Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was community.

Last in Parliament November 2005, as Conservative MP for New Westminster—Coquitlam (B.C.)

Lost his last election, in 2011, with 36% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Supply May 18th, 2005

Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with our immigration critic.

Change begins with the recognition that a problem exists and what I have heard often tonight is that the minister is often a system defender rather than being the helpful change agent that I would really like to hear him be.

We have consumers, applicants or whatever we want to call them who pay a lot of money and yet they still have to adjust to the administrative system. Therefore people serve the system or the bureaucracy, instead of the other way around, where we are trying to serve people. We have that data in my constituency office and in every constituency office across the country.

I remember talking to the former minister of citizenship and immigration when she first was going to be appointed. She was very optimistic about what she could do as a minister because she had a constituency office in an urban riding with a high percentage of immigrants. She said that the work in the constituency office was something like 90% immigration. So she was very sensitized to that.

What happened to her and my conversations with her as the time changed and the senior administrators got hold of her and began to say that she could not do this and could not do that? Her optimism and her commitment to change seemed to disappear.

Eighty per cent of the work in my constituency office is immigration related. I certainly do not troll for it or ask for it but it is an expectation. People are knocking on the door and I see myself as the ombudsman of last resort. We try to get people to communicate with the department but in so many cases the department just cannot communicate with its own clients. It is a bureaucracy, as I said in my opening comments, which people who have to be served by this system cannot interact with.

We know it is certainly an overly complex system. We put in a new regime of legislation just a few years ago and we are still working the bugs out. I think the experience we are having with that new legislation needs to be adjusted because it really is not serving people the way I would like to see it.

Was it not the present minister who said publicly that if only he could become the immigration minister he would make the changes? I recall hearing those words from him. The talk around here was that he wanted to become the immigration minister and it was reported in the press. I am hoping that with that energy the immigration minister will begin delivering on this kind of system change and be the system change agent.

I am wondering if he will abandon the quota system. What quotas? We have all kinds of quotas and they are quotas by resources. It is often very discriminatory.

I have watched a succession of ministers and it just does not seem that the system improves, even though there is always a new program, a new review and now I hear about a six point plan.

If, in some circumstances, the department is shutting the door, it should do it honestly. Quit selling tickets on the airplane when the airplane is already full, is the example in that case. We are still advertising and saying that we are an open society and we want immigrants to come here but we do not have the resources or the capacity to deliver what we are saying to the international community. We take the people's money but we do no process the file.

I do not want to malign the department. I think the people are doing the best they can but we have observed a lack of administrative leadership and there are real problems.

What I have heard from the minister tonight so far is that everything is fine, that perhaps we can do a little better if we work just a little harder, we have a six point plan and all the rest of it. We have heard that all before.

My other colleague became a little excited and emotional in his comments but that represents a real concern that we want the minister and the department to succeed because if they do then Canada succeeds. Ministers and governments come and go but the department will there. Canada will still have an open face to the world and we need to do better than what we have been doing.

I will try and ask him a couple of specific questions. In view of the independent applicants, for instance, the lineup at Beijing, what is the current waiting list number? How long does it take for an applicant in Beijing to get the first interview? By when will the department resource that location, so that applicants will receive an interview within one year of the application?

I know that we are way off that standard at this point, but I am specifically asking about Beijing and the time limits. What is the backlog and how long will it take to get it down to the one year limit as it relates to getting an interview in Beijing?

Budget Implementation Act, 2005 May 18th, 2005

Madam Speaker, the gentleman is confused. Unfortunately he continues to live and breathe this socialist literature which is full of myths.

The Conservative plan needs to be carefully explained and tested at the ballot box. The socialists always come up with these hare-brained ideas but they would never dare put those individual programs to the test at the ballot box.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005 May 18th, 2005

Madam Speaker, I think it is the Liberals who do not want an election. What they have done is most unseemly. They have made all kinds of unrealistic promises and then attached a threat. We have tried to respond to that in the media by saying that any signed contract that has the name of Canada behind it will be honoured by us.

We need an election. The member does not understand the concept of responsible government. He does not understand that a government must have the ongoing confidence of the House. He does not understand that when the government loses the votes that it did, it is required to put a simple straightforward confidence motion before the House immediately. The government has failed to do that. That is my point about the illegitimacy of the government.

The role of Parliament is to approve budgets. Governments may propose budgets, but Parliament as an independent entity must finally vote on the appropriation. What we intend to do here is to vote for the appropriations that are realistic. The government should have negotiated with the Conservatives, the official opposition. It should not have gone to the NDP.

Budget Implementation Act, 2005 May 18th, 2005

Madam Speaker, Bill C-43 is an act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 23, 2005. However I am critical of it because, in the usual Liberal fashion, parts of it sound good but it falls short of the goodness it could have been.

For example, right off the top, printed in the summary of the bill is the following:

Part 1 amends the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Application Rules to

(a) increase the amount that Canadians can earn tax free...

That sounds good but when the calculation is done, the average person would benefit from that provision by about $16 for the whole year, about the cost of taking the kids to McDonald's once. The Liberals give the kids a happy meal and in exchange they want to be kept in power and thanked for their benevolence to us all.

In this bill we are rightly concerned with the Liberal approach to this country's finances: spending without a plan; the Kyoto measures in Bill C-43; the wasteful potentials in Bill C-48, which is about the misguided and hurtful NDP; and the $25 billion in spending announcements in the last few weeks. This irresponsible fiscal approach will hurt families, children, seniors, government workers and new Canadians.

However there are some initiatives in Bill C-43 which Conservatives support and will implement if we form the government, such as the Atlantic accord, better tax relief, gas tax money for municipalities, RRSP initiatives, increases to seniors' pensions, et cetera.

However this bill must be looked at in the context of the overall Liberal-NDP budget. The Liberals have mixed some policies of going in the right direction with initiatives that would prove hurtful to the well-being of Canadians.

Then along comes Bill C-48, the Liberal-NDP deal, that undermines Bill C-43. It should be apparent to all who follow these things that the government is now ruining the country's finances with runaway spending commitments without real implementation or monitoring plans. It is sad to observe that the Liberals are spending billions in an effort to buy votes.

First, they bought 19 NDP votes for $4.5 billion. Now the Prime Minister is travelling the country trying to buy votes of sectors of Canadians by making huge promises. He then attaches a threat that the power hungry Conservatives want to take away this Liberal joy. This Liberal vote buying spree is nothing more than an attempt to distract from its ad scam, which itself is a vote buying scandal worth about $250 million.

It has all come down to the axiom that a vote for the Liberals outside of Quebec is a vote for separation inside Quebec. Voting for the scandal ridden Liberals sends the wrong message to Quebecers who do not like corruption in their name. In view of their sense of being insulted, sadly, Quebecers are choosing the separation option. The Liberals have been creating separatists and this budget bill is part of it.

Canada could have more and better paying jobs and a much higher standard of living but Ottawa taxes too much, spends too much and winds up still owing too much.

Since 1999-2000, program spending has gone up 44%, a compound annual growth of 7.6% when the economy itself managed to grow only 31.6%. That record is a fundamental flaw in Liberal management which will come to haunt our country if continued. It is not surprising that there is so much waste in the government.

Often the government responds to problems with a knee-jerk way of throwing money at a problem. It does not know what to do but it sounds good if money is sent along the way. The Liberals confuse spending money with getting results and value.

Throwing money at the firearms registry, for example, is their way of dealing with the criminal misuse of firearms and the gunplay on our streets and it reveals the general unprofessional approach of Liberal administration.

The gun registry was to cost $2 million. Media reports now say that the actual cost is about $2 billion and the program does not work. One can imagine the community benefit if Alan Rock had taken my advice in the beginning when I told him, in very strong terms in a consultation meeting I had with him, that I would rather have the registry money assigned to various crime prevention and community protection measures than waste it in the registry. Time has shown that I was right and he and his many advisors were wrong, very wrong.

In Quebec, the 1995 referendum was a scare for the nation. The Liberals responded by throwing money at it but without a real plan or a system of accountability. The result was the sponsorship scandal where $250 million were wasted, $100 million probably illegally funnelled to Liberal friends in the Liberal Party. It had the opposite effect of the intended purpose. In fact, it reinvigorated Quebec separation.

Between 2003-04 and 2004-05, the Liberals could not help themselves: program spending skyrocketed by 11.9% and per capita program spending by the federal government has reached its highest point in over a decade and is scheduled to go even higher in the future. However increases in real government spending do not equate to solving problems or getting better results.

Imagine if some of that money was left with families, in the form of lower taxes. The multiplier effect of that would bring more jobs and eventually greater tax revenue for health care and education. An administered tax dollar is an inefficient dollar for our general welfare, in comparison to the same dollar that was never taken from the taxpayer in the first place.

Of course, we need public services and it is for that reason that compassionate Conservatives are so concerned about wise fiscal management, for without care there will not be the revenue available to pay for the social programs that we want.

The NDP-Liberal finance bills have it all backwards and that is why NDP spending on services beyond the capacity of the economy puts into play a doomsday financial problem, when the predicted job losses surely will come and the welfare rolls will skyrocket. The heartless social consequences of NDP thinking and economics hurts people.

I believe it is more compassionate and wise to ensure that we have more people working than just getting by on a meagre public subsidy. A growing sound economy is the most compassionate thing a government can provide so that we are able to help those who cannot help themselves. In the long term, it is a truism that NDP socialism hurts people.

Recently, while government spending went up, according to Statistics Canada, Canadian families saw their after tax income stall in 2002 and in the fall of 2003.

Under pressure from the NDP to remove the tax relief for business, the finance minister told the House that his budget could not be “stripped away piece by piece”. However, within days, without telling his minister, the Prime Minister tried to cover up his sponsorship vote buying scandal by buying the votes of the NDP.

The $4.6 billion, now Bill C-48, will be allocated through order in council in 2005-06 and 2006-07 to programs for the environment, housing and post-secondary education. However the money will not flow unless there is a surplus of $2 billion in those years, and that will not be known for 2005-06 until the books close in August, 2006. That means that the money will not flow for at least 18 months. If it ever does flow at all, it will be at the discretion of the cabinet which again has not designated a plan or even stated a purpose for the money.

What we see is a familiar pattern of vague objectives, deception even of their own NDP partners and no concrete plans.

The Liberals and the NDP are falsely giving the impression that money for the budget initiatives will flow immediately after the Thursday vote. Following regular parliamentary protocol, the bill is closer to its beginning stage and needs to go through many steps and many more months of study before the money would flow.

Last year's budget implementation bill just passed the Senate this last month, a year late.

The bottom line is that the Liberals are corrupt. They are trying to distract the vote buying scandal of the sponsorship program by buying NDP votes and now the public's votes.

In most Canadian families, both parents need to work just for one to pay the taxes. We must never forget that a dollar left in the hands of a worker, homemaker, small businessperson or entrepreneur is more beneficial to the economy than a dollar taken into the hands of a government bureaucrat or politician.

The Conservative Party wants to clean up government. It looks like the finances of the Liberals say they want to clean out government.

Consequently, from a financial administrative perspective, we need an election because the Liberals are corrupt and they are ruining the country's finances. The government has lost the moral authority to govern, has not secured the legal financial authority to govern and, by ignoring Parliament, has become illegitimate.

What Canadians have seen in the last few weeks is truly unprecedented: a government already steeped in corruption attempting to cover-up one vote buying scandal by looting the treasury regardless of the long term consequences for average Canadians.

Canada cannot afford the unholy collusion of the Liberal-NDP financial deal.

Foreign Affairs April 5th, 2005

Mr. Speaker, maybe they are waking up over there.

The government knows the inside story of Iran. The people are ruled by fear, torture and payoff bribes to their religious police. The government knew for months the facts of the torture of Kazemi. Its excuse made today is rather late and is not very credible.

Why did the government provide political cover for Iran and why did it hide the graphic details of the doctor's report?

Foreign Affairs April 5th, 2005

Mr. Speaker, the government's relationship with Iran appears muddled and pretty confused. It admits the tragedy of the Kazemi case and then withdraws its ambassador for a while, but has shown no leadership among our ally nations.

Why does the government not have any plan at all to be a leader at the UN with our allies to make human rights mean something and to create a circle of pressure on this rogue state?

Foreign Affairs April 4th, 2005

Mr. Speaker, now that we have the first person account of Zahra Kazemi's murder from the very doctor who examined her remains, Canadians have proof positive of the inhumane treatment of a Canadian citizen.

It is time for Canada to get tough with the odious Iranian regime that stole the revolution in Iran. The Liberal soft diplomacy approach is simply no longer acceptable.

Canada has one of Iran's largest expat communities in the world. Two hundred and fifty thousand former Iranians reside here and they are asking Canada to defend their interests and that of their families.

It is time Canada reaches out to Iran's dissident community worldwide, finding ways to promote democracy and offering real assistance to communicate Canadian values.

The government should get past babbling about how horrified we are over the Kazemi case and get moving on positive fronts to support those Canadians now working for democracy in Iran. On this count, Canada should lead the world rather than follow.

Civil Marriage Act March 21st, 2005

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-38, the civil marriage act to change the definition of marriage is before us at second reading, which is the first chance to debate the bill in the House.

Much will be said about the bill by others, but I have reproduced the complete bill itself for distribution to every household in my constituency. I encourage everyone to always check primary sources rather than just rely on the so-called experts about what is claimed the bill says or will do. Especially unreliable is the current justice minister who has abandoned basic truth, sound legal reasoning and obviously his faith. Little of what he says can be believed any more in view of what he has purported about this bill. In contrast, I have provided an unfiltered primary source for evaluation by my community. They can read the full bill for themselves.

The outcome of this landmark sociological proposal remains far from certain. The government would like to say that this bill is a done deal. However, on February 1, just 139 members of the 308 in Parliament surveyed said they would vote in favour of the bill.

There will be votes after second reading debate and votes at committee, if it gets that far. The bill could fail at any stage. There could then be a report stage vote in the Commons and then third reading debate and a vote on the final version of the bill.

The Liberals may be tempted to use closure or time allocation rules to shut down the House of Commons debate and forge ahead, but if they do that, they will be transparent in their utter contempt for average Canadians. If the bill gets that far, it would then have to go to the Senate for its consideration and votes.

Over the next while the Liberals will try to persuade those on the fence to rally to their cause.

The NDP and the Liberals are officially promoting the bill as their party policy. Make no mistake. Support or a vote for the Liberals or the NDP is to directly support changing the definition of marriage. It is what those parties are about, and if they get their way with this one, who knows where they will take us next. They are whipping their members to vote along party lines.

In contrast, the Conservatives are giving all their MPs a free vote. Officially, the Conservative leadership will be trying to introduce amendments along the way to find some halfway ground. Conservatives will never impose what Canadians do not want.

In my role as community leader and parliamentary representative, I give respect to all points of view, provide the best democratic representation possible and ultimately vote the constituents' wishes. It is people in the community who let me know very quickly and strongly about which topics are of sufficient concern to them that they want direct supervisory involvement of my vote. For the seat I occupy in the Commons is not owned by the party or by me; it is owned by constituents.

Although I am undecided about the bill until my community tabulation is done, I am not personally neutral as I provide leadership. I believe that all Canadians should be able to examine their own conscience and then vote.

Since we will not have an election on the issue and since the government will not permit voters to have their say directly at the ballot box, it falls on me to strongly engage the community. I provide advice and information and promote respect rather than rancour.

It is my advice to the community that this bill is not about minority rights, but about social structure and the democratic ability of the community to determine that structure.

We do not elect governments by telephone survey. We use ballots. I am doing the same in my constituency on this matter.

Canadian parliamentary democracy has rules. Parliament is not the government, but it is where the government comes to obtain permission to tax and spend the people's money and to get legislation passed. Governments propose but Parliament as a separate entity must finally vote the appropriation.

In addition, Parliament has an oversight role to hold governments accountable. That is why it is the constitutional duty of the opposition in Parliament to challenge what the government proposes and critique how the government administers. The government has now proposed to change the definition of marriage. It is the constitutional duty of the official opposition to test and challenge that proposition to see if the government can make a convincing case to the country.

The Conservatives are not obsessing about Bill C-38, but the media is.

It is the government that has brought Bill C-38 to the House of Commons at this time and many ask why. Many are asking why the Liberals have given the country this issue now when there seems to be so many other pressing needs to deal with. The Liberals may have calculated for political posturing purposes that through this debate they might find an opportunity to smear the Conservatives with the label of intolerance et cetera in order to play schoolyard bully politics in the next election.

Nevertheless, I hope constituents will just keep their heads and calmly follow the democratic approach and vote their conscience. I am giving them the opportunity to vote directly. If we stick to time honoured democratic principles instead of trying to turn them on their head with so-called arguments about the tyranny of the majority, we as a society will be able to handle any challenge, even corrupt Liberal governments.

We need more democracy in Canada, not less. Voting is the only civilized way for our country to make basic decisions about how the community may want to be organized. The nation is having a conversation about Bill C-38 and we must be respectful and sensitive to all views. Then in conclusion we must vote and gracefully accept the democratic result.

One cannot espouse democracy only when one calculates that the result might go one's way. A democrat protects the process so that it is fair, then engages fully, but regardless of the outcome, accepts and defends the democratic result. In view of that basic principle I will vote the democratic majority view within my electoral district.

About the marriage issue, first we deal with discrimination. In Canada we have already dealt fully with discrimination against alternative lifestyle choices. There are legal protections everywhere in our law, and social benefits are fully provided to individuals in relationships. Outside of marriage the law is replete with social protections and that is where same sex arrangements are covered. If there is any discriminatory administrative policy left, we can deal with it properly. Then we can move forward to provide whatever is needed to those in a variety of domestic relationships.

However, about marriage, my community has been very clear about what constitutes a marriage and what does not. No trickery of law or of sociological prescription or sentimental plea seems to change what people in my community say. They tell me that these other arrangements that we may accommodate in law are just not marriage. They are something else. People know it is not marriage.

Voters recognize that there are rights in law and from that basis we generate respect and equal treatment. However, the law of equality cannot be stretched to make something into something else, which it inherently is not. For example, we can respect and defend the reality and value of an apple and an orange, but the charter law of equality cannot be misused to make an apple into an orange. The charter provision of equality does not require cookie cutter sameness, and it was never meant to.

The principle operates for applying for a marriage licence. There are all kinds of limiting and discriminatory rules for its proper operation such as age, sex, consanguinity, multiple licences, et cetera, which are in the Criminal Code and elsewhere. Even within Bill C-38 which claims to end discrimination, it reinforces the discriminatory provision that one may marry a person of the same sex but cannot marry a person of the opposite sex if they legally discover to be technically brother and sister through adoption even though there is no blood connection. That discriminatory provision is in the very bill before us.

The points seem absurd to the average clear thinking person and only become confused when we have arcane legal arguments brought forward by lawyers who have a social engineering agenda. People must discriminate every day to make choices and to be able to function. The charter accommodates proper discrimination while maintaining equality. The average person is not confused about how equality and fairness that is guaranteed in the charter does not demand automaton sameness. They also know that the premise of the Prime Minister's speech is a fiction. They do not buy it.

In conclusion, the overwhelming ballot evidence from people in my community so far is that they are directing me to vote against the bill. They should receive no less.

Transport March 11th, 2005

Mr. Speaker, not only is Fraser port a unique situation that requires national treatment, the river dumps tons of sand into Georgia Strait. The river does it naturally, but if a dredger helps it a little, Ottawa taxes it, placing Fraser River Port Authority at a further economic disadvantage.

Will the government stop taxing the river and recognize the foreign trade benefit for the country rather than just a tax benefit for Ottawa?

Transport March 11th, 2005

Mr. Speaker, the government has been aware for some time now about the lack of regional fairness for western ports. Fraser port is the second largest port in Canada, yet it unfairly has to pay for river dredging, as compared to eastern ports.

It is a regional economic issue, but it is also a public safety and flood prevention issue. Both the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans have been briefed but there is still no action.

When will the government end the economic disparity of Fraser port for Canada's access to the Pacific Rim?