Mr. Speaker, I would like to have my vote as abstaining on this motion.
Lost his last election, in 2006, with 33% of the vote.
Division No. 217 June 11th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I would like to have my vote as abstaining on this motion.
Division No. 216 June 11th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, on the first vote I abstained from voting and I would like to be recorded as voting in favour of this motion.
Aboriginal Affairs June 10th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, we finally have the Indian affairs minister acknowledging that British Columbia belongs to all of its citizens.
Does she understand how important this decision is for all of Canada and what the repercussions are going to be for Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta? Does she understand how important this decision is and the repercussions it will have on the rest of this country?
Aboriginal Affairs June 10th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.
Since the Delgamuukw decision was handed down aboriginals in British Columbia have laid claim to over 100% of the province. We have asked the Indian affairs minister for her position for several days and we still do not have an answer.
Can the Prime Minister tell us what the government's position is? Does he believe these claims are legitimate? Who owns British Columbia?
Supply June 9th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Following up on the earlier point of order, members opposite have been waiting with bated breath to hear the relevance in the member's intervention. We have not heard that. I would ask that we have the speaker speak to the motion rather than going off on a rant about Diane Francis.
Supply June 9th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's intervention. I understand the fishing analogy but, unfortunately, where I live there are no fish left thanks to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, so I cannot use that analogy. I think the member might have the same problem in his province.
I would like to ask the member, does he believe that the reason the Liberals brought Bill C-68 into this House and passed it had nothing to do with the safety of Canadians? They knew that full well when they brought it in.
It was nothing more than a deliberate Machiavellian attempt to conceal from Canadians the failure of their justice system, the failure of their inability to deal with the shortcomings in the criminal justice system. This was a way to try to persuade Canadians that the government was actually doing something, when nothing could be further from the truth.
We have a justice minister who has for over a year promised changes to the YOA and no changes have been made to date.
We have a criminal justice system that lets convicted rapists walk the streets without serving any time in jail.
Is that not the reason they brought this so-called gun control legislation in? Does it not have more to do with trying to hide their own failure?
Aboriginal Affairs June 9th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, it is fascinating to watch this minister pirouetting in her place, ducking and dodging the questions and giving no answers. This issue is far too important to treat in this flippant and self-serving manner.
Is the minister prepared to go to Vancouver, hold a town hall meeting and tell the people who show up there that the city belongs to aboriginals? Will she answer the question of who owns B.C.?
Aboriginal Affairs June 9th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, in the wake of the supreme court's Delgamuukw decision, aboriginal bands across British Columbia have laid claim to the entire province, including Vancouver and Stanley Park.
Can the Indian affairs minister tell us what the government's position is? Can she tell us in the federal government's eyes who owns British Columbia?
Canadian Wheat Board Act June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the hour is late and that members want to leave. I have been waiting all evening to make a few remarks. As a matter of fact I have been waiting quite some time to make a couple of comments on Bill C-4. I will keep my comments short.
I come from northwest B.C. and I do not know very much about grain farming. I cannot drive by a field and tell the difference between wheat and barley. Some people say that I do not know the difference between corn and canola.
The parliamentary secretary was saying a few minutes ago that members on this side and grain farmers in western Canada should be thrilled with the wheat board and should be jumping up in support. Some of those farmers cannot jump up in support because they are in jail.
I give the example of Andy McMechan, a farmer from western Canada who had his equipment confiscated. He was thrown in jail. He was led away from his farm in shackles and chains because he had the audacity to smuggle his product across the border and sell it privately.
Was he growing marijuana? Was he growing opium? Was he growing cocaine? What product he was smuggling across the border in the middle of the night? It was wheat. It was grain.
He decided that he could get a better price for the grain he grew on his private property with his own seed that he purchased with his own money, with his own labour and with his own equipment. He had the audacity to bypass the Canadian Wheat Board to sell his grain privately. He wound up in jail and with untold costs. I am not sure what costs this man has faced as a result of defying the Canadian Wheat Board and defying the federal government in pursuit of obtaining the best price he could for his own private property.
We like to think that we live in a free country. As far as I am concerned this kind of action on the part of government in a free country is unacceptable.
I would like to ask the Liberal government whether it thinks this is fair, whether it thinks people in western Canada should jump up and be thrilled that they get thrown in jail if they do not sell their wheat through the Canadian Wheat Board.
It is a vivid example of the degree of intervention our big brother Liberal government has taken over the past two or three decades. It demonstrates a “we know better than you” attitude. It is nothing short of a power grab.
Not long ago a federal parliamentarian, and I will not name him, compared Canada to Cuba in the sense of attempting to say that Cuba was not such a bad place. He took some flak for that. A lot of people took umbrage with his remarks. I am not sure that he got it all wrong although I do not think it is in context of saying that Cuba is not all that bad. It is just that Canada ain't all that great when farmers cannot sell their own private property in a place they choose without being thrown in jail for doing it. We are not talking about banned substances. We are talking about wheat and grain.
The parliamentary secretary went on at great length talking about what a wonderful job the wheat board did. My question is for the government, the parliamentary secretary or anybody else who wants to defend the wheat board. I come at it from the perspective of somebody who knows very little about grain.
If the wheat board is doing such a wonderful job of marketing Canadian wheat, why do farmers who disagree and want to sell their grain on their own get thrown in jail? Why do they have to hear the jackboots of the government marching down the street to pull them out of their farms and throw them in jail because they have the audacity to sell their grain for the best price they can get? It is not a free country when this kind of thing happens. It is happening in the country today and Bill C-4 does nothing to address it.
Depository Bills And Notes Act June 8th, 1998
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his intervention. I certainly agree with everything he had to say. I just want to ask him a question.
When the hon. member looks at the fact that we are already up to S-9 in this parliament—and I believe he is right that in the last parliament we had very few bills that originated in the Senate—does he think that the reason for this perversion of process, the reason we are having so many bills generated in the Senate and coming to the House, is the lack of a parliamentary agenda on the part of the Liberal government?
Does the hon. member think that is the reason this phenomenon is so prominent in this parliament? Could my hon. colleague take a couple of minutes to expand on the parliamentary agenda of the Liberal government?