Carol Skelton

[Petitions, January 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition on behalf of residents of Saskatoon and district.

The petitioners want to bring to the attention of the House of Commons that the Canadian Blood Services service centre in Saskatoon had some closures last year. The petition states that the CBS director of operations has now announced the closure of all operations at CBS Saskatoon except for collections, transportation and donor services for central and northern Saskatchewan, which will be directed out of Regina.

Therefore the petitioners call upon Parliament to undertake a complete and independent study of Canadian Blood Services across Canada and the integrity of its management.

[Queen's Jubilee Medal, December 10th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, this year Canadians across this great country received a special gift from Her Majesty on the occasion of her golden jubilee. Twenty special people in my riding were recognized for their service and dedication to their communities and Canada as a whole.

The recipients from Saskatoon were: Judge Ernest Boychuk, Fred Thompson, Randy Pshebylo, Emilia Vera Panamaroff, and Ted Merriman. In Rosetown, Donald Fullerton and Hugh Lees received the medal. Biggar's recipients were Marvin Ledding and Alice Ellis.

Other recipients were: Cameron Weir from Perdue; Dale Beattie in Dinsmore; Wallace Jackson in Harris; Rita Martichenko from Arelee; Stuart Holtzman in Fiske; Dennis Tkachuk from Milden; Walter Hill in Vanscoy; Earl Keeler from Delisle; and William A. Bradley in Hershel.

Trevor Shepstone from Corman Park and Charles Richie from Zealandia were awarded their medals posthumously.

Congratulations to all recipients.

[Kyoto Protocol, December 9th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise during this important debate on the Kyoto protocol. I am also very pleased to be part of the only party voicing the growing sentiment of Canadians, which is that they want to discuss this issue fully and they want the government to stop pushing it down their throats.

If we are going to commit all Canadians to higher energy costs, higher energy taxes and a more expensive economy, should members of the House not have more than a few hours of mock debate to resolve these concerns? Does it not deserve a serious debate with all Canadians with an honest vote?

We all support protecting the environment but as with anything, there is a wrong way and a right way to do it. Unfortunately, the government is building on its record of doing things the wrong way. The government does not want to hear what Canadians have to say and neither does it want the truth about the protocol.

The Kyoto protocol is not about preventing air pollution or smog. The Kyoto protocol is primarily concerned with carbon dioxide or CO

2

. However CO

2

is not a component of smog and is not considered a pollutant or a toxic. Reducing CO

2

will not reduce air pollution or smog in Canadian cities.

Kyoto does not include the world's largest contributors of greenhouse gases. The United States, which produces 40% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, will not be subjecting its businesses and citizens to this poorly composed agreement. In addition, the world's developing countries, such as China, India and Mexico, are exempt too. Canada only produces 2% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Why are we jeopardizing our economy when our largest trading partners are not?

Kyoto is not about consultation with Canadians. The government does not want to hear what Canadians have to say, even though they have to pay. Canadians deserve to be consulted on Kyoto before it is ratified by the government.

What are the likely consequences? Studies indicate that up to 450,000 jobs could be lost. Because the Americans have not signed on, Canada will become less competitive with the United States. Income tax will rise as government revenues drop. Consumer prices will rise. Rising prices, rising taxes and a fall in the standard of living will be the Prime Minister's legacy. Up to $45 billion could be lost to the economy.

Can we afford to cut government revenues so drastically when our health care and defence budgets and every other department are in need of attention? Seniors will be forced to pay more to heat their homes as electricity costs could double and natural gas could increase as much as 60%. It is ironic that global warming will continue globally as Canadians are expected to freeze in their homes.

Kyoto will drive up the cost of public and private transportation as gasoline and diesel fuel prices rise. Every Canadian will suffer from a weaker economy. Perhaps the Prime Minister is retiring but the rest of us will still be left to work harder to pay for his mistakes.

While all parents want to do what they can to protect their children's future, they do not have bottomless pockets to pay for the government's good intentions. The government that falsely promised to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000 will actually be contributing further to the problem.

We may argue who will pay for Kyoto, the government or the consumer, but really are they not the same person, the taxpayer? Who cares who writes the cheque in the end; it will be the taxpayer that must foot the final bill.

Canadians want the federal government to wait until it has a real plan. They want the federal government to be a team player, not a bureaucratic bully. They do not want to rush into this and then pay for the government's mistakes.

Canadians want to be heard. They want to be consulted. They want to make a difference. They want to protect the environment with a well thought out plan. They want that plan made in Canada by Canadians for Canadians.

Let us work with our Canadian neighbours to achieve these goals. What is so difficult about this? Why do we have to rush this through Parliament? Why can we not do this responsibly?

[Points of Order, December 5th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, my point of order is in regard to the Senate message received yesterday. It reads:

That the Clerk do carry this bill back to the House of Commons and acquaint that House that the Senate has divided the bill into two bills, Bill C-10A, an act to amend the Criminal Code (firearms) and the Firearms Act, and Bill C-10B, an act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals), both of which are attached to this Message as Appendices “A” and “B” respectively; and That the Clerk further acquaint the House that: (a) the Senate desires the concurrence of the House of Commons in the division of Bill C-10; (b) the Senate has passed Bill C-10A without amendment; and (c) the Senate is further considering Bill C-10B.

These are the two issues. First, I will agree that it is not in order for the Senate to divide a bill passed by the House of Commons. Second, the House cannot waive its privileges in this matter. Therefore, the only response would be to decline the concurrence because by agreeing to this message the House would be going beyond the powers conferred upon it by the Constitution.

Bill C-10 received three readings in the House and second reading in the Senate. On November 20, a motion was adopted in the Senate regarding Bill C-10. It read:

That it be an instruction to the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that it divide Bill C-10, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (cruelty to animals and firearms) and the Firearms Act, into two Bills, in order that it may deal separately with the provisions relating to firearms and provisions relating to cruelty to animals.

Yesterday a message was received by the House informing members that the Senate had divided Bill C-10 into two bills, Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B, and the Senate is asking for concurrence.

There is only one precedent regarding this issue.

On June 7, 1988, the Senate considered the matter of dividing Bill C-103, an act to increase opportunity for economic development in Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. Bill C-103 had gone through the normal legislative process, received third reading and was sent to the Senate.

The Senate instructed the finance committee to divide Bill C-103. This was challenged and the Speaker in the Senate made the following ruling:

The main procedural problem, the Chair feels, lies with the nature of Bill C-103 itself. It is a government bill and a money bill, having been recommended by Her Excellency the Governor General. Senator Graham's motion is quite clear that the National Finance Committee will be instructed to divide Bill C-103 into two bills. Erskine May states, on page 564, that, when an instruction has been given to the committee that a bill may be divided into two or more bills, "the separate bills have been separately reported." If it is divided, Bill C-103 will no longer be on the Senate Order Paper but will be superseded by two separate bills.

The Chair has a problem in accepting that these two separate bills are still government bills. Senator Graham's instruction does not deal with amending a government bill, but with dividing a government bill into two bills. These two bills would therefore have found their way before Parliament, not in the House of Commons but in the Senate. Since they would both be bills appropriating public money, it would appear to the Chair that such action would be in contravention of Section 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867. For this very important reason, I must conclude that the motion of the Honourable Senator Graham is not in order.

This ruling was overruled by the Senate and Bill C-103 was divided and part I of the bill was sent to the House of Commons.

On July 11, 1988, the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled that the procedural event concerning Bill C-103 was totally without precedent. He said:

In the case of Bill C-103, it is my opinion, and with great respect of course, that the Senate should have respected the propriety of asking the House of Commons to concur in its action of dividing Bill C-103 and in reporting only part of the Bill back as a fait accompli has infringed the privileges of this place.

Furthermore, Bill C-103 has attached to it, pursuant to our Standing Orders and Section 54 of the Constitution, a financial recommendation of Her Excellency the Governor General. So this Bill is in a very real sense a Financial Bill.

The Speaker then ruled that the privileges of the House had been breached. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, Bill C-10, also has attached to it a royal recommendation and therefore falls within the same definition as Bill C-103.

In his ruling on Bill C-103, the Speaker stated that he did not have the power to enforce the privileges of the House directly. He said that he could not rule the Message from the Senate out of order for that would leave Bill C-103 in limbo. He said:

The cure in this case is for the House to claim its privileges or to forgo them....

Mr. Speaker, this is where Speaker Fraser's ruling is somewhat flawed. I agree with the first part that the House must claim its privileges. However I disagree with the suggestion that the House can forgo its privileges in this case. It did not in the case of Bill C-103. In the case of Bill C-103 a motion was introduced and adopted that read:

The Senate has altered the ends, purposes, considerations, limitations and qualifications of the grants of aid and supply set out in this bill, contrary to Standing Order 87, as recommended by Her Excellency the Governor General to this House and has therefore infringed the privileges of the House, and asked that the Senate return Bill C-103 in an undivided form.

A motion upholding the privileges of the House would of course be in order. A motion breaching our rules that are entrenched in that Constitution should not.

With Bill C-103 both the Senate Speaker and the Commons Speaker established that it was out of order for the Senate to divide a Commons bill, particularly a financial bill since it is an infringement of the privileges of the House of Commons.

With respect to Bill C-10, on Tuesday the Senate Speaker ignored any objection to the procedure because he ruled that he would respect the decision of the Senate. The difference between the Bill C-103 situation and the Bill C-10 situation in the Senate is that the objection to the procedure in the case of Bill C-10 was raised after a motion had been adopted and the objection to the procedure in the case of Bill C-103 was raised before the Senate adopted the motion.

The scenario in the House for Bill C-10 is that the objection is being raised before any motion in response to the message is introduced or adopted. Therefore the two rulings for Bill C-103 are still relevant and the Senate ruling for Bill C-10 is not.

The question and the subject of the remainder of my point will focus on who decides or who defends the privileges of the House in this particular manner.

In the case of Bill C-103 the Speaker ruled that the House ought to decide. As I said earlier, I believe that this ruling by Speaker Fraser is flawed and inconsistent with our practices in these matters.

In the case of Bill C-103, there was no harm done because the government's motion defended the privileges of the House. There was no harm done with respect to Bill C-103 but there is potential harm if we do not correct the errors of Speaker Fraser's ruling and allow the House to decide because the government may very well want to agree with the Senate and I believe that the House cannot waive its privileges by simply a majority vote. Since the simple majority of this House cannot override the Constitution, the onus is on the Speaker to rule that the Senate breached our privileges and state that this House cannot concur with the Senate.

Any motion by the government attempting to agree with the message should be ruled out of order. I have two points to make in this regard.

First, Speakers and others have claimed that the Speaker cannot rule on constitutional matters. This causes some confusion because Speakers have ruled on constitutional matters.

In Speaker Fraser's ruling of July 11, 1998, he stated:

Certain questions remain to be answered: by splitting the Bill does the Royal Recommendation still apply? Have the financial privileges of the Commons been breached? As Speaker of the House of Commons, I will not attempt to answer such constitutional questions....

His next statement concludes:

--clearly this House has always considered Standing Order 87...as setting out a special relationship between the Commons, that is, this House of Commons, and the Sovereign. I have ruled that the privileges of the House have been infringed.

When constitutional matters that relate to our standing orders are not in question, the Speaker has the right and the duty to rule. These constitutional requirements that are reflected in our rules are as follows: section 48 of the constitution sets out the quorum requirement of the House and is repeated in our Standing Orders as Standing Order 29; and section 53 and section 54 concerning the procedure for the introduction of money bills is reflected in Standing Order 80. It is these sections of the constitution and this Standing Order that is one of the issues of this point of order.

Section 53 reads:

Bills for appropriating any part of the Public Revenue, or for imposing any Tax or Impost shall originate in the House of Commons.

Section 54 provides that:

It shall not be lawful for the House of Commons to adopt or pass any Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill for the Appropriation of any Part of the Public Revenue, or of any Tax or Impost, to any Purpose that has not been first recommended to that House by Message of the Governor General in the Session in which such Vote, Resolution, Address, or Bill is proposed.

Standing Order 80, section 1, reads:

All aids and supplies granted to the Sovereign by the Parliament of Canada are the sole gift of the House of Commons, and all bills for granting such aids and supplies ought to begin with the House, as it is the undoubted right of the House to direct, limit, and appoint in all such bills, the ends, purposes, considerations, conditions, limitations and qualifications of such grants, which are not alterable by the Senate.

Whenever there is a departure from order relating to these particular procedural requirements set out in the constitution, the Speaker has the duty and the authority to bring down a ruling.

As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, Speakers have routinely ruled private members' bills to be out of order because they required royal recommendations. On page 897 of Marleau and Montpetit, it states:

There is a constitutional requirement that bills proposing the expenditure of public funds must be accompanied by a royal recommendation, which can be obtained only by the government and introduced by a Minister. Since a Minister cannot propose items of Private Members' Business, a private Members' bill should therefore not contain provisions for the spending of funds.

In the footnotes of that page are examples of times when the Speaker ruled on the constitutional requirement of royal recommendations. It cites Journals of November 9, 1978; February 20, 1979; June 6, 1980; and Debates on November 1, 1991. How can the case be made that the Speaker does not rule on constitutional matters?

Just recently on October 24, the Speaker ruled on a point of order raised earlier in the day by the government House leader concerning the bill introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. The Speaker ruled:

The case before the House is clear. The bill introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre seeks to remove an existing tax exemption. If adopted, this measure would have the effect of increasing the tax payable by a certain group of taxpayers. Legislation of this sort, however worthy, may only be introduced when preceded by a motion of ways and means provided by a minister of the Crown, as I said earlier.

As the bill in question was not preceded by a ways and means motion, the proceedings this morning were not in acceptable form. I therefore rule them null and void and the order for second reading of the bill be discharged and the bill withdrawn from the Order Paper.

In the last session the Speaker laid out in great detail the financial privileges of this House when he rules on Bill S-13. I will not repeat this excellent overview provided by the Speaker, but instead I will simply point out to those who are interested that they can educate themselves on the topic by referring to the Speaker's ruling from Hansard of December 2, 1998.

On December 2, 1998, the Speaker, laid out the financial privileges of the House. He indicated that those privileges had been breached with the introduction of Bill S-13 and he immediately ordered the bill to be withdrawn.

He said:

The House of Commons has the exclusive right and obligation to legislate financial measures...I am obligated as your Speaker to ensure that these fundamental financial privileges are not compromised.

The Speaker did not ask the House to decide whether it wanted to wave the privileges or to uphold them. The Speaker said that he was obliged to ensure that financial privileges of the House are not compromised.

There are many other examples. I will name a few. In 1969 Mr. Baldwin objected to Senate Bill S-3 which provided for the dissolution of the Dominion Coal Board. Mr. Baldwin argued that the money, although already appropriated by Parliament, was diverted for other purposes. Stanley Knowles supported the argument by pointing out that the appropriation of the money lapsed with the changes made by the bill and therefore to spend these moneys in some other way would be an inappropriation of the bill.

The Speaker's ruling on the matter was:

The provisions of Bill S-3 relating to the appropriation of public moneys infringe on the privileges of the House.

The Speaker ordered that the bill be laid aside and the notice for the first reading be removed from the Order Paper. In a ruling from the Speaker from 1973 regarding Bill S-5, Farm Improvement Loans Act, it was argued that while the bill did not in itself propose a direct expenditure, it did propose substantial additional liabilities on public money. The Speaker ruled that the bill be removed from the Order Paper.

This is what I am asking the Speaker to do with respect to this issue; make a ruling and enforce it. The Senate is asking this House to adopt Bill C-10A. If Bill C-10A is allowed to proceed then its twin sister Bill C-10B will indirectly be legitimized and the Senate will be a proud father of another bouncing baby money bill.

The motion would enable two money bills created by the Senate to exist. It is the Speaker's obligation to rule that this contravenes our practice. There is no way the House by majority vote or by unanimous consent can wave procedures that are provided for in the constitution. This brings me to my second point.

If the House were to agree with the Senate, the House would be adopted procedures which go beyond the power conferred upon it by the constitution. There are similar precedents regarding committees that you should consider, Mr. Speaker.

On June 20, 1994, and November 7, 1996, the Speaker ruled:

While it is a tradition of this House that committees are masters of their own proceedings, they cannot establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred upon them by the House.

If we are to be consistent, I would point out that while the House is a master of its own proceedings, it could not establish procedures which go beyond the powers conferred on it by the constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1985 that the requirement of section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and of section 23 of the Manitoba Act of 1870, respecting the use of both the English and French languages in the records and journals of the House of Parliament of Canada, are mandatory and must be obeyed.

Accordingly the House can not longer depart from its own code of procedure when considering a procedure entrenched in the constitution.

On page 295, 2nd edition of Joseph Maingot's Parliamentary Privilege in Canada , in reference to the 1985 case, he lists those constitutional requirements regarding parliamentary procedure that must be obeyed and includes in that list section 53 and section 54 which deal with the financial privileges of a House of Commons.

Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is your duty to rule on this matter that any motion that attempts to breach the privileges of the House should be disallowed. You cannot allow the House to even consider waving these privileges. What is the point of having a constitution if the House by a simple majority vote can override it?

It has been established that it is not in order for the Senate to divide a bill that originated from the House of Commons. I have also argued that the House cannot wave these privileges because by doing so the House would be going beyond the powers conferred upon it by the constitution.

Accordingly, it is up to the Speaker to rule on that this matter infringes on the privileges of the House and no further action, except for a message upholding our privileges, can be taken.

Lord Durham, in the 1839 report on the affairs of British North America, was scandalized that there was no rule requiring a royal recommendation either in Upper or Lower Canada. He wrote:

The prerogative of the Crown which is constantly exercised in Great Britain for the real protection of the people, ought never to have been waived in the Colonies; and if the rule of the Imperial Parliament, that no money vote were introduced into these Colonies, it might be wisely employed in protecting the public interests, now frequently sacrificed in that scramble for local appropriations, which chiefly serves to give an undue influence to particular individuals or parties.

In accordance with Durham's wishes, the royal recommendation requirement was made part of the Union Act, 1840.

I want to conclude by commenting on amendments made by the Senate to the money bills. I appreciate that the government may raise this and try to use it as a lame precedent so I would like to get my view of this on the record.

The usual way for the House of Commons to give its consent to Senate amendments on money bills is through the waiving of privileges under protest. For example, in 1939 the Senate amended the income tax bill to eliminate some retroactive features of the legislation. Supported by all sides of the House, the government first contemplated refusal, but in view of the advanced stage of the session it finally moved,

that this House concur in the set amendments, and while so doing it does not think it advisable at this period of the session to insist on its privileges in respect thereto, but that the waiver of said privileges in this case be not however drawn into a precedent...

I mention this because what we are considering here is not an amendment but a creation of two separate bills, Bill C-10A and Bill C-10B. The acceptance of the amendment precedence cannot be used for two reasons. There is much argument that the Senate has the power to amend money bills and any claim by the House is just that, a claim and not anything substantiated by hard and fast rules or convention. The matter of bills originating from the Senate that require a royal recommendation is a rule that is not open for interpretation or debate. The rules of this House and the constitution state that fact very clearly and it has been upheld by speakers for over 100 years.

We cannot consider any precedence regarding Senate amendments to bills. What we are dealing with here are two new bills from the Senate. In cases of bills coming from the Senate, it is the Speaker who rules. It is not a matter of the government waiving or rejecting an amendment.

[Health, November 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in the health committee, a Health Canada official would not say whether donated semen coming from the United States to Canadian fertility clinics was from prisoners or not.

Is the health minister able to guarantee Canadian couples that they are not receiving semen from American prisoners?

[Health, November 27th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, only eight laboratory workers in Canada have the resources to test our blood supply for the dangers of West Nile virus. These are the front line people with whom we entrust our blood safety.

With patients having to wait for up to nine weeks for test results, we have a disaster in the making.

Why is the government and the minister not providing the needed resources to protect Canada's blood supply?

[Agriculture, November 26th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I have letters from farmers desperate for assistance in the face of unfair foreign subsidized markets and unreliable, unfair agricultural policy from this government.

Craig Hanson is the type of university educated agricultural professional Canada wants and he has written the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food calling for action. He has done everything asked of him, yet he still faces financial ruin because of the government.

He, like other farmers, face a marketplace which moves a lot fast than government. They desperately need government to become much more efficient and responsive when dealing with their concerns. Time is their biggest enemy.

Murray Downing has proposed a sensible emergency cash advance program to meet these special needs. He and his fellow farmers want the minister to consult with them. They fear further closed door bureaucratic decisions that will not help. The government gives the impression the problem is resolved when it is not.

Farmers and rural citizens of all political persuasions are seeking a common sense approach and plead for the minister to listen.

[Supply, November 6th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, was the hon. member at the meeting in Davidson, Saskatchewan where the organic farmers and other speakers spoke out against the Canadian Wheat Board. Also, does he hold a Canadian Wheat Board permit book and how much land does he farm?

[Health Care System, October 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the House during this supposed take note debate on the future of our health care system.

A recent Environics poll indicated that 80% of Canadians wanted significant reforms to our health care system. A debate of the surrounding issues is quite timely if there was a debate. If the system is going to change, Canadians want to be part of it.

The Canadian Alliance recently conducted its own health care review. We made clear our values on health care. Our policy declares our commitment to ensure that timely, quality and sustainable health care is available to every Canadian regardless of financial means. We will achieve this by placing the interests of the patients first. This is what we expect the government to do and what Canadians expect the government to do.

Unfortunately, the government was disappointingly quiet and unspecific in the recent throne speech when it came to health care issues. While Liberals may try to blame their lack of vision on something else like waiting for the Romanow report, the health care system gets worse every day.

More than anything, our health care system needs to know that there is substantial and sustainable funding from the federal government. We have seen the government shirk its funding responsibilities and then dangle funding carrots in front of the premiers like they are the ones who are solving the problem. Let us put an end to these charades and admit the federal government needs to carry its share of the burden.

While the Prime Minister is focusing on a spending legacy, the irony is that it will be this and the former finance minister's funding reductions in health, education and the military that will undoubtedly be their legacy. When it comes to the military, we believe that the existing funding has been exhausted. However, when it comes to health care, we believe there are still plenty of opportunities for reprioritization and reallocation of funding within the existing budgets before considering massive funding increases.

Only after all these options have been explored should we consider raising the tax burden of Canadians. Nonetheless, the health care system must be patient driven, not system driven. We have a responsibility to determine what Canadians want in their health care system and then find a responsible means to deliver it. It will be Canadians who determine what, if anything, is not covered. It will be Canadians, not politicians, who determine what should be funded.

Our job in the House and within government departments is to come up with a cost effective, sustainable plan to meet those demands. We all use the health care system from time to time. Some of us are lucky and do not require it often, if at all. Others like myself may have had one or two crises in their lives. Still, it is those who must rely on the system daily who need to be heard. They do not enjoy the benefit of good health. Health care is a necessity. This demand on our health care system and the growing dependence on medicare is guaranteed to increase. In fact, some conditions, like diabetes and heart disease, are expected to reach epidemic proportions as more and more Canadians take less and less responsibility for their own personal health.

On October 19 the Globe and Mail reported that Canada had more fat children than adults and that one-quarter of children aged two and three were clinically obese, meaning that one-third of their body weight was composed of fat. The article went on to say because children tended to become overweight and obese, it was widely predicted that rates of diabetes and cardiovascular disease would soar. These problems and lifestyle choices will have to be considered and accounted for in the future of our health care system.

What will be the areas of increased demand and how are we preparing to meet them? Unfortunately, the Romanow commission and the Kirby report are more about ideas than about a plan so far.

While they have suggested some methods for achieving their goals, they both do not have concrete plans with exact costs, responsibilities and targets. This is something that has been missing in the past and I am afraid we may be following the same path again. I look forward to being proven wrong in this regard but I do not think I will be.

I have identified what I think the others should do but I would like to conclude with some comments on what the Canadian Alliance would do and what we would like to see.

Before I outline our plan I want to stress that we would ensure that a timely, quality and sustainable health care system is available to every Canadian regardless of financial means. Our health care system would be patient driven, not system driven. We would give Canadians the health care system that Canadians want. It is their choice.

We would modernize the Canada Health Act in light of the new technologies, priorities and techniques to ensure timeliness, quality and sustainability. We would end the roller-coaster cycle of funding for which the government has become famous. We would work with the provinces to ensure adequate, stable and transparent funding. This is essential in long term planning and preparations for future demands on the health care system.

While working to ensure that Canadians have equal and fair service no matter where they live, we are also committed to ensuring that the provinces have maximum flexibility to deal with innovations and unique service demands. The goals may be the same but the provinces require the flexibility to develop their own strategies to get there.

There is an ongoing debate of the role of the private sector in the public system. We cannot tie the hands of those tasked to deliver health care. We are confident, if given the freedoms to incorporate private involvement, the provinces under direction from their electorate will do so with proper safeguards in place. Let us not tie the hands of those we need to be creative and innovative in conquering the challenges of the system today and in the future.

Finally, we need to have a complete review of the system, its services, its funding, its goals and its sustainability at local levels and, more important, at the first ministers level. All need to be involved from the highest political offices on down to the neighbourhood doctors who are charged with the job of delivering services to their communities.

The motion today calls for the government to take note of the concerns of Canadians. I strongly urge the government to do so and to listen to Canadians. Give them the health care system they want and do so in such a way that it will be there tomorrow and into the future. Let us end the cycle of the unsustainable, underfunded, unresponsive health care that we have today. Let us learn from our mistakes and do better in the future.

[Agriculture, October 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I can say that I am one of the members in the House that has the Canadian Wheat Board permit and I understand it more than he does.

The government is jailing our grain farmers for selling their own grain a decade after Communism fell. The Prime Minister offered advice to the Ukraine. He said that monopolies were not worthy of a great nation and a great people, that we must create a class of entrepreneurs to break away from the Communist legacy.

Why will he not follow his own advice and get rid of the Canadian Wheat Board monopoly?