Raymond Simard

[Afghanistan, April 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, first we were told that the Red Cross would ensure that detainees were not tortured, but the Red Cross said that was not true. Then the minister told us that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission would do the job, but again not true. Then the minister suddenly announced, out of thin air, that he has a new deal, but again not true. Then the Minister of Public Safety stands up and says that now Correctional Service Canada is doing the job, but again that is not true.

When will the government tell the truth, stop changing its story and fire its incompetent Minister of National Defence?

[Volunteerism, April 27th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, on April 18 the volunteers of a group in my riding, Bishop Grandin Greenway Inc., were recognized for their incredible contribution and relentless work by being awarded the Mayor's Volunteer Service Award for Environment by Volunteer Manitoba. The award was presented at the 24th annual volunteer awards dinner and coincided with National Volunteer Week.

These volunteers were recognized for “transforming the barren scar of land along Bishop Grandin Boulevard between the Seine and Red rivers into a network of accessible nature areas and public pathways linking and supporting both human and wildlife communities”.

This group of dedicated people, led by their president, Mike Balshaw, have raised an impressive amount of money, created partnerships with both the public and private sectors, and spent countless personal hours to get the job done.

The Bishop Grandin Greenway will provide a safe, healthy transportation corridor and green space for all Winnipeggers.

I offer these volunteers my sincerest congratulations. I ask members of the House to join me in acknowledging the amazing work of these outstanding citizens.

[Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, April 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in November, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced in Gimli, Manitoba that his government would not be introducing dual marketing to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. He said, “We need to market ourselves collectively”.

However, on Tuesday we learned that the President of the Treasury Board has commissioned a study specifically asking for an assessment of a dual marketing system at the FFMC.

Would the Treasury Board President confirm that this deceitful study has in fact been commissioned despite the minister's promise and whether or not supply management is next on this neo-Conservative government's hit list?

[The Environment, April 19th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, as members will know, we are celebrating Earth Week. It is especially important to recognize environmental activists across the nation.

I am pleased to rise in the House today to recognize a very talented young lady by the name of Megan Paavola, a constituent who is among an elite group of 15 students from across Canada, who will receive the $5,000 Toyota Earth Day scholarship. This award recognizes outstanding achievements in environmental community service, academics and extracurricular participation.

Ms. Paavola's motivation and dedication to raise awareness on environmental issues has been most impressive. Her efforts include, but are not limited to: co-organizing a two-day Polar Bear Awareness event at the Winnipeg Children's Museum; participating in the Polar Bear Science Leadership Camp in Churchill, Manitoba; speaking tirelessly on ecological solutions; and initiating a student run recycling program at her school.

Megan Paavola's passion for the arts and social justice issues, combined with her leadership skills, make her a well rounded individual.

Please join me in congratulating Megan Paavola who understands the true meaning of being a responsible global citizen.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I can think of several companies in Winnipeg that are very successful because of the income trust format. Let me say that they are concerned right now. They are the pride of Winnipeg. Some of these companies needed the initial capital to get started. They have grown on their own because of their own initiatives and have grown very well.

If we would lose these, and I hope they are not part of the 16 that are now disappearing from the Canadian landscape, it would be sad. These are heroes. These are people who have worked hard to maintain their Canadian citizenship and Canadian ownership.

I think my colleague is absolutely right. It is wrong-headed. Canadians in the end will pay for this. More American firms will be here and more overseas firms will be buying Canadian businesses. It is a sad day for Canada.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry but I did not hear the second question.

With regard to the first question, no, we have not changed our position on this at all. We have always been in favour of companies purchasing Canadian companies and vice versa. What we do not want to do is handicap our Canadian companies in that process. When the government puts income trusts on their knees, when it devalues their worth and make them vulnerable to foreign takeovers, that is a totally different thing. That does not mean that we do not encourage purchases on either side.

I have a couple of quotes that are very telling from people who are very important. Allan Lanthier, retired senior partner of Ernst & Young and immediate past chairman of the Canadian Tax Foundation, said, “...the single most misguided policy I've seen out of Ottawa in 35 years”.

That is what we are against. We are not against the policy. We are against what the government has done to handicap our companies.

Mr. Claude Lamoureux, chief executive officer of the Ontario Teacher's Pension Fund, has indicated, “This is unbelievable. I don't know who in finance looked at this. I can't believe any sensible person would do this”.

Therefore, it looks like we are not the only ones who have a concern about this. We have put our companies on their knees. We can no longer compete fairly. Those are the things we are against. We are not against fair trade.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Signifying so little, exactly.

I was just wondering why the Conservatives continue to call themselves Canada's new government. It just bothers me. After a year and a half, why would they do that? I think I have come up with the answer. They want to distance themselves from the Mulroney government. They want absolutely nothing to do with those people, which is understandable.

The income trust fiasco is another issue. A lot of members have spoken about it today. In my riding it has been a huge issue. People in my riding, most of them seniors, have lost from $50,000 to $80,000. This will go down as the biggest scandal in Canadian history. People may not realize it right now but $25 billion lost in a matter of hours is something that had been absolutely unseen before. Down the road historians will say that it was an absolutely horrendous move.

The Minister of Finance had all kinds of options but the Conservatives were in such a hurry to make a move on this that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance did not look at the options. All they wanted was to achieve their majority and do whatever they had to do to achieve that. Who pays for that? It is the 1.5 million seniors who were affected by it and who lost huge sums of money after the Prime Minister broke his promise on this.

The hon. Liberal member before me spoke to the fact that a lot of the income trusts were severely weakened and are now takeover targets. Normally there would be Canadian companies purchasing companies overseas and in the U.S., and there would be the reverse happening as well, other companies buying here in Canada and there would usually be a balance. We are told that in the last little while the imbalance is actually $100 billion and it is not on the right side. It is on the side of foreigners purchasing our companies. The Conservatives' policies are certainly impacting our country negatively.

Often, budgets are criticized for the things they contain. Some things were not in the budget and, in my opinion, that is often just as important.

I would like to say a few words about the court challenges program. In Manitoba, we were able to obtain the management of our schools and our own school divisions because of that program. Mr. Speaker, you are from Manitoba, so you will know that is important. It was only 11 years ago. In the riding of the President of the Treasury Board, there are tens of thousand of Francophones, and he was not even aware that that program was used to defend the rights of Francophones and official language minorities in Manitoba. Ever since the vibrant French-speaking community in Manitoba has taken control of its own curriculum. That is an important step that should be highlighted.

There was nothing for literacy in the budget. Some $18.5 million was cut and those funds have not been restored. In Manitoba’s Francophone communities, 11 literacy centres were closed and organizations such as Manitoba Literacy Partners are in jeopardy today. I find it insulting that the Minister of the Environment would say we should not repair something that is broken. We are talking about people here, not cars. Some people have not had the chance to learn to read or write. We cannot talk about people in those terms. I find that very insensitive on his part.

I could also talk about women’s groups, as well as the $10 million for “Santé en français,” a program that was not renewed, even though it had produced absolutely extraordinary results. They added $30 million to the total budget for official language minority communities. That is ludicrous. There are nearly two million Francophones living outside Quebec. They are making a laughing stock of our communities.

I would also like to point out that there was a reference in the budget to an official languages action plan with $642 million over five years. However, the official languages action plan should receive $750 million over five years. I hope that was a typo and not a $100 million cut that they tried to slip through. I would very much like to hear the government clarify its position on that subject.

On the environment, the Conservatives until a few months ago did not believe the science of climate change, until they saw the polls of course. All of a sudden, there was an instant conversion. The new Minister of the Environment bought a green tie. He thought that would do it. He thought that was enough to convince people that he had totally made the conversion. He ran over to Europe to tell our friends overseas that the Conservatives had seen the light, that the environment was suddenly important to them. The Europeans did not buy it and Canadians did not buy it.

An example of the Conservatives' false commitment to the environment can be found in Manitoba where their budget sprinkled $6 million over two years to clean up Lake Winnipeg. We cannot rake the sand on Lake Winnipeg for $6 million. This is absolutely ridiculous. What we need to clean up Lake Winnipeg, we are told by experts, is $120 million, and the last government had projected that in the last platform. That is the kind of commitment that needs to be made. The Conservatives cannot just say they are going to invest $6 million when they know it is not going to do the job. It makes one wonder if the Conservatives had a majority government whether they would even bother to show this newly found commitment to the environment.

There was not a word on the aboriginals in the budget. There was not a word on the Kelowna accord.

The Conservatives did do some things well. I think allowing corporations to write off their equipment faster is a good idea. I support increasing the capital gains exemptions to $750,000.

The Conservatives' best initiatives are when they basically reannounce past Liberal programs: EnerGuide; reintroducing the same funds promised on the Red River floodway; reintroducing the funds on the Sydney tar ponds; reintroducing the Liberal homelessness initiative under a different name; reintroducing $755 million to grains and oilseeds producers.

Overall it is a very frustrating budget for Canadians. It is a budget targeting their support for a majority government but not in the best interest of Canadians.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2007, April 18th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-52, the budget implementation bill. It is always a pleasure to speak on a budget because when a government tables a budget, it affects all Canadians, obviously, but it affects directly people in a member's own riding.

The first thing I would like to do is to dispel a few of the myths around the Conservative government. I know that the Conservatives have been going around talking to people and telling them what good money managers they are, how fiscally responsible they are. The reality is that it was the previous Liberal government that cleaned up Mulroney's mess and got this country back on a solid footing.

I know that we keep coming back to the $42 billion yearly deficit but that is a reality that we picked up in 1993, and it is a reality of which Canadians are aware. However, when we left 13 years later, and I know they keep talking about our 13 years in government, we left the government with a $13 billion surplus and we set the basis for a second solid surplus this year. Even the Conservatives seem to be ashamed of taking credit for it because they know that it will not work. They know that Canadians know that the basics were set up by the previous government.

Prior to the last two surpluses, when was the last time that a Conservative government had a surplus? This is really interesting. Mr. Mulroney was in government for nine years. One would think that in nine years with a solid majority government he would have had an opportunity to do what he had to do and basically come up with a surplus, but not at all.

Let us go back to 1958 and the Diefenbaker sweep. Mr. Diefenbaker swept the country. I am sure that he had an opportunity to get the House in order and have a surplus, but no, absolutely not. In fact, the last Conservative surplus was in 1912 under Sir Robert Borden, before the first world war.

The myth the Conservatives are trying to portray out there is that they are good fiscal managers, but I think that puts that to rest.

The Conservatives keep talking about the last 13 years of Liberal government. In the last 13 years of Liberal government we had seven consecutive surpluses. I could enumerate all the other amazing things that were done in that period to put Canada on a solid fiscal footing, which everybody in the country realizes.

The second myth is that they control spending, that they have really tight reins on spending. The Conservative Party has been spending like a drunken sailor. It is absolutely incredible what has been going on.

When the Conservatives were planning their budget they basically eliminated the $3 billion contingency that our party used to put in place when we were doing our budget planning. Old habits die hard. They are very close to incurring deficits. It looks like a return to the good old Mulroney days is just around the corner.

When it comes to announcements, and I think it is important to talk about them, I remember that a year and a half or two years ago, they were always saying how the previous government was making announcements and throwing money around. In the last little while in Manitoba it has been a whirlwind. People in the Conservative Party have been tripping over each other to make announcements. I have never seen in my five years here in Parliament so many announcements in so little time.

[The Environment, March 29th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, in 2005 the Liberal budget committed $40 million to improve the ecological integrity of the Great Lakes, including Lake Winnipeg with guaranteed annual investments to improve its ecosystem.

In 2006 the Conservative budget did not mention Canada's lakes and did not provide any new funding. This year's budget pledges a measly $7 million over two years for Lake Winnipeg.

The Minister of the Environment knows this is totally inadequate. Where is the money to clean up Lake Winnipeg?

[Committees of the House, March 28th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, my perspective is that the price of barley will not move because we do not have the authority to change the Wheat Board process at this point. This was not a valid structure. In my opinion, I think the whole process should be repeated. It is too early to decide on whether the price of barley will go up or down.