Bob Mills

[Canada National Parks Act, May 3rd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Bill C-28. As the environment critic for my party, I have several concerns with the bill.

The first thing is to understand what national parks are really for and what they are all about. As far as I and I think most Canadians understand, national parks are there to preserve the natural environment, which can then be enjoyed by future generations, our children, our grandchildren and so on.

I have great difficulty when I read that we may be taking part of a national park and using it for some other purpose. It goes against the very grain of why national parks were set up. It is strange that a government would be promoting taking parks out of existence when it talks in public so much about creating new parks. As far as the discussion at places like the United Nations, we brag about the fact that we are going to increase our parks system. The former prime minister created new parks which was one of his legacies.

Most of the world thinks of Canada as a natural place, as a place that preserves its water, air and natural environment. Therefore, as the parks critic I find it difficult to stand and speak about taking a park out of existence for any purpose.

It is not the tribe's fault that this 84 hectares will become part of the native reserve. It is something that started in 1971 that has been a misunderstanding for a number of years. In talking to their chief, his great concern is for the people he represents, their lack of housing and the crowding on that Indian reserve. However we are talking about a national park, the Pacific Rim National Park, which many tourists visit and which I am sure will become a much more valuable part of our environment in the future. We also see that Parks Canada calls it one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Obviously, if it is one of the most beautiful spots on the planet, it is rather difficult to understand why we would be taking it away from a national park.

We then have this philosophical argument about what parks are and how we should be preserving them. We can also talk about the slippery slope that we are creating by taking this park out of existence. I do not think, if I were to speak to people in Halifax or in most parts of Canada, that they would understand or support that sort of a concept.

The real fault for this whole issue rests with the government. I will go through a bit of the chronology. Obviously the negotiations have stalled and have not gone ahead, and promises were made and broken.

The first time we were contacted as the official opposition was one day before the bill was introduced into the House. First reading was on March 26. Our first briefing on this whole concept was on March 25. As everyone can see, we had one day's notice. It was introduced into the House with no time to read what it was about or to get any background. The formal technical briefing for the bill was held on Tuesday, April 20, one day after the government sought unanimous consent for second reading on April 19. It received second reading in the House the day before the briefing occurred. This is a blatant abuse of what this Parliament should be about and it is an abuse of doing due diligence on a bill of this nature.

Carrying on with this abuse, the bill was sent to committee. The committee defeated a motion to call any witnesses, to hear any expert opinions or to hear what the people of the area thought about this. The motion was defeated in committee on April 26. Report stage of the bill was held on April 30, four days later. Here we are today after report stage on Friday and we are being asked to debate third reading, which the government will ram through.

What is the problem with that? It is not a matter of opposing the bill or the people or anything like that. It is the process that the government is using to ram this sort of bill through.

Future generations will want to know if Parliament did due diligence. They will want to know if Parliament checked with the people of the region. They will want to know if Parliament talked to Canadians about this issue. The answers to the questions, of course, will be no.

I have gone through the chronology for the House. We can see how blatant the whole process has been as far as the government is concerned. We have had no public hearings and no complete environmental impact study but here we are today being asked to approve this, vote on it and it is a done deal.

All of us in the House should take serious consideration of what we are about to do. We argue about the importance of having public hearings. What else are we here for other than to listen to the public and then carry out their will? I do not feel that this has been done on this bill. This bill is a promise in the dying days of this Parliament and it will be delivered. I know the government supports the bill and, in its normal dictatorial fashion, will ram it through and there it will be.

As the senior environment critic for the official opposition I want to have a clear conscience. I want to know what the rush is. We should make sure we do due diligence, that we ask the right questions and bring in the right witnesses. We should find out what local people think. Only after we have done all that should we support and move ahead with this bill.

I find it difficult sometimes to stand here and say that I want public hearings. As most members know, a number of us have attended government hearings and they are anything but always public. I will go back to my most famous example, the 14 Kyoto public hearings which had an invited guest list. No opposition members nor the media were allowed to attend. The only speakers were those on one side.

When I talk about public hearings I mean that we get out where the people are. We should go to Tofino and to places where this affects people and then let us look at the broader issues that affect parks.

What is there now to stop any group from simply saying, “All right, this national park is in the way of our development and so I think we should just take out a few hundred acres of this park and turn it into something else. Let us turn it into a nice summer village“. The government could decide down to road that if it we were to sell Banff or Jasper it could make a good profit.

This bill would set a precedent of being able to remove a national park from the status of being a national park. We would limit access to it and it would no longer become part of the public legacy that national parks are set out to be.

It is not so much that we oppose the dire situation that this band is in. It is just that the whole process has been one of lack of due diligence and lack of concern. I cannot say that enough times.

There are questions there. What does it mean that this understanding does not create legal, binding obligations on the parties? That is what it says in the bill. It sounds like we are going to do this but it is not legally binding. Would that not end up going to the courts and becoming another one of those huge expensive boondoggles in which the government gets involved?

It goes on to say:

Nothing in this Understanding is intended to, nor is interpreted so as to create, recognize, affirm, limit, abrogate, derogate or deny aboriginal rights, including title or treaty rights.

I have had that interpreted for me because that is lawyer's talk. It means that no land claims would be affected by this and that other land claims of the same nature could simply be brought forward. Bill C-28 does not stop nor does it in any way change that.

This could in the future become a precedent to be used by others in taking national parks out of existence and using them for something else. No matter what that other use will be or how good it will be, I do not believe we can justify the removal of national parks from their prescribed use for future generations.

As the environment critic I have great difficulty understanding the issues and the dire crisis of the people to support something that would do something like this.

[Earth Day, April 22nd, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to mark Earth Day.

I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Conservative Party ideas for a cleaner, healthier environment. It stands in contrast to the Liberal government's policy, whose only recent House initiative is to remove a portion of a treasured national park for a housing project.

Central to our policy is the understanding that scientific development, technological innovation and economic growth are essential for a cleaner, healthier and safer environment.

Environmental policy must be practical. It must balance competing social interests. It must minimize, harmonize and rationalize the overlapping laws and jurisdictions. It must recognize that provincial and territorial governments must play a role in federal environmental policy.

Canadians deserve cleaner air, land and water. They deserve a Conservative government which will help deliver it.

[Petitions, April 21st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by constituents in Red Deer.

The petitioners call upon Parliament to immediately hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[Canada National Parks Act, April 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, our technical briefing for Bill C-28 is tomorrow and at that time we will find out the details of the information and have the first opportunity to ask questions about it. Does the member think that is the way to proceed when we deal with bills like this?

The member talked about consultation having been adequate. I guess that means that he trusts the Liberal consultation. I do not trust that consultation and would rather give the committee the opportunity to do the consulting.

What are his feelings about the traditional hunting rights of first nations people where they would travel from central B.C. through to the Prairies through an area called the Howes Pass, which is now part of the Banff-Jasper National Park? I guess he would also agree that should be subject to a land claim and obviously we should support it in that national park. That is one example that I know of but there must be many others.

Are we not simply beginning something that we may have difficulty ending? I know we could use the case I mentioned as an example.

[Canada National Parks Act, April 19th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to make it clear that we are not opposing the bill but I do want to make some comments about the nature of how this is being presented and what we would like to see happen. The bill is at second reading and after second reading it will go to committee. In committee we will have the opportunity to ask the many questions that need to be asked about making a piece of park land part of a reserve. Just the thought of it philosophically would cause a lot of Canadians' ears to perk up and they would ask what we mean by taking a national park out of existence, particularly one located in such a critical part of British Columbia on the island, which so many tourists visit in a year.

We are talking about two things. As I have had it explained to me, we are talking about a surveying problem in Riding Mountain National Park. A surveying mistake was made some years ago and correcting that mistake is part of this parks bill. Obviously, from the information I have received from the authorities at Parks Canada, that makes sense. If a mistake was made, we should correct it. That is the first issue.

The other issue, which is more important, concerns the Pacific Rim National Park. It contains a very unique piece of topography on Vancouver Island and is visited by many people and in increasing numbers. The National Parks Act says that national parks are set aside for the enjoyment of people today and in the future, for our children, our grandchildren, and future generations. What is now being proposed is making 84 hectares of that park part of the Esowista reserve.

This requires very careful deliberation and a full understanding of what that issue really is. We have to ask, are we starting down a slippery slope? Across the country there must be many other national parks and parts of national parks that other groups would say should be taken away from the park for some other use. The first question we have to ask is how important is it to us that we maintain these national parks, that they stay forever, that they cannot be touched, that no one in the House or anywhere else can change that designation.

I also want to talk about the method by which this whole bill has been introduced. First of all, our office was contacted one day before the bill was tabled in the House. In fact, tomorrow is the technical briefing on which we base our decision to support or not support the bill. The technical briefing is tomorrow so that I can give the speech today. If that is not a blatant abuse of the parliamentary system, of me as the senior critic for the environment, of you, Mr. Speaker, of the entire House, I do not know what is.

As well we say that we have done consultations and we know that this or that group as was mentioned support it. I have to question that as well. I have been part of public hearings before. On Kyoto for example, 14 meetings were held across the country. The only problem was that only invited guests were allowed to attend. The media was not allowed to attend. The official opposition environment critic was not allowed to attend. Only after really pushing the issue, I received an invitation, provided that I did not talk. That is not public consultation.

Sending the bill to committee is obviously the right thing to do. In that committee we need to hear from people. We need to honestly find out what the public really thinks. Canadians need to be engaged in the issue if they care about parks and the Pacific Rim National Park, and only then should we proceed, instead of at the eleventh hour ramming it through the House.

We were asked to approve all readings of the bill in one day with no public hearings, no committee, nothing. We were asked to sit here and ram it through in one day. With the agenda we have been following here, I hardly see why at this point we should be willing to do that. It is not fair to future generations, if nothing else, let alone Canadians who enjoy that part of the world right now. That shows again the contempt the government has for this process. It wants to ram the bill through.

What would we hear if something went wrong or if some other groups got wind of this and found out we had rammed the bill through? Guess who would have been to blame for that. We all know who it would be. It would be the critic. It would be the official opposition who did not do due diligence in sending the bill to committee, holding public hearings, bringing in expert witnesses and maybe looking at the site so we are more familiar with it. Only then should an intelligent and informed decision be made in the House.

Let us look at the memorandum of understanding. Clause 9.1 states, “This understanding does not create legally binding obligations on the parties”. They are not legally binding on the government or on the reserve? What does that mean? If they are not legally binding, why are we debating this? What are we doing?

Does that mean the government could decide to take back that piece of park because it is not legally binding? Instead of some of the agreements that have been made with the reserve, could it decide to build a casino? A lot of tourists go there and there will be a lot more in the future. What does the statement, “This understanding does not create legally binding obligations on the parties” mean? We need to ask that question. We need to look at the legal aspects of signing something like that.

Clause 9.3 is a little disconcerting, too. It states, “Nothing in this understanding is intended to, nor is interpreted so as to create, recognize, affirm, limit, abrogate, derogate or deny aboriginal rights, including title or treaty rights”. What does that mean? Does it mean that this annexation will not be part of a future land claim? I think that is what it means, but why should it not be if in fact that is what it is?

Again that is a major question on which we need expert advice as to what it means. I think I know what it means, but for those of us who are not lawyers, what do those words mean and what are the implications in a court of law when someone challenges that particular piece of information?

It is also interesting that we heard it is appropriate that the bill is here today because of the conference that is going on. Twenty ministers over there are bragging about Bill C-28 and saying, “Look at what we did. We took away parts of two parks and we fixed the problem”. That is not the way to govern the country. That is a hodgepodge. That is a fly by night operation. Something as important to many Canadians as our national parks should not be treated that way. It is fine for them to list the groups that support it, but are there any opponents? There are no opponents listed.

Does no one oppose taking this park out of being a park? I can hardly believe that. During the many opportunities I have had to speak in a number of ridings in British Columbia, I cannot believe there is not one environmentalist somewhere who has said he or she wants the parks preserved.

I cannot believe it is the Conservative Party that is standing up for parks and the environment when it is the government that brags about it. We have a minister who constantly goes across the country saying that the sky is falling and that he cares, they care and they do this and that, but in reality, this country has only slipped in its environmental standing and in its care for the environment.

We hear lots of talk but we see no action. When we finally do get some action it seems to go totally contrary to these preservers of the environment, these caretakers of the future generations that we hear Liberals talk about.

I could go on and talk about the details of the bill but I obviously am not able to do that at this point because we will be having the technical briefing tomorrow. After the technical briefing tomorrow we may have a lot more technical information that we could talk about when the bill comes back. At this point let us send it off to committee where it can be examined. The committee will do what is right and then make a decision on what Canadians want us to do on this bill.

[Petitions, March 31st, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition from my constituents in Red Deer. The petitioners call upon Parliament to immediately hold a renewed debate on the definition of marriage and to take all necessary steps to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, a crisis occurred over a year ago and people in my constituency were affected as much or more than anyone else. Young farmers were trying to make a go of it, and they needed to know that a plan was in place. They needed encouragement. They did not need to hear bad mouthing of the Americans. They did not need to hear all of the stuff that went on in this place. They needed a plan so they could get their lives in order.

It is too late now. Many of the cow-calf operators sold their calves in November because the price was a little higher. They are not going to get anything. Many people have cows and bulls that are old and would normally have been replaced. They are not getting anything. Much of the money already budgeted never went out to farmers. Some did go out to some people, but much of it did not.

There is not much hope out in cattle country. Our only hope is our premier who has been to Washington and has talked to the Americans about opening the border in May. If that happens, Shirley McCLellan, the Alberta agriculture minister, will deserve a lot of credit along with the premier.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious what has happened here. We have created more conflict within the military. We should be sending a message to these men and women that we care about them and want them to do their jobs as best they can. We should be telling them that they are our ambassadors to the world. What we are in effect doing by singling out one group over another group is simply creating conflict.

I agree with the member that we should be taking care of them. Let us show some commitment and some vision. Let us ask Canadians what they want our military to do so they can do it the best they can. Let us finance them the best that we can. Let us give them the best equipment. Let us take care of their tax situation as an incentive.

I have been with our troops in both Haiti and Bosnia. I have been with them in many of these conflict situations. It is a tough job. They are doing a wonderful job as they build schools and hospitals and so on. We need to reward them for doing that. I do agree with the member.

[The Budget, March 29th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak on the budget today. Back at home, I attended banquets this weekend. I certainly heard an awful lot about the government, about the budget, and about what it is doing. People are disgusted. They said “Bob, you told us what Mr. Martin would be like. You compared him to John Turner and Kim Campbell, that he would be about the same, a huge disappointment”. It has borne true.

If we go back to his budget statement of 1995, the then finance minister said that the government had just introduced a new and much tighter system to manage its spending. If we go to his 1996 budget, he said that if there was one area where we must never let up, it was to root out waste and inefficiency. Then in 1998 he said that the battle to root out waste and inefficiency could never end.

The Prime Minister has totally failed in rooting out much of anything. Obviously, the whole responsibility issue is just not there. We have Mr. Gagliano saying that he did not know anything. We have the Prime Minister saying that he did not know anything and did not know what was happening. David Dingwall, the former public works minister, knew nothing. Mr. Chrétien of course is not responsible.

Is this about going after little guys? What about these big guys who are supposed to be responsible? People in my riding say that they should be responsible and fess up to exactly what they knew and when they knew it.

The chief of staff for the former finance minister, Terrie O'Leary, and the minister's legislative assistant, Karl Littler, said that in 1996 the finance minister knew there were problems in some of these departments and programs. The buck should stop there. That is where the responsibility is and this budget does nothing to address that.

Let us look at the other areas that it does not address. First of all, health care. Yes, the government is giving $2 billion, but does it have a vision? I suggest that it does not. It budgeted $665 million for the Canadian public health agency. To me, that says bureaucracy. We are going to have another whole bureaucratic organization. Will that help the waiting lists? Will that help our medical students who are underfunded? Will it help the infrastructure and the universities? Will it help to train specialists? Will it help in the emergency rooms? I say it will not.

The government again has failed Canadians in what Canadians see as the most important issue to them, and that is health care for themselves and their families.

What about education? The students at Red Deer College tell me that they are going deeper and deeper into debt. Tuition fees are rising. Infrastructure is decaying. Professors are getting older. We lose 22,000 graduate students a year in the brain drain.

As the House has heard many times, my own family has been forced to teach at universities outside the country. That is what is happening here. The budget does not address that.

It does not address the problems of those students who are trying to get their education. As the infrastructure collapses around them, the government has no interest in that, even though it claims that it does.

What about the debt? The NDP says that we should not deal with the debt, that it is not a problem. The reality is that we will be spending $12.7 billion in the next two years more than what we are spending now. How does that equate? Right now we spend $97.8 million a day on interest payments. That breaks down to $1,135.42 per second on interest payments for which we get no social programs, and for which we get absolutely nothing. The debt must be dealt with. This budget does little to do that.

On national defence, which is our pride, and the young men and women who are defending our country, what did we give them? Basically nothing. Do we as Canadians want them to do their job? Yes, we do.

We want them to be the very best and have the best equipment. We do not want them sent out there in the wrong coloured uniforms with 40 year old equipment. It is embarrassing. I have talked in the House about seeing them in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Haiti, and seeing that old equipment that they are forced to use. In many cases it has even become life threatening.

Getting back to education, I checked out the promises that were made. In 1998-99 the government promised an extra $100 million in spending; it actually spent $73 million. In 1999 it promised $100 million and it spent $83 million. In one of the government's poorest years, it promised $120 million in 2001-02 and spent $67 million. This is not dedication to our troops or dedication to our students. Basically, the government has failed on all counts.

Let us go on and look at the tax situation. Why are we losing companies? Why are we losing many of our best trained people? Imagine people right now writing their cheques to Revenue Canada at a time when they see this place as a culture of corruption, where their dollars are being wasted by every department. Obviously, it is not very conducive to sending one's cheque to the government.

Agriculture received $1 billion. The farmers in my constituency are asking where the government has been for the last year and a half. It is too little, too late. They needed to have those borders opened. Instead of going and talking about the case in Washington, the Prime Minister has been touring the country from city to city on the taxpayers' dough, trying to build up his election profile. The farmers in my region certainly do not believe that the Prime Minister really cares about them very much.

Let us get to environment. I looked for a lot of things there as the senior environment critic. I did not see anything on invasive species. The Americans have three pieces of legislation; we have none. I did not see anything on smog control. I saw nothing on the international clean air treaty, nothing on the Great Lakes, and nothing on aquifer mapping. These are the issues that the people out there care about and this budget did not deal with them.

There is no vision. If we want a vision for the environment, it has to be long term. It has to go for 50 years if we really want to take care of our environment. We have an environment minister who runs around like chicken little saying the sky is falling, but there is nothing in this budget about that either. We have 8 out of 10 provinces now having serious doubts about the targets. I met with industry on Thursday and they said nothing is happening on the Kyoto file. Industry cannot achieve its 55 megatonnes targets and the government is just blowing smoke and has no plan.

Regarding the one tonne challenge, we have a beautiful brochure and we have some boy scouts changing light bulbs. It is a lot more serious than that to deal with climate change. I am saying we should deal with it, but I question the way the minister is doing it.

The battle goes on in their own caucus, where we have one minister saying that he is going to go after the automobile companies because they will not increase their fuel efficiency, and another minister saying, “No way, that is mine”. There is a turf war and nothing about the real environment.

The sale of Petro-Canada is a joke. We are going to get $3 billion and $1 billion will go to the whole environment package. We are only going to get $200 million now, and that $200 million is going to be at arm's length run by a Liberal friend. We were going to end all of that. And so it goes.

Yes, we should deal with contaminated sites, but we should prioritize them and come up with a plan.

Where is the support for alternate energy, transitional fuels, wind and solar power, and all of those things?

In conclusion, I am embarrassed by this budget. There is no vision, there is no enthusiasm, and there is no excitement. It is a tired old government, status quo. The public had such hope, but now that hope is gone because of the sponsorship scandal and all the other scandals.

The Prime Minister said he would help municipalities, the military, children, firemen, aboriginals, students and health care. He has done absolutely nothing. It is time for a change.

[National Volunteer Week, March 24th, 2004]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today to congratulate the residents of Red Deer in advance of National Volunteer Week.

Red Deer has a long, proud history of volunteerism. Our community alone has over 18,000 volunteers.

Volunteers made this year's Scott Tournament of Hearts the smashing success it was. Organizers turned away as many volunteers as they actually needed.

The Board of Governors at Red Deer College are an example of the great volunteers we have. That makes it a true community college. The activities of the board have seen a new library completed and many other community activities organized.

We have had the World Junior Hockey championships. We sell 50-50 tickets at the Red Deer Rebel games. The Festival of Trees is a great success. We have manning the phones for the annual jail and bail fundraiser. Those are just a few of the things that the residents of Red Deer do. They always come out in force to make this truly a paradise in which to live.

Red Deer is certainly the city of volunteers.