Paul Forseth

[Petitions, February 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a second petition from over 100 New Westminster-Burnaby constituents and others from the surrounding area who are greatly concerned with the price of gasoline and the overall structure of our highways.

These petitioners request that Parliament not increase the federal excise tax on gasoline and strongly consider reallocating its current revenues to rehabilitate Canada's crumbling national highways.

[Petitions, February 10th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36, I am pleased to present a petition from lower mainland residents, many from my riding of New Westminster-Burnaby, who are concerned that Canada's national highway system is substandard.

These petitioners are calling on Parliament to urge the federal government to join with provincial governments to make the national highway system upgrading possible.

[The Environment, December 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of the Environment.

The Liberal red book promises that the government will promote fairness and opportunity and yet day after day we have more broken promises. Environment Canada is apparently unfairly bidding against small private sector firms for water quality and meteorological services.

Why is the minister's huge department bidding against private firms? How can the public believe that the government is using a level playing field and being ethical when doing this questionable practice?

[Environmental Assessment, December 13th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, this week Canadians saw once again how the Prime Minister is compared to a box of assorted chocolates: You have no idea what you are going to get. Now it seems that the Minister of the Environment wants to be one of those assorted chocolates. His legislation may look okay, but watch out for the inside.

This past Tuesday the environment minister refused to commit to conducting a full environmental assessment of the proposed testing of U.S. plutonium in the Candu reactors even though he is required to do so under his own Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. As the law states, an environmental assessment is required if a federal authority gets involved. He said we should be cautious about plutonium but yesterday his party voted against a Reform Party bill that would ban the importation of nuclear waste into Canada.

The Prime Minister made an election promise to abolish the GST, then broke faith. The environment minister promised to

protect the environment, and then he does not act. The minister is great at introducing legislation, but then he will not use the law.

With the Reform Party, every time you open the box, you know it is a fresh start that really satisfies.

[Excise Tax Act, December 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, before the last election the Liberals knew full well what they would do with the GST. They knew that scrapping the goods and services tax would not be an option. They knew they would not be able to come up with an equal amount of revenue, yet true to Liberal form they said that they would abolish it.

Now members of this government are trying to say they never said scrap, abolish or kill the GST, that they said harmonize or streamline. If this government never used the words scrap, abolish or kill then why did the Deputy Prime Minister resign her seat? Why did the member for York South-Weston leave the Liberal caucus? Why did the member for Broadview-Greenwood support the member for York South-Weston for sticking to his principles? Because they all knew they were wrong. They knew full well that their constituents did not elect them to harmonize the GST.

The member for York South-Weston did the right thing by keeping his promises to his constituents. As is the true Reformer style, that member voted the wishes of those who elected him. Now it seems this independent member wants to walk back across the floor to join his Liberal colleagues.

Today it was reported in the Montreal Gazette that the same member said: ``That issue is over and done with. I've made my point and I don't intend to speak to that issue again''. I remind the member that the issue of the GST will not be over as long as the Liberals are in power. And they confirm it again today with Bill C-70.

Liberal members and all Liberal candidates will have to go into the next election and explain to all Canadians why the GST is still there.

In Ontario, Liberals are going to have to sell the electorate on harmonization when Ontario premier Mike Harris says he has no interest on harmonizing the GST with the provincial tax. Whenever Harris has been asked about the possibility of harmonizing the taxes, he firmly states that the federal harmonization plan would cost Ontario consumers between $2 billion and $3 billion a year. Ontarians are not going to buy the Liberal harmonization promises no matter how it is sugar coated.

Manitoba premier Gary Filmon says that the harmonization is "a bad deal for Manitobans". He also says what the government "cannot do is help us with the transference that takes place off the backs of businesses and on to the backs of consumers. Consumers in Manitoba would have to pick up $300 million a year of the burden. It just doesn't work. It is a bad deal".

The same words are echoed by the Governments of Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. In fact, these provinces are not even willing to discuss the proposal with the Prime Minister.

Bill C-70 is a bill that deals specifically with the provinces on the east coast. This bill is not going to change the tax in my home province of British Columbia so when and if Bill C-70 is given royal consent, my constituents are still going to be paying the GST.

This bill is not about harmonization or streamlining. It is about failing to follow through on a promise. With Bill C-70, the Liberals need the support of provincial governments. If they had proposed this plan in the last election, Canadians would have soon discovered that such a plan would not work. Had the Liberals followed through on their election promise, provincial support would not have been necessary. I guess that provincial governments would have loved seeing an abolished GST.

Canadians were cheated in the last election concerning that kind of promise. There is no other way to say it. Putting everything into practical terms, the Liberals promised that they would give back money to Canadians to alleviate a personal tax. Now, over three years later, Canadians have not received their share.

However, there is a solution and the solution is not too difficult to achieve. What Canadians need to do is get rid of the party of dead promises and elect a party that will follow through on what it says. The Reform Party is the only party that will make promises which can be kept. We are not about using hot button issues simply to attract a vote for the short term.

I really wonder if the east coast residents know what they will be getting with a harmonized tax. Do they know that they will be paying more for children's clothing, funerals, books, auto repairs, electricity, gasoline, home heating fuel and even hair cuts? Probably not. Consumers are going to be hit hard by the passage of Bill C-70.

I was told recently that the Investment Property Owner's Association tabled a report in the Nova Scotia legislature which states that renters can expect to shoulder some of the higher operating costs that will hit landlords with a harmonized GST. Again the government is going to go after those who have lesser incomes, all for the sake of some political expediency. My only hope is that the east coast media gives these people the facts about the implications of harmonization. However, my fear is that the Liberal media will say very little about it leaving the east coast residents in the dark.

The Canadian Real Estate Association says that a harmonized sales tax will push up new housing prices on average by about $4,000 in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In New Brunswick, new housing prices are expected to climb as much as $3,300. In fact, the Halifax Chamber of Commerce is predicting that municipalities are going to raise property taxes all because the eastern provinces were bribed into the harmonization deal.

The Liberals have been speaking about how they never said this and never said that during the campaign. I am not going to stand here and accuse individual members of what they said because I was not present during each of their campaigns or following them door to door as they went knocking. However, I will tell constitu-

ents in each federal riding to make their own accusations. They remember what was said.

I want to offer the House some comments by members with regard to the GST. I think Canadians will get the idea of what the majority of Liberal members meant during the 1993 election.

For example, the member for Mississauga West, referring to a reply from a Department of Finance letter which said that Canadians were getting used to the GST, said: "If anyone believed that I do not think they are in touch with reality".

The member for York South-Weston commented that: "I hope we do not try to hoodwink people into thinking our commitment was contingent on the provinces agreeing to harmonize their taxes with the GST. A good number of my colleagues feel the same way. The gun control protest will appear to be a nursery school tea party if we do not fulfil that commitment on the GST".

Bill C-70 will not be accepted by Canadians. The only bill that Canadians will accept is the one that completely gets rid of the GST. But the government does not have what it takes to follow through on its promises. The Prime Minister expelled the member for York-South Weston for voting no confidence. I hope that the Prime Minister and his party will be prepared to have the Canadian people vote no confidence in the next election and instead vote for a party that will bring integrity and honesty back into government.

The Minister of Finance has publicly admitted that the government made a mistake in promising to scrap the GST. Yet government members continue to say that no mistake was made. Government members are going in all different directions. The government is unstable and unfit to run this country. Bill C-70 is two inches thick of smoke and mirrors.

The finance minister is only fooling himself if he thinks that this bill is going to solve the GST problem. As the member from Mississauga said, if the government thinks that people have got used to the GST, then the government is out of touch with reality.

[Excise Tax Act, December 5th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, October 1993 was a significant time for all Canadians. It was when a majority of Canadians elected a Liberal government after nine years of the Tories.

The Liberals promised this and they promised that. At every campaign meeting Liberal candidates would be waving their red book, saying a Liberal government would fulfil all its promises and put the country back on its feet.

Historically the Conservatives are known as the Tories and the Liberals are known as the Grits. With respect to the GST and all of the governance in fact that we have ever had from this country it is Grit or Tory, same old story.

Canadians elected the Liberal government because it promised to scrap, kill and abolish the GST. Now we have Bill C-70 which is not about scrapping the GST but about harmonizing it.

In the 1993 election campaign the Liberals were desperately searching for that one hot button item to woo the voters. They found it. It was the GST. When a Liberal candidate spoke about getting rid of the GST they always received a positive reaction from the audience. Unfortunately-

[Canadian Airlines, December 3rd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian Airlines is desperately trying to restructure. The ripple effect for the economy is great, especially in western Canada. I must speak up for the workers in my area of B.C. who have given so much to keep Canadian airborne.

The company has considered all options to reorganize and part of the rearrangement is employee cost. Five of six unions have agreed to save jobs and, like always, Buzz Hargrove is the loner preventing any deal.

Yesterday the hon. member for Burnaby-Kingsway asked the government to reintroduce trade barriers and to give money. The NDP member has no clue about economics. He, like union leader Buzz Hargrove, does not believe in markets or the democratic process.

The NDP says it is standing up for jobs when in actual fact it is standing up for union control while keeping their members dependent.

Canadian Airlines workers are in jeopardy of losing their jobs because the socialists are unwilling to demonstrate accountability by letting union members decide at the ballot box.

[Canada Endangered Species Protection Act, November 29th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be able to speak to this motion today which has some basic optimism about doing good things which have general social support across the country.

As civilization on this planet becomes more developed, humanity encroaches on the world ecosystem. Although there is some adaptive specialization and limited evolution to the living world, what we observe is a general trend to deterioration of the environment and living things, and more prospect of dying than living and the trend to extinction rather than survival.

There is difficulty for mankind to find better health on this spaceship earth, as it is turning into everything opposite of the garden of Eden.

Society may not be able to halt all of what is happening to the earth, but we can be reasonably responsible in stewardship. Mankind is on a life support system called earth that hurdles through space. It is all we have for our children, so we have to take care of its bounty and all those who live on it.

Today with this bill we are attempting to mitigate some of the excesses of civilization on other species. It is not the dawning of a new day but some basic housekeeping for our land.

We need to have a national conversation about this piece of legislation. We must have committee hearings where Canadians can speak, as it is fundamental to governance in a modern democracy. Consequently we have Bill C-65 to be moved to the committee stage before second reading.

As many members of the House are aware, the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development was supposed to travel this week to Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal and Toronto. Unfortunately politics got in the way and the trip was cancelled at the last minute. I had several calls earlier this week from potential witness who are very upset that the committee would not be able to hear their testimony.

I want to state for the record that the Reform Party agreed to the original travel plans and continues to believe that it is essential that Canadians from all parts of the country be heard on this bill. It is the concern of the committee to receive submissions from non-governmental organizations as well as private citizens.

However, it will not be any Reform Party strategists that will oppose this bill, but we on this side of the House will be the voice of the community, especially those who think that often they are shut out by arrogant majority governments that seek out political credit rather than wise governance.

Let me state publicly that if the minister does not openly listen and act on the suggestions of all the relevant stakeholders who have deep concerns with Bill C-65, this bill might become Bill C-29's big brother.

Some will say is that a threat. Maybe yes, but not from Reformers. It is, rather, a signal of the rules of the game from the thousands of Canadians who are paying attention to the passage of this bill. It is the reasonable expectation of all Canadians who want to protect our environment while at the same time protect our hard won political rights, our vital freedoms to live in a free market

economy and earn an honest living. A poor bill could become very problematic on those counts.

What is paramount for all members of the Reform Party is to ensure that all stakeholders, including ranchers, farmers, environmentalists, private citizens, will always play an integral part in the preservation and the recovery process of species that are endangered.

For years, non-governmental organizations like the Canadian Cattlemen's Association have taken the initiative to protect endangered species. For example, cattle producers have voluntarily co-operated with programs like the North American water fowl management plan as well as operation burrowing owl. These programs require equal participation from the producers and the conservation groups.

Many individual producers have set aside parts of their land specifically for the protection of wildlife habitat. The bottom line is that producers are willing to take the necessary action to ensure the sustainability of endangered and threatened species.

One of my concerns has to do with section 34 of the bill which deals specifically with emergency orders. In this section, either the Minister of the Environment, Canadian Heritage or Fisheries and Oceans will make an emergency order should the minister decide that immediate action is required to protect a specific species. As I read it, the order includes a provision that relates to the prohibiting of activities that directly affect a species or where the habitat is in imminent danger for the survival of the species. Therefore this could affect private land, not just the federal land that the bill claims it only covers.

Nowhere in the background material provided by Environment Canada does it state that the bill will or could affect private land. Yet when I questioned officials from Environment Canada they made it very clear to me that in certain circumstances the bill could affect private land. This is exactly the kind of thing the committee needs to work out before this legislation will be accepted by the vast majority of Canadians.

In meetings with farmers and ranchers they have told members of the Reform Party that they are willing to work alongside the government in the protection of endangered species. However, their biggest concern is that there should be no expropriation without fair compensation. I hope this does not become the very point where it all unravels.

Definitions need to be tightened up. I will give one example. What if a species lives on federal land and for some reason becomes endangered and the provisions of the act are triggered? The species, say a non-migratory bird, may also nest on some adjacent industrial land that is about to be expanded. It is adjacent private land in this case that is not governed by a provincial law. So if new roads and power and sewer facilities are to be completed, nests will be destroyed and this would not be accidental.

The private landowner will be affected by the act if there is no such legislation in the province. The owner would indeed be consulted about a recovery plan, but when it came down to it, it could mean that the expansion of the industrial park would be stopped and the landowner's real estate value would plummet and they would suffer loss. Then the question is who pays for the catastrophic financial loss because of a new regulation from government.

The gist of this bill seems to be that the provinces that do not have endangered species legislation would come onboard in the very near future. Indeed this would strengthen Bill C-65. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case, at least for the province of British Columbia.

Recently B.C.'s environment minister, Paul Ramsay, was quoted as saying that it was not on his government's agenda to introduce legislation even though he signed the national accord. In British Columbia this act will cover only less than 1 per cent of all the land. So without the help of the province of British Columbia, this act is more than 99 per cent useless. In the province of Alberta, for example, the ratio is only slightly higher but not enough for the minister to get even a little excited.

The auditor general says in chapter 22 of his November 1996 report that the federal government is not doing all that well in cleaning up polluted federal land. Therefore is it clear that in the federal House of responsibility species will indeed be protected and that the same consequences will apply to bureaucrats as ordinary citizens as a result of this bill? Will public servants be fined? It seems to be the old problem of the lands in common and crown land where no individual or specific entity appears accountable.

There are big penalties for private corporations but will members of the armed forces be charged and will national defence actually pay the corporate fines when it hurts endangered species on federal land such as a low fly zone or a firing range? There must be no double standard.

I stress again that the minister needs to listen to all Canadians before he will get support on this bill. He does not want to go down as the environment minister who brought in Bill C-29 which caused more smog from automobiles and caused more endangered species.

We must ensure this bill will not be used for a perverse purpose by an economic competitor to mess up the marketplace and put a company out of business merely because the competitor wants an economic advantage for their own firm. The bill must be an instrument for community co-operation and a point around which actual species can be preserved.

I want to prevent the situation wherein the only species preserved are lawyers who could use this new law to litigate every project for years and allow every fringe environmental group to unreasonably promote their religion to the detriment of the big picture of the environment or the basic rights of Canadians. Therefore the section on citizen complaints must be clarified.

The Reform Party will not oppose for the sake of opposing. We say three things about our role. First, we have a duty as opposition to hold the government to account and to test the veracity and merit of what it brings forward in legislation and also how it delivers its governance. Second, we desire to compliment the government when it goes in the right direction. Third, if we heavily criticize we must be prepared to present thorough and realistic alternatives on the table for all to examine. Reform is ready to govern, but until called upon by the people we will do our duty with this bill.

Therefore, we support the motion for Bill C-65 to go to committee before second reading to broaden the circle of examination and to provide Canadians outside this Chamber a better chance to participate. The terms of the bill assert a new level of ongoing community co-operation and consensus. Let it be also said in the making of this bill that we will have the same spirit of consultation and willingness to adjust as the bill becomes tested in the community.

[Manganese-Based Fuel Additives Act, November 29th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the environment as a topic currently is not the headline grabber that it once was. However, the worrisome fundamental trends for our planet remain.

The real problem is to determine what are wise actions for governments to take to protect the environment in view of science, economics and politics. Often it is the apparently obvious quick fix that is tried and then eventually realized as no real solution. In addition there is always the politics of balancing and reconciling the vectors that pull in different directions. It seems in this case that the vectors or forces of politics win over the policy vectors indicated by science.

With this bill we have a political headstrong approach that is characteristic of governments that think they are high in the polls, believe their own press releases and have an arrogance that only they have the divine right to govern. My how the tone has changed from when these Liberal members were in opposition. Back then they howled like coyotes when the other old arrogant members, the Conservatives, used closure. The Liberals were outraged when closure was used. Now that they are in power they do the same thing.

Voters have to remember this and resolve that such breaking of faith with the community should not be rewarded in the next election with support and a vote for any Liberal. What is being done today reveals the inner heart of what drives Liberals in government. It is a prime example of why federal politicians are rated no higher than insincere used car salesmen. It is understandable that Canadians turn off on politics.

Before us we have a bill which is anti free trade and which is supposed to help the environment but it is not supported by credible scientific evidence. This bill should have died on the Order Paper but now we have it back again under the closure rules.

I despair that we will ever see a Liberal Minister of the Environment who will be content with the best that science has to offer for environmental policy. The quest for short term political payoff is evidenced in this bill to ban the importation and trade of MMT in gasoline.

We were not even close to having a realistic minister when the member from Hamilton had the job. She had a manner of finding her own departmental officials two steps behind her on nearly every erratic policy course change in her quest for the heroin fix of the political hit. Unfortunately now with the new minister, Canadians are getting little improvement on the MMT score.

In the environment portfolio there has not been an abundance of legislation. Since the Liberals took power in 1993 there have been only six bills brought forward by the Minister of the Environment. It is a stark comparison to the active Department of Justice which has introduced 30 bills. With extra time to consult and consider,

one would think that environment would only produce wise and quality law. How wrong to surmise.

In May 1995 the former minister introduced a bill that would ban the interprovincial trade and importation of the gasoline additive MMT. Bill C-94 which is now Bill C-29 has easily become one of the most starkly divided issues during this Parliament. No legislation during the 35th Parliament has lasted this long in the House. The reason is that the so-called science is in conflict. Ways and means do not match up in this bill. When a basic idea is flawed, the resultant legislation is bad. It does not deserve to be passed.

However the former minister and her political friends at the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association had a half baked idea that went too far. The MVMA wanted MMT to be removed from unleaded gasoline in Canada because it claimed that the additive which is used to boost octane and reduce pollution was creating havoc with the new onboard diagnostic pollution sensors in late model automobiles.

There were only two ways to get MMT out of Canadian gasoline. One would have been for the MVMA to conclude negotiations with the stakeholders including Ethyl Corporation which manufactures MMT as well as the petroleum companies and conduct independent third party tests that would conclusively demonstrate if MMT was harmful. The other was the strong arm approach to directly legislate with the government trying to scare Canadians, claiming that if MMT was not out of fuel, automobile manufacturing plants could close and the price of cars would dramatically increase. Those latter arguments put forward by the government proved to be false.

The weighing of the policy options must have taken at least two minutes for the minister to decide as the choice was so poor. The choices were politics or science, and the minister chose politics.

The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, CEPA, was designed to create environmental protection and among other things to ban substances that are harmful to the public health and the environment. The former minister wanted to put MMT on CEPA's toxic list but Health Canada did not find it harmful to our health. Unfortunately for Canada's most unenvironmental environment minister, Health Canada had already proved that MMT in its present manner of use presented no harm to health and it later stood by their conclusion on the record.

With the new minister, Environment Canada has been no better off with this bill. He had his chance to put Bill C-94 on a permanent shelf to collect dust. One wonders who is really in charge of legislative initiatives with his department as it was brought forward again in full view of the bill's discredit. The mistake of this bill will certainly remain as a legacy to Liberal environmental legislation.

Reformers have opposed this bill without pressure from lobby groups because the inherent nature of the original idea was bad. Thorough and rigorous independent testing is the only way to resolve the regulatory question of whether we should have MMT in gasoline.

At present MMT helps cars run cleaner with better distance to fuel consumption ratios so that less gas is burned which helps the global warming agenda. I am told that MMT in gasoline is significantly better for gas mileage than reformulated gasoline. Further, we should carefully test some of the proposed alternatives to reformulated gasoline as they may not be inherently as environmentally friendly as first thought. Choices turn out that way when politicians seek the short term rewards of political success over what science may show as the long term public interest.

We also have to look at the taxpayer subsidies the Liberals are pouring into ethanol production which may be an uneconomical choice that in total in the big picture may not be very environmentally friendly. The issue of MMT and why the government does not like it I suspect has a lot to do with money and who pays rather than doing the right thing for the environment.

Above all, the use of closure as a principle in Parliament on this type of bill is disrespectful to members of the House. It is an example of how old line system defenders, the Liberals in this case, continue in their traditional ways and reinforce public cynicism about representative government versus responsible and accountable government to the people.

The bill is bad. Its methods are perverse. Now we have the final insult of it being driven by closure. I hope Canadians will remember this in the next election.

[Judges Act, November 28th, 1996]

Madam Speaker, the member for Windsor-St. Clair, who I can say is probably the worst chairperson of a justice committee that I have ever seen, was really self-serving and over the top in the defence of the Liberal justice agenda. She went on to talk about the Reform Party opposing merely for the sake of opposing.

We say three things about our role in this House. First we have a duty as an opposition party to hold the government to account and test the veracity and merit of what it brings forward in legislation and how it delivers its governance. Second, we desire to compliment the government when it goes in the right direction. Third, if we heavily criticize, we must be prepared to present thorough and realistic alternatives on the table for all to examine.

We are doing this specifically with Bill C-42. I have in my hand the Order Paper which contains the specific amendments we have brought in which would make this bill acceptable to our party. I would like the member to talk about the unacceptable approach the government has taken and also to highlight the solutions we have brought to this House to be voted on that would find Bill C-42 acceptable to us.