Bob Mills

[India, May 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that is good enough. That just sounds like more Liberal rhetoric, protecting ministers of the past, Liberal governments that decided to export this technology. It is just not good enough for the minister to answer this way.

What kind of responsibility is this government going to take and what kind of leadership is it going to show to the world?

[India, May 12th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, experts and foreign governments are saying that without Canadian technology the Indian nuclear program would not be where it is today.

It is time that the Liberals took some responsibility for the proliferation of this nuclear technology. What is this government going to do besides what many other countries have done in terms of our ambassador? What is this government going to do in the G-8, in the Commonwealth to stop this proliferation of nuclear material?

[Justice, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in this House some 13 months ago I asked the former justice minister about a nine time convicted pedophile who was released into my riding. The experts said he would reoffend. I asked the minister what would I tell the parents of the 10th victim. The minister said that we have new legislation which will prevent an offending pedophile from ever doing this again.

On Friday I met with the father of the 10th victim, a five year old girl.

I would like to know from the present justice minister what sort of an excuse she is going to have—

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Yes, I am. I would like to call quorum.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, we certainly had some confusion before I was allowed to speak. I guess at one point I was lamenting the fact that I would not have many people to speak to and now we have quite a government crowd listening to my presentation. I am really pleased that the government is taking so much interest in this issue and that I have such a large group to speak to.

I am talking about this group of motions, but it is something much bigger than that. This whole Bill C-19 is something that all government members here should be aware of. What we are really talking about is a situation that will impact on us as Canadians in the 21st century in an international way.

As the House knows I have great interest in the international community and in how well Canada is doing. We often put ourselves out as number one. The United Nations ranks us as number one, which is all well and good, but when we travel extensively throughout the world we begin to realize that we are falling behind.

We are falling behind the world in a number of areas. One of these areas relates to Bill C-19. It is in our competitiveness, our transportation network and our ability for sales in something as valuable as grain and other commodities.

The crowd continues to build in the government ranks. Obviously they are very interested in what I have to say.

In the globalization of the world, three major trading blocs are developing: the European Union; the Americas, and all the hope we have for that; and southeast Asia. We have to look at how globalization relates to the actual situation of our labour and that valuable resource this country has.

We have a very highly trained and skilled workforce. We have a good education system. However, as I pointed out, we are falling behind in the world because we are failing to compete as well. We are failing to be conscious of productivity, of making our industries the most productive they can possibly be. We are not keeping up the standard of quality control that we require. Most of all, we are not being seen any more as a reliable supplier of products such as our agricultural products.

The effect of prolonged strikes on our ability to be reliable marketers in the world cannot be imagined until we talk to Japanese merchants or Chinese purchasers that want to buy malt barley from us. We start to realize the problem when Japanese shipowners ask how we would like to have a ship that has been booked for months and months sitting idle in a port for 30, 40 or 50 days. The ship was to make another shipment down the road yet it was sitting there. It is all about transportation. It is all about our ability to deliver. It is all about reliability.

We have to start thinking about these things. This place must get off its old line of working in a vacuum, that Canada is the greatest, that Canada is number one, and start thinking about how we are to compete in the 21st century. That is where Bill C-19 becomes such a important bill.

This group of amendments and the previous groups of amendments come down to democratization and what it means to Canadians. We need to talk about this board. We need to ask ourselves if this is the modern way to approach the problems I have identified. Is this the best way to deal with the situation?

Our motion in Group No. 7 talks about having unions involved only when they can get employees to sign union certification cards at a level of 35%. That is not very high and that is not really democracy, but at least it is a long way from where we are now. The amendments in Group No. 2 proposed by our party will help to bring democracy, accountability and to build a system that is transparent, acceptable and competitive to take care of the problem respecting our ability to deal in the global market.

We must look at this board. We must ask who should be on it. As a number of previous speakers have indicated, who do we expect will show up on a board like this one? If we follow the traditional status quo of dealing with boards we know who will be there. We know they will have to be fundraisers or retired or defeated candidates. They will have to be somebody with connections to be on this board. Is that what gives us the transparent and functional board that our businessmen and farmers want to have in the 21st century? I do not think so.

I will tell a story to point out what I mean. I attended the APEC conference in Vancouver as the foreign affairs critic for our party. I was at a function where most government officials from the various countries were present. At my table was a defeated Liberal candidate who had been given a two day junket to Vancouver as his reward for having run and been defeated by the Liberal Party.

At this very important meeting there were officials from various countries. At our table was a representative from New Guinea. Our illustrious representative of the government asked some very important questions of this delegate from Papua, New Guinea. He said “You are from Papua. There is no such name as that. What a silly name that is”. That is where that delegate lives; that is his country; that is where he is from.

He thought it was quite a funny name and quite silly. Then he went on to say “I thought this was just for people who were from Asia. I did not know you could belong to APEC and not be from Asia. What are you doing here? You don't look Asian”. Was this is a diplomatic thing to say to this man from Papua, New Guinea? He really was not impressed at that point and looked at our representative and said “Canada is a member of APEC as well”.

These are the types of people the government appoints to boards. They end up on committees representing Canadians. This does not allow us to become productive. This does not allow us to become competitive. This does nothing for us in the international community.

When we look at these motions, at Bill C-19 and the huge government turnout that came to hear this message, I just have to be impressed. I want to close at this point and think it would only be fitting to ask for quorum so that some of the members who were not here might come in to catch the last word or two.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I had been recognized as the next speaker and of course other events happened. I was on my feet.

[Bosnia, April 28th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to talk about Bosnia again; it seems to happen every six months or so.

I believe Canadians have a lot of questions about our involvement in Bosnia. Everywhere I go people ask me to explain why we should be there. They ask questions about the history of Bosnia. They ask if it is a civil war, whether it has been going on for a long time, what it is really like there and what the people are really like there. They deserve answers to some of these questions.

I like the two ministers who have just spoken have been there. I have been on the ground, visited the people and taken pictures. I changed my point of view many times because of what I observed firsthand on the ground. This is an opportunity to express that and to get it on the record. I will take this opportunity to answer some of those questions.

It has been going on for a long time. We could go back to Roman times when they were fighting in this area. We could go back to the Ottoman empire when there was fighting in this area. We could talk about the involvement of many countries, of Russia, of Germany, of Greece, of France and of Britain. There has been much involvement. There is a history there. There was the first world war and Archduke Ferdinand. We could talk about the Nazi occupation. Then we could talk about Tito and his rule until 1980 when he died.

Then we come to current history and to 1991. Two of the strongest parts of Yugoslavia, which had been held together by Tito, decided to opt for independence. When Croatia and Slovenia decided to separate it was the beginning of the modern day problems that would occur in this part of the world.

There is a history there. There is a history of turmoil and of trouble. At this point there is also Canadian involvement first with the UN forces. We were one of the first countries to be involved. I like the others would say that I saw nothing but dedication and great Canadians working with the people of Bosnia-Hercegovina.

I was proud to be a Canadian and to see the Canadian flag on the tanks when they came around the corner. That made me proud as a Canadian. Talking to some of our troops made me even prouder. They told me about the little kids they had helped, the schools they had reconstructed and that sort of thing. That was real. That was something we could feel, touch and look at.

Many people thought at that point that Kosovo would have been the next place to explode but instead it was Bosnia. That is all history.

The 1995 Dayton accord supposedly ended the conflict. When I went there as an election observer on the ground last September I had the opportunity to see how the Dayton accord would work. I will use my province as an example.

It was like if during the war all the people from Red Deer had been moved to Saskatoon. Then the Dayton accord came along and said to the people in Saskatoon that in 1991 they lived in Red Deer so they should vote for the mayor and the council in Red Deer. However they lived in Saskatoon. People of a different ethnicity mix and of a different religion now lived in Red Deer and had to vote for the mayor and the council in Red Deer. Because of problems like the ones we just witnessed occurring there some of the people from Saskatoon decided to go back to Red Deer. That is why there is a problem.

How will that create peace? There is a built in conflict because the people who designed the Dayton accord were in Dayton, Ohio, and did not take into consideration the emotion, religion or ethnic mix there.

Yes they are all of Slavic background but they are of three religious backgrounds. There are Muslims, there are Orthodox and there are Catholics. It is very different and they feel very strongly and are very emotional. In Drvar when the Croats attacked the Serbs who were returning home it can be seen why. That is going to continue and continue.

I wanted to find out what it was really like in that country so I hired a translator and a car and off we went to cover Bosnia. I visited schools. I visited mosques. I visited churches. I visited community halls. I talked to farmers. I went to bars. I went everywhere the people were and I talked to them.

Probably one of the most emotional feelings I got occurred when I talked to a group of kids who were 10 to 11 years old. I asked them to tell me how they felt about their country. I have pages of their comments but I will quote only a couple which I think say a lot. Remember that these kids are 10 and 11 years old.

They said they could not relax or run freely because there are mines everywhere. That is what Bosnia-Hercegovina is like now. Mines are everywhere. We found mines under Coke tins. The bottom was cut out of the Coke tin and a plastic mine was inside. It was placed on a picnic table, there for someone to pick up. Boom. In cobs of corn, on the sides of roads, there are mines. There are millions of these mines everywhere. Imagine living in that sort of an environment.

“When I see my friend without a leg or a hand it makes me very sad”. “I cannot wait to grow up”. “Suddenly there was heat. My sister fell over me. Something exploded. There was smoke. There were screams. Rivers of blood. I saw both my parents dead. I called them but they did not respond. When I wanted a drink of water I saw a head without a body. Since then me and my sister cannot sleep at night”. That is what the kids of Bosnia-Hercegovina are going through.

What about the people? The people are well educated. They are handsome, good looking people. They are friendly. They are concerned about families, about school, about education, the same things we are. Yet there is something there that is different. That something is a level of history and hate I have never experienced before.

I could talk to someone and they would tell me about a war and they described it as though it were yesterday. One person told me about a war that happened in 1536 when the Ottoman Turks were there. Another person told me about when the Nazis came in 1943. It was as if it were yesterday. That is why they hate their neighbour. Because their neighbour was involved with that action and it has been regurgitated and regurgitated and everybody remembers it as if it were yesterday. They are handicapped by their history.

I will never forget the little old lady who had gone for a loaf of bread. I asked if I could take her picture. She had a beautiful face. Her face was stressed and strained and I thought of what it had seen. She said she had to go home and change her dress so I could take a picture of her with her loaf of bread. I convinced her finally that I could take her picture without her actually changing her dress.

I will never forget the old fellow who at a polling station said “You are from Canada”. He asked me if I knew how to make slivovitz. That is plum brandy. “Come to my basement and I will show you”. He was so proud. His was the best in the community. I was also advised not to drink any of it as a person could go blind. This was a real guy. He was proud of this. He was a real person, someone that makes you say how can there be such hate here? These people have such emotions, such feelings, such beauty.

In the countryside as well. It is like Switzerland. The only problem is it is full of mines. We drove through some of the valleys. The houses are destroyed. The fields are mined. The graves are in the ditches. There are no birds singing in the fields. Not having lived through a war, experiencing this firsthand on the ground in a car with a driver and a translator was quite an experience.

Should we stay in Bosnia-Hercegovina? We have several options. We could leave. We could simply leave, saying that it is a long war, that it is going to be like Cyprus and might last forever. What are the problems if we do that? My feeling is that if we were to leave at 12 noon by 12.30 there would be a full fledged war again.

What would that mean? It would mean the potential of expansion. The Turks are not prepared to see Muslims die. The Russians are not prepared to see Serbs die. The Germans are not prepared to see Croats die. The Albanians and the Greeks and the Macedonians. The list goes on and on of possible future expansion of warfare in this area. Kosovo is the exact same example. What will Greece do? What will Turkey do? There are so many people involved.

If we leave, what about the CNN factor? What about the killing we would watch on our televisions? Are we prepared to do that?

These are hard questions. These are questions we need to ask as we contemplate this decision.

Another choice would be to divide the country into three units and say this is where the Serbs will be, this is where the Croats will be and this is where the Bosnians will be. I guess that is called ethnic cleansing but I do not know that that is acceptable or possible. Certainly it is not something we would be prepared to talk about.

Our third option is a short term plan in which we would do something which I consider to be so typically Liberal. That would be to simply extend our mandate and not really propose a solution. It is similar to saying that the financial problem has been solved even though there is a $583 billion debt, but it is all solved because we balanced the budget.

My colleague is going to address the sustainability and what are the costs to our troops.

I will put forward a fourth option tonight and hopefully the minister will get a chance to read it. That option would be to show some leadership in developing a long term solution, a plan. I am not saying I have all the answers. I am not saying how we would handle the refugee return or the war criminals. However we need to have something longer than six-month intervals. I cannot help but remember standing in the lobby in this House when the former defence minister said “We will be out of there by Christmas; there is no chance we will be there beyond Christmas”. That was in 1996.

We need to look at something bigger. We need to talk about costs, about mandates, about responsibility, about length of stay, about a plan. I would like to see this government take some initiative, do some planning, show something beyond a six-month window in a problem like this one.

I cannot stand up here and say we should not stay there. I can now put a face on Bosnia-Hercegovina. It means people. It means caring. It means that little man and his slivovitz. It means school kids. However, we must do something better than simply say that the Dayton accord is going to do it all. It is not the answer and I have given just a brief insight into why it is not.

Finally, as far as the take note debate is concerned, I guess I was naive when I first came here. One of the first speeches I gave in this House was on Bosnia-Hercegovina. Did I ever work hard to prepare that speech because I thought it really was part of the decision making.

However, it was announced yesterday by the defence minister that we are staying on for at least another six months. It is already news. We are not informing anybody about anything. I think the huge turnout here demonstrates how many people are really interested in the take note debate. We are here so the government in a week's time can say “We had a full fledged debate on Bosnia and every party had a chance to speak. We debated the issue and came up with this decision. This is democracy”.

I put to the House that tonight may be the wrong night to talk about democracy when we have just gone through what we went through with a 15 year old boy being removed by our guards, I hope not to jail. We saw the vote on hepatitis C. I feel somewhat like a hypocrite to the Canadian people when I say I am here to try to make a difference about Bosnia-Hercegovina because I want to make a difference. I want to help the people of Bosnia-Hercegovina. How do we get a government that does not involve us to hear us? That is a plea I guess for the democratization of Canada. We need that.

I have a lot of disgust for this kind of procedure. Yes it is on the record, but I wish the minister could hear it or would read it.

In conclusion let us come up with a plan. Let us talk about the big picture. Let us not just do what makes us feel good. Let us show some leadership and be part of the decision making process. Let us talk about the cost of lives and the suffering. Let us really make a difference to the people of Bosnia-Hercegovina.

[Division No. 112, March 25th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, before I talk about the budget implementation legislation, I must put on the record how upsetting it is to have the 38th time allocation motion moved by this government. It has done this 38 times. It used to be done once and literally a government would be gone at the next election because of it. Thirty-eight times. It is pretty hard to explain to our constituents that we were not given an opportunity to speak because this government used time allocation.

There is a lot of deception in this budget. Liberals are talking about the golden age, the financial problem being all taken care of and the great auditing that has been done. Yet the auditor general deplores the methods used by the finance minister.

We seem to have conveniently forgotten about the debt. In 1969 our debt was zero. In just three years it quickly went to $18 billion. In 1993 our debt was $489 billion. Today it is $583 billion. That is the thing we should be talking about. That is what the people say we should take care of. That is what is threatening our social safety net. That is what is threatening our health, education and pensions. That is what is going to hurt our future generations more than anything else. This government chooses to ignore that and begin more spending.

The tax and spend concept does not take into consideration what is happening in the world around us. We do not hear from the other side any mention at all of the potential Asian meltdown or what effect that might have on this country and how we should be so cautious to take care of that potential rainy day that might be down the road.

Look at a country like Indonesia with 200 million people with a 60% drop in its economy. People are unemployed. People are literally on the streets because they have lost their sources of income. Rice prices have gone up time after time. Japan has an overextended bank situation. In Korea people are literally bringing their gold to the government to try to get themselves out of this crisis.

This is the kind of thing that this government should be taking into consideration in putting forward its budget. It has absolutely no consideration about the world in which we live.

In B.C. we see the beginning of what will be potential implications for all businesses. What businesses need most is a drop in taxation so they can plan to counter what those potential dark clouds might be. What happens when cheap competitive products come on the market? What happens when there is less purchasing power in some of those Asian economies? That is going to effect the U.S. economy. When it gets a cold we get pneumonia. This government has totally abrogated its responsibilities in planning for that future.

Look at the figures regarding our debt. Our interest payment is $45 billion. That interest payment is equivalent to other figures that should be considered, close to $12 billion of federal money for health care, $14 billion for education, $22 billion for pensions. Our interest adds up to more than all those payments put together and yet this government totally ignores that debt and that interest payment.

In 1993 when a number of us came to this place the taxes brought in about $125 billion. By the year 2000 that figure will be $173 billion that this government is taking in. Some of that is due to growth but a great deal of that is due to increased taxation. We are falling behind other places in this world. All you have to do is go around to different places to realize that our economy is dropping. Our expendable income is dropping. We are not the same country we were 10 or 20 years ago. This government by its high taxes and spending and by the kind of budget that we just saw is doing nothing to deal with that problem.

Look at our dollar. Just try to travel using the Canadian dollar and see where we are now in the world's economy.

This government had choices. It could deal with the debt and the problems it brings. I could have dealt with the taxes and brought them down which would have meant jobs and a great increase in our well-being in this country. Or it could have dealt with spending. It chose the third option. It chose to increase spending and to forget about the debt and let it take care of itself by this mythical dream that so many of these governments have about growth taking care of the problems. It never has and it never will. By raising taxes as this government has done it has done nothing to help improve the job situation for our young people.

The Liberals had a choice and they chose to ignore the debt. They chose to keep taxes the highest in the G-7 countries and they chose to start spending.

If we start to look at some of that spending it is shocking: Canadian opportunities strategies, $4.6 billion in increased spending; the millennium fund, which we hear about over and over again, a couple of billion dollars; Canadian culture, $440 million. That is pretty scary when we think of what has been spent on things like, dare I mention, the flag issue, $24 million to hand out flags and we know what happened in this place. Are there savings we could make?

The patronage appointments that constantly go on with this government, the waste that occurs here, the total desire to maintain the status quo and not change anything in this place are why we are in so much trouble.

What does this mean to us as Canadians? The saddest part is that all of this inactivity regarding the debt, regarding the taxes, is going to affect the next generation. It is going to affect the kids and grand kids of most of the people in here, and even further than that. Those are the people who are going to have to finally face up to $583 billion, to 30 cents plus of every dollar going to interest payments. That is what a future government is going to have to face.

This government should be embarrassed by the budget that has been put forward and by all the bragging about the golden age, that we have our financial problems taken care of, that we have nothing more to worry about. People out there are not stupid. People out there know that is not true. Far and away the biggest number of people out there are saying take care of that debt. In surveys which have been done, and it does not matter whether they are done in Quebec or Alberta or B.C., people have said that.

This government chose not to listen. I believe that as Canadians digest what is in this budget there will be a reaction. That reaction will not be favourable to the finance minister or to this government.

[Liberal Party, March 24th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal patronage list goes on: the 1988 Liberal candidate and long time riding president of Brome—Missisquoi; a former Quebec Liberal MP and past president of Quebec Liberals; the wife of a former B.C. Liberal president who was herself a twice defeated candidate; the Prime Minister's former law partner and chief fundraiser in the 1984 campaign; the former Liberal Party president and 1970 Liberal MP; the Liberal president for Quebec East, 1990-91; the Prime Minister's 1984 Manitoba campaign leader; failed Liberal candidate in 1993 and former riding president in Abitibi; former president of Moose Jaw—Lake Centre Liberal Riding Association; the Prime Minister's leadership co-ordinator for Atlantic Canada in 1990; a former Liberal cabinet minister; the former Liberal riding president for Labrador; the defeated 1993 Liberal candidate in Mission—Coquitlam; and the list goes on and on.

[Income Tax Amendments Act, 1997, March 23rd, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the major points that I think need to be made were made by the member for Medicine Hat and the member for Calgary Southeast. However, I cannot help but comment on what the last member, the member for Palliser, mentioned when he said that Saskatchewan was one of the few places that had put all its money back into health care.

My mother happens to live in Saskatchewan. I left Saskatchewan around the medicare issue. Certainly the complaints I have heard on returning to Saskatchewan indicate something quite different from what the hon. member just told the House.

The key issue is the fact that the federal government has cut 30% plus from health care transfers to the provinces. While it has done that it has kind of hid under a rock when it comes to taking any credit for the cuts in health care and has left it totally to the provinces to bear. I will not say whose responsibility that is, but Canadians should be aware of the fact that this federal government cut those massive amounts of dollars.

The reality we need to be aware of—and certainly they tell us this every time we meet—is that our constituents are extremely concerned about health care. They want the very best of health care for themselves and their families. We would be missing the boat if we did not take that message to heart and did not seriously look at what we should be doing to maintain and improve our health care system.

No matter whom we talk to, they would agree that the health care system was in desperate need of reform. There were too many hospitals. There were too many duplications of services, too many boards and too many extremes in the health care system. It did need some major reform.

The bottom line is that in creating that system the people closest to the system know what they want. They know the standards they want and they should be the ones to make that determination.

We had better get on record as mentioning that the biggest threat to our health care and our social programs is the $45 billion interest payment we waste every year. While we will spend $12 billion plus on health care this year, we will spend $14 billion on education and $22 billion on pensions. We do not get any services for the $45 billion in interest payments. Until the government recognizes and deals with that we will not solve that social problem.

We must also look at how to fix the health care system. The bottom line is not that we spend more money. We need to reorganize our spending and all the waste that occurs in Ottawa. That would provide lots of money to fix the health care system.

I would propose to the House and to the provincial governments that would be delivering this service that they involve health care providers.

On a fairly frequent basis I meet with nurses in my constituency who tell me the sorts of things that are wrong with the health care system. They know as they are delivering that service on a daily basis. I also meet with doctors in the constituency. They know exactly what is wrong and exactly what needs to be fixed. The most important people of all, the grassroots people, also know what they want and what they want the health care system to deliver.

Rather than asking the federal government to do this, we should let health care givers as well as the people receiving the service be involved.

The feds cannot expect to control the health care system when it gives less than 20% of the funds. They cannot control the system if they do not provide the money. It is a matter of put up or shut up and a matter of opposing this amendment because we do not need more federal involvement. We need to get the provinces and the people receiving the service involved.

In conclusion, health care is the number one issue. I think all of us agree with that. Getting the very best health care is what we should be concerned about. In terms of who can deliver that, I am putting to this House that it is the actual care givers in the community, the provincial responsibility and the people who are getting the service who will make it all happen.