerned about.

We really need a vision for where we are going. At the moment we are talking about parks. I think we could do it in a lot of other areas. That vision is extremely important to the kind of Canada that we want in 2050 and in 2100. Parks are not planned over short terms. They are planned over very long periods of time. Ecosystems do not develop quickly. It is a very slow process. Therefore, what we do with these parks then becomes important.

I would include a much broader range for Environment Canada to look at, everything alternate energy to garbage and how we deal with our garbage. All of that should be part of that long term vision which we should be able to develop.

We want to maintain the view of Canada as a green country, as a great place to visit with clean air, clean water, clean soil and where we really care about our environment. Unfortunately, we have signed over a hundred international agreements. As the environment auditor general has told us for about the last four years, we have not lived up to very many of those 100 international agreements. We talk a lot about it, but we really do not score very well on what we do.

We are likely to support this bill based on the fact that parks are better off under Environment Canada. We should use this opportunity to improve our parks, to look at some of the concerns, and make our parks better for all Canadians now and in the future.

[The Environment, October 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have two interesting quotes regarding the lack of a Kyoto plan.

First we have the new environment minister saying “We came out with a plan in 2002 , but this plan is not enough and it was not intended to be enough”.

We now have the recently fired environment minister saying “There is no argument that he hasn't got a plan. The plans have been there for a long time”.

Can the minister finally be honest with Canadians and tell them whether we have a plan or whether we do not have a plan?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 8th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member who has just spoken. He and I have come to know each other very well on the environment committee. I congratulate him on his re-election and I look forward to working with him in the future.

He and I will disagree on several things, of course, and first, on where Kyoto is going to go. He mentions that the EU has been pushing this. Obviously only three of those countries will achieve their targets. Russia has signed on, that is for sure, but Russia wants to get access to the WTO and to Europe, so it has been done for political reasons. It has nothing to do with the environment.

I wonder if the member does not agree that that technology and a whole new plan to really deal with climate change might be a much better way to go. Much of what he said in his answer to the last question says that he probably would agree.

That plan, of course, is centred around technology. He mentions wind energy, geothermal and biomass. All those things in fact will help us to achieve real targets and long term environmental solutions. Most important is the fact that it will allow the U.S., which is number one in CO

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production, China, which is number two, and India, which is number five, to sign on to this new program. Could the member elaborate on that, please?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

To answer the member's question, Mr. Speaker, I really believe that the government of course has no intention of implementing Kyoto. It will talk about it and keep saying the same platitudes year after year, but it has no intention of implementing it because it has no plan and because if the government told Canadians what it would really cost, there would be no way. Basically the country would have to be shut down just to achieve the targets.

As for shutting down the country, I do not believe that most of us want to live in a cave. We would like to keep the standard of living we have. For good or for bad, 90% of our sales are dependent upon the U.S. One in four jobs is dependent on the U.S. I doubt very much that Ontario members would agree to shutting down the automobile industry, for example, just like shutting down the oil and gas industry is not really an option. Again, what we want to have with respect to our standard of living is what the reality is.

Let us be honest and really do something. Let us deal with pollution and thus deal with climate change. We would also then deal with the smog issue and the smog days that affect the health of children and seniors across this whole country. Let us deal with it. Let us have a plan.

Let me point out to the member that my party supports this environmental approach 100%. I look forward to helping the government, while it is still the government, implement something that is real and realistic.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, most definitely not. Kyoto is long gone as an issue. There are really only three countries that have any hope of hitting their target, those being Germany, Denmark and Britain, and that is as long as they can get all of the things passed in time.

In talking to parliamentarians over there, let me say that they realize we need something much more. We need something beyond trading carbon credits and that huge bureaucracy. We need something that will actually deal with the problem of climate change and pollution, and that something has to involve the United States, which is number one, China, which is number two, and India, which is number five. If we do not involve those countries, we really are not going to make much difference.

The government has no plan. We are a huge country. We have a huge amount of territory. We have little infrastructure. We have a very cold climate. Australia used those same arguments for targeting 8% above 1990 levels. We are 6% below 1990 levels. Today we are 26% above 1990 and increasing.

Of course we like to have our GDP reflect our sales to the United States of our energy, particularly from the tar sands. The hon. member knows that as we start mining more and more of those tar sands, that increases our CO

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even more.

So why would we lie to Canadians and say we can live up to some kind of target, which we have absolutely no hope of or plan for doing? We have not told Canadians what it will cost for electricity, for heat and for transportation. Why not be honest and say that we are going to champion something that will really deal with climate change and clean up the air in the same process? Let us abandon Kyoto, like most other countries are realizing they have to do.

In Russia, Mr. Putin has made it very clear, saying, “Let me join the European Union and have easy access to Europe and I will sign anything”. As far as living up to it is concerned, that is a whole other issue.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, October 7th, 2004]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate you on your position which is well deserved. I also want to tell you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Macleod.

I want to start by thanking the people of the riding of Red Deer for again having confidence in me and electing me with an increased majority. I certainly appreciate all those people, all the workers and all the campaign people. It is an honour and a privilege.

It is a little different this time in that now we are the government in waiting. It feels that it will not be very long until we will achieve our goals that we started some 11 years ago in the House. That is a very different feeling than has been.

In listening to this throne speech, and I have heard a great many here, this has to be probably one of the dullest, weakest pieces of regurgitation that I have heard. There is absolutely no vision for the country. If anything, as we travel around the world, we know that Canada is losing its position because of a lack of vision, a ho-hum kind of government which we have had for the past 10 years.

There is no mention of agriculture. There are recycled environmental promises. There is no help for the military. There is no help for low and middle class taxpayers. There is no parliamentary reform, no substance, no accountability and no consultation. The government should be ashamed of this throne speech more than any that it has given prior to this.

We need to add some vision and substance. That is what our leader's amendments have done. To say that this is a non-confidence vote is only in the minds of people who are living in the past, as the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell quite does. It is not a confidence motion. It is simply trying to make it better so that there is some substance.

The throne speech is full of platitudes. As the senior environment critic, I want to deal with that part of it. We talk about the platitudes of how we will fix the Great Lakes. That was 1993 and long before that. We will fix our oceans, yet a million birds are dying in Newfoundland every year because of oil spills. That is because of weak legislation.

We talk about procurement for the federal government in 2006. We asked Canadians to do the one time challenge in 2003, and the government only now is saying that it will start doing it. When the cabinet ministers were asked to drive fuel efficient cars, only one of them did that and that was the environment minister.

Environmental integrity in our national parks, what does that mean? They are nice words. Are we going to fix the infrastructure? Are we going to fix what is so wrong with our national parks?

Kyoto is a great one. We simply stamp on that we are for all the international treaties and go along with it even though every year we increase our CO

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output. We have no plan and cost to Canadians. Basically we will be part of a carbon trading system which is all about bureaucracy and transfer of money, and nothing to do with the environment.

I spent time in Europe this past summer visiting wind projects, garbage recycling and all kinds of things. My wife really enjoyed the holiday as we visited all the sites. I will have a lot more to say about that in years to come. We talk about quadrupling the wind credits. Germany, where people became committed, added 10,000 megawatts in five years because it had that vision. It put in targets and money and said that it would do it.

In our next throne speech we will show a long term vision. Environment cannot be planned in four year segments, or in this case the government's one year segment. It must be planned in much longer terms. It is a 50 year project, and developing technology. It is by showing investors that they should invest in a country that knows where it is going, that has a vision.

The OECD says that we are last in the industrialized world in terms of living up to environmental standards. That is where we are because of the commitment of the government. This throne speech simply shows that further. We need a commitment to the air. We need to have a clean energy plan. We need to take garbage, deal with it and help municipalities, cities, and provinces by providing the technology that is there.

I was in a recycling plant where nothing comes out of the stack. It makes money from garbage. It is a resource. It buys garbage because it cannot get enough to generate heat and electricity, and recycle all the products.

We need to take care of our brownfields and have an inventory of our aquifers. That is what a government with a vision for the environment would have had in the throne speech.

We talk about looking at the Great Lakes and studying them. Sixteen million Canadians live and depend on the Great Lakes. We already have an international commission that is toothless. It cannot do anything. A former member of the House, Mr. Gray, has attempted but has not accomplished very much because of the structure of that organization.

Energy is a most important issue today as fuel, heating, electricity and transportation costs go up. We also need a vision for that. We need to emphasize conservation. There is much more we can do in that area. We need to talk about transitional fuels and what we can do there.

Finally, we need to look at alternate energy. I was impressed with the wind projects and farms that I was privileged to see around the world. I went to the universities in Denmark. I listened to 150 engineers working on R and D for that country to become a world leader in wind energy and generation. It is pretty exciting stuff.

Wind energy is growing by 30% a year. I have to congratulate the Quebec government for taking the biggest plunge most recently with its announcement of a $3 billion, 2,000 megawatt project.

How about our agriculture community? How can it be helped? The municipality of Pincher Creek, Alberta, gets $900,000 in increased tax revenue from windmills. I have talked to the farmers in that community who get income from the windmills on their properties. Many of them say that they would have lost their farms because of the BSE issue if it were not for the revenue from the windmills. That was the sort of exciting vision for the environment that we needed to see in the throne speech but we did not. There was no excitement at all.

In Copenhagen I visited the solar city project. There is also a project in Amsterdam. They are rebuilding downtown dilapidated communities and are using solar cells. The street lights are run by solar and batteries. There were no elevators in the old buildings. They have put solar collectors on three sides, and the electricity for elevators and heat for the buildings is provided by solar.

There is so much vision and technology out there, but I do not believe the government is prepared to look at it or invest in it. It is kind of a status quo; do what it has always done. That is not what the country needs at this time.

There are all kinds of restrictions that cause investment to shy away from Canada. There are all kinds of interprovincial grid problems and environmental impact problems. We at least have a promise from the government to try to streamline it.

The federal government can provide some leadership on so much and do something about it. I encourage the government to take a look at the amendments that we have put forward. We just want a further accounting. We want some more vision for the country.

As well the Bloc wants more vision on provincial and federal jurisdictions. We need to really talk about that, not shy away from it or fight over it. We need to work together to achieve that kind of cooperation. That will be the vision for the country. That kind of throne speech would get credit from everyone, and everyone in the House would be able to vote for it.