Paul Forseth

[Child Pornography, April 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, John Robin Sharpe will appear today in B.C. Appeals Court on charges of possession of child pornography, after being acquitted on January 13.

Had the Liberals voted in favour of a recent Reform motion to send a strong parliamentary signal on this ruling or had Judge Shaw ruled to uphold the law, we would not have today's distasteful question.

Today, 18 cases are on hold pending the outcome of this case. Each government member of parliament who voted, just to wait for the Crown appeal, will have to accept responsibility if the lower court ruling holds.

A loss of the child pornography section will do irreparable damage to the work done by the law enforcement community which is combating the sick subculture that is linked to child porn. It needs parliament to back it up.

This case also demonstrates the need for a more publicly accountable process for appointing judges, for it matters as much who is doing the deciding as what is being decided.

Reform is reflecting the community view. This case again shows that Liberals are weak and out of touch with mainstream Canadian values and do not have the right stuff to protect our children.

[Taxation, April 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, hurting companies know that is a lot of rhetoric. The government just does not get it. The minister thinks that companies can sit around and wait for the government to cut taxes.

The need is pretty clear. Why will he not act? Can the minister not see that tax relief delayed is tax relief denied?

[Taxation, April 19th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, Canada's problem is taxes. Let us take a look at the government's priorities: billions lost on business subsidies, distorting markets; millions wasted on millennium schemes and parties; and hundreds of thousands thrown away on a rundown hotel in Shawinigan.

Are Canadians not getting real tax relief because the government just cannot spend enough? Is that its one-note song?

[Budget Implementation Act, 1999, April 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I will comment about the broad economic philosophy of the government as represented in the bill, and the themes of its economic measures by using the example of some aspects of the personal income tax form. For what we see helps us put into perspective what social attitudes underlie the bill before us today.

First, the big myth is that the Liberals are good managers of the public trust. They are not. It is a myth that they have presented balance to the country in their budgets? What myths. I challenge the media and the folks at home to check the numbers rather than the Liberals spinning machine. The Liberals have shown not to be wise managers of the public trust.

Specifically, to help with general understanding today about the appropriateness of the underlying philosophy of the bill, I cite the historical social attitude of the Liberals toward traditional families in the tax category where parents decide that one of them will forgo a working income to stay home and provide quality child care.

That social choice is denigrated by the government through its tax policy. It is expressed clearly, in the unashamedly unfair differences that it has given since at least 1993, and have deepened in each successive budget. The government's record is that it is not family friendly. Reformers have been talking about it since 1993, but the news media has finally woken up, so when we talk about it and make a point we are now getting it reported.

The finance minister was wrong when he said that his tax discrimination against one income, two parent families was a recent issue for Reform. The Reform blue book as far back as 1993 said:

The Reform Party supports a revision of the federal income tax regulations to end discrimination against parents who provide child-care at home—and—supports equitable treatment for one-income families with dependant children.

Our election platform of fresh start for the June 1997 election clearly included the desired changes on taxation for families. The Hansard shows that I spoke about it clearly in the debate for last year's 1998-99 budget, because by then the hurt against families was really getting deep.

We have been asking why the finance minister would not even admit in the House that his policy documents and budgets have delivered tax discriminations since his first budget in 1994. Why will he not change? Perhaps because he is a Liberal and the cabinet has a mindset of socialist engineering from another era that it cannot let go of. Belatedly, he has now sent the hot potato to committee. It will buy him some political time for now.

The insincere answers that we have received in question period from the finance minister on this subject is avoidance when he claims we Reformers voted against budget measures related to children. His falsity boggles. Reform has voted generally against the tax and spend habits of the Liberals, not specific child programs. We have voted against the lack of accountability in government spending.

The budgets continue to spend too much, therefore tax too much, and thereby the country still owes too much. It is about competence to govern. It is about fairness. It is about helping instead of hurting and equality before the tax law. It is about a Liberal mean-spirited view of the family as expressed in tax law, and about penalizing parents, like giving them a fine for having a traditional family child care arrangement. What hurts the most is that it does it openly and justifies it while it calls us on this side of the House, who have defended the family since coming here, as being just too negative.

The evidence is that the Liberal economic policies hurt people. The whole country knows it, and I am again reminding the House of this again today.

I ask: When will the finance minister provide the tax changes we are talking about today? When will he begin to help rather than hurt families with his tax discrimination? Roughly 82% of Canadians want the tax code changed to make it easier for parents with young children to have a parent stay at home. According to a November 1998 Southam-Compas poll, this is a very high priority for 42% of Canadians, a high priority for 23% and a priority for 17%.

The C.D. Howe Institute's latest report, entitled “Giving Mom and Dad a Break”, states:

Current Canadian tax policy affords no universal recognition of children. In effect, it treats children in middle and high-income families like consumer spending, as if parents had no legal or moral obligation to spend money on their care. This treatment is indefensible.

The balanced budget was achieved by squeezing the people: 76.7% of the balancing came from higher tax revenues; 14% from slashing health and social transfers; 7.2% from cutting transfers to persons; and a minuscule 2.1% by cutting federal spending itself. Where was the government required to live within its means instead of imposing on the weak individual taxpayer? Children are directly hurt by Liberal policy design.

In the 1999 prebudget submission called “Taxes and Health Care: It's Critical”, we proposed an alternate budget. It would include $26 billion in total tax relief and $19 billion in repayment of the national debt over the next three years; increased health transfers to the provinces by $2 billion a year; and an immediate $1 billion reinvestment in Canada's armed forces.

On February 2, 1999 the Ottawa Sun reported that “Sherry Cooper, chief economist for Nesbitt Burns, said Reform's proposals are realistic. This is feasible” she said. Cooper said “If spending is kept in line, the government should have enough money to fund both tax cuts and debt reduction because the surpluses are going to be huge”.

Parents know that the best child care program is a dad and a mom but sadly, commercial day care is the only child care option recompensed by the Canadian tax code. In her 1998 submission to Parliament's finance committee Heather Gore-Hickman, chartered accountant, found that only 16% of families with kids claim the child care expense deduction for commercial day care.

Roughly speaking, in 19% of families, both parents work full time but they either use informal child care, work out of home, or work flex time. So one parent is always at home. Twenty-two per cent of families have a second part time income while providing parent care. Over 33% of families have a parent providing full time unpaid child care.

According to the Fraser Institute in its pamphlet “Tax Facts Ten”, twoearner families earning $30,000 paid $3,492 in income tax, while a one earner family paid $4,317, or 24% more in 1995.

A report showed that a family earning $60,000 paid $6,383 in federal income tax; if a two earner, $10,300; if a one earner, a whopping 61% more.

The tax code of this government sends the message that private parenting has no public value and if chosen, families will be penalized. The suggested changes to bring fairness can be made. These policy problems are only the tip of the iceberg of an outdated Liberal ideology.

I have already cited how the administration is incompetent and how it hurts people and then runs from responsibility, how it fails to fulfil the public trust; but the capper of it all is that when serious policy problems are outlined by the opposition parties and then constructive alternatives are presented from this side to help Canadians, the smugness of the cabinet continues the old style Liberal way and they assert that they have all the answers.

The point is that the Liberals are part of a harsh culture that hurts family life, puts unreasonable pressure on families and poorly serves kids. Heaven help us when the next generation of children returns the favour to our culture. Just 38% of people voted for Liberals, and they still behave as if they had the divine right to govern with impunity and with little accountability.

The bill before us today is the implementation of spending intentions. This legislation is a big fuzzy housekeeping bill that contains a lot of feel good stuff. The Liberals have failed to simplify the tax code. They are announcing money they have already deleted from the taxpayers' surplus in previous budgets. They have failed to give Canadians what they really need, which is massive across the board tax cuts and smaller government.

I trust there will be some better economic policy thought on the Liberal side as a result of these debates. If there is not, we in the official opposition are ready and waiting to govern for the 21st century.

[Kosovo, April 12th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, there comes a time in the affairs of a nation when leaders need to embody their people, and the people their leaders. Whether we as a country send our soldiers to war is the responsibility and the accountability of the civil power, for in times past had it not been for soldiers and because we had soldiers, we can now afford to have politicians.

The people ask now who these politicians are who send soldiers in the people's name. Is it really for a noble cause? When is offensive war called an act of humanity? When is bombing peacekeeping? Can it truly be said that we are defending our high moral beliefs and defending democracy when perhaps the sending of war is the gravest betrayal of it? Perhaps we have become involved in an intrigue so dark and twisted that the cover song carries us all the way to tragedy.

We belong to a club, NATO, whose rules for membership were once noble and clear but now have incrementally changed. For the ties that bind under the NATO table are not spoken, for the appearances set above and before the club members and the world. We do our duty in the club and cite moral superiority to the community of nations. Yet because of divisions at the United Nations most are relegated to observation. All see the dead, but we cannot rightly judge, for surely all in this play have been killers.

What happens to our humanity, as neighbour beside neighbour, when the constabulary and social order evaporates? They leave all civility, take a cowardly gun and go to the neighbour's farmhouse, whose cousin is married to theirs, then murder the boy who could become a soldier, humiliate and renounce all sense of community, burn the home, steal the livestock, take any money from the victims and send the remaining souls, having lost all, on a foot journey into the unknown.

What hatred and evil comes too easily to the lips of those neighbours when together in the past they have shared the fruit of the land, co-operated in toil, though their language of birth was different and their God had a different name. Yet being brethren and part of a larger family is all cast aside for vengeance, for purity of hate, for belief in the lie of race, for a twisted version of social justice. Another bomb will not change that belief or that behaviour.

On the other edge of this pit of human misery and ignorance we look down, we roll the dice, we pick winners and losers for unspoken plans. Who are the villains? Who are the innocents? When old prejudice spills blood, when money may buy a war, who are the sides in the brawl and who is the referee? Sadly we know who the victims are.

Are we Canadians also victims of this circumstance? For surely the dead we know, the childless mother we know, the marred youth we know and the hollow men. Where does the evil come from and how can we stand against it? For evil we see and an evil it is. It comes from the human heart, and can that sin of the heart be stopped with another bomb?

Canada belongs to a club. We have done our duty there, but now we must reach deeper to have love beyond duty, for love of mankind. For duty can do well but love can make beauty from ashes.

Regardless of how complicated plots, hatred, betrayal and double dealing shall rage, can we find midst the brawl an honourable way for ourselves? In times past whenever called upon we have done our duty and we have done it again in this circumstance. But club membership in NATO must not be higher than the law of love to the human race. Shall we hang on to the actions of the club in the same manner that the ethnic groups hang on to their prejudice and willingness to choose suicide rather than life and to take uncounted innocents with them?

Today before the House we have the following non-votable take note motion:

That this House take note of the continuing human tragedy in Kosovo and the government's determination to work with the international community in order to resolve the conflict and promote a just political settlement for Kosovo that leads to the safe return of the refugees.

The motion may make us feel good, but it is unrealistic. Our original moral objectives are now undermined by our actions. More bombs at this time will not produce a humanitarian end, even a political solution.

The objectives of self-determination for a people within the rule of law and democratic process have been manipulated by Kosovo ethnic Albanians for us to fight their war of independence that they could not win on their own. So Canadians will fight and pay for it and ensure it in the end.

Who gave our government permission to fight a foreign war of independence on behalf of a local people? Maybe we should, but the decision to do that must be approached honestly in our parliament, not through the back door of the slippery slope of incremental entanglements.

The present military objectives will also not be accomplished. The assurance of the government today of success of the air war defies history and is tactically unsound. In this case we will not bomb the Serbs into submission, but that may not be the deal anyway. Rather it may be just to try out our techie stuff, to send the Russians a message. I certainly hope not. Air bombing will not deliver the stated objective, so why continue? Ego? Club rules? The children pay.

Partition of the inhabitants, separating the belligerents is the best we can hope for in this generation of hatred, in this internal civil war of independence and revenge. If we honestly become the policemen, apprehend the wrongdoers and actually protect the innocents, then that is worthwhile, but our course is not toward such as of yet. It needs to be.

We on this side of the House have added to the motion “and in particular, this House take note that the government's determination to resolve the conflict would have more credibility after the adoption of a motion submitted to this House specifying the moral, political and military objectives of Canada's involvement, subject to such conditions as this House may impose”.

Let us understand that NATO is attacking a sovereign state. It is doing so not because Yugoslavia committed aggression against a neighbour country but to try to alter the Serbs' handling of a domestic separatist problem based on ethnic and cultural grounds. In the world of diplomacy there is no bigger no-no than using military force to intervene in the internal affairs of a country.

NATO is an alliance that was formed solely to defend its members against aggression, not to launch attacks against others. Is NATO to become a kind of international cop, the enforcer of proper behaviour by governments? If so, why not act for instance against Turkey or East Timor?

The Turks have been brutal in their submission of Kurdish demands similar to the Serbs in Kosovo. Why not bomb the Turks? We do not because Turkey is an ally. That leaves one rule for NATO members and another for the rest of Europe, a policy without principle. That is the precedent NATO is setting in Kosovo.

NATO will likely not be successful and the air war will fail to force the Serbs to come to terms. Therefore, we can expect some unravelling of western and international order that could endanger stability far beyond the Balkans.

We now need to say to our club members in NATO that we played our role but we are out for now, putting Canadian planes on the ground to exercise independent thought and prepare for our role of peacekeeper and honest broker when the dust settles. Certainly our only role in the fighting is a symbolic one of the flag on the airplane as technically we are not needed for logistical purposes.

We have picked sides and we are no longer pure anyway. Therefore at NATO at this stage we need to say that we have done our duty, that it is over for now, put Canadian planes on the ground and prepare for the peacekeeping role of preserving a deal of separating the belligerents.

In the future the Liberal government may try to fool the people and themselves for a while with lofty speeches, but we will never do better than my suggestion in the coming months. It is a better chance for a reasonable outcome than persevering with the present course for unworkable, unrealistic objectives. Canada should stop our bombing now, recover some of our honest broker status and prepare for peacekeeping when it can be used.

No matter how we slice it, Canada has slid into the wrong. We can fix it. We can lead a way out instead of being stuck in this downward spiral. As a nation we need to move from duty to the higher principle of love. We have a unique opportunity to bring some duty out of ashes.

[Questions Passed As Orders For Returns, March 24th, 1999]

With respect to grants or loans awarded by the federal government for building restoration, such as awards made under infrastructure and regional development programs, in each of the last five years, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998: ( a ) how many have been awarded; ( b ) what specifically have they been for; ( c ) what was the geographic location; ( d ) what was the amount of each award, including whether or not it was on a matching basis; and ( e ) under which federal department or program was each award made?

Return tabled.

Question No. 156—

[Supply, March 16th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is typical of the government side to create a false picture and then rail against it. It is rather a phony, hollow play.

When we on this side talk about personal responsibility, government members call it fearmongering. When we talk about victim concerns rather than being too offender focused, they call it rather simplistic. Obviously we can hear today how touchy they are because there is a big problem out there in the community for which the government is responsible. They are accountable.

Just to be reasonable and to deal with facts, not false notions, we can do a lot better in the justice system. When we perform our official opposition role of pointing out inadequacies, what we ask from the government is simply to fix the problem and not get into an esoteric debate.

There is a lot of boasting today about the new young offenders bill before parliament. Will the government be prepared to accept amendments to the bill based on consultation with the community rather than continue to boast about how good the proposed bill is?

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as we listen to this debate it sounds as if we are beating our breasts about who is more caring or who is more willing to redistribute the national income. In other words, who is more willing to be more socialist?

In view of all the problems, I would like the member to clearly explain where we should go. He talked about the single equalization grant. Maybe he could talk a little bit more about what that means, to clarify and to get to the realm of simplicity, to make it politically defensible and accountable to the public understanding, a kind of transparency of fairness so that average Canadians can get behind any readjustment and politically support it based on real need and real ability to pay, removed from any perverse incentives or disincentives. Perhaps the member could help us.

[Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, March 9th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague, but I am wondering how we get to a new era where we reduce the kind of unfairness that has been pointed out and perhaps might be able to outline the positions in the new Canada Act which call for two basic reforms. The first is the equal treatment of all citizens with per capita grants to provinces for cost shared programs; in other words, amounts directly related to people in the province. The other is a single equalization grant based on macro indicator per capita provincial GDP.

If we go down the wrong road this transfer can become a reward to a province that essentially delivers poor government to its people. Like any benefit program, if it is not in balance it becomes a trap of continuing pursuit of unwise economic behaviour.

Could the member comment on how we could move to a more broadly based estimation of the ability of the provinces to generate revenue and stay out of the trap that a dependency program could create?

[The Late Jack Webster, March 3rd, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, British Columbia broadcasting legend Jack Webster passed away. Friends have said that Jack probably would have wanted his obituary to state that he died on Tuesday, March 2, at 10.18 a.m. precisely.

Jack Webster was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1918 and immigrated to Canada in 1947. He spent his life in reporting and broadcast journalism. Canada remembers his face on CBC Front Page Challenge .

Jack was a pioneer of open line radio on New Westminster's CKNW. He was notorious for finding a molehill at 9 a.m. and building it into a mountain by noon.

One story that separated Webster from the others was the 1963 riot at the B.C. Penitentiary. The prisoners demanded to speak to either Prime Minister Lester Pearson or Webster. What followed was an all-night negotiation session between Webster and the inmates, a story that changed the country.

Jack Webster was never one to avoid a challenge or succumb to political correctness. There is now a journalism award in his honour. Canada will miss him. His irascible voice of courage defined him as a great Canadian.