Monte Solberg

[Old Age Security Act, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. parliamentary secretary for his series of questions. He has touched on a number of issues and on this bill in particular. I commend the government if it is trying to improve services. Obviously we have to do that.

However, as the hon. member for Calgary North pointed out it is kind of like polishing the chrome when the transmission is going. The big issue before the country today is social program reform. It is one of the huge issues. Let us not debate whether answering the phone sooner is a good thing. Of course it is. We all know that answering the phone and providing faster service for seniors is important. We understand that.

By pulling out vague references to discussion about social program reform or about minor aspects of social program reform, it does not follow that the government made any kind of commitment in the red book to deal with this problem in a serious way.

The government downplayed the whole issue during the election campaign. It downplayed the seriousness of the debt situation to the point where a year after it came into power it is just now beginning to realize how seriously we are in debt in this country. Not because it wants to but because international investors have told them: "Get your act together or we are going to start to move our money out of the country". It is that simple. It is not because it somehow saw this ahead of time and put together a big task force and went to Canadians.

With all due respect to the parliamentary secretary, if he had referred to our zero and three plan, of which we distributed millions of copies during the election campaign, he would know we talked about our changes to social program reform. They are on the public record. In fact this spring we gave the finance minister a list of $20 billion in proposed cuts for the government to use in its efforts to get the deficit and debt under control. I offer that to the parliamentary secretary for him to look at.

[Old Age Security Act, October 20th, 1994]

The government would not even let them co-chair the proceedings, Mr. Speaker, as my hon. friend points out.

Suffice it to say there are many problems with the green paper. It has been roundly criticized by the media, by the provinces, and by the many special interest groups that were funded by the government to come and appear before them but by Canadians themselves.

Reform's zero-three program really led the way. Lately we have had proposals from Tom Courchene who actually appeared before the committee. The hon. member from Winnipeg across the way was there when he appeared. He made an excellent presentation. I guess he did not find any of his proposals in the green paper so he felt it was necessary to bring out his own. It is now in the arena of public debate. Hopefully the government will see fit to include it in its area of debate as well and will consider some of Mr. Courchene's ideas.

The government has another problem. We are rapidly approaching the end of 1994. It has delayed again the time when it will call for the reporting deadline on this issue to February 6, 1995. We have moved from getting this into legislation this fall. Possibly when we consider the time it takes to draft legislation and for it to pass through various readings in the House and committee, it is quite conceivable that it will be well into 1996 before it actually becomes legislation, if that is what the government decides to do.

It will probably be a year, perhaps a year and a half, before the next election if the government holds an election within four years. That concerns me. It is a well known fact that governments very often fail at the last moment, at the critical point, when they are faced with going before the electorate, particularly when they are talking about making deep cuts to something that Canadians value like social programs.

I am concerned about that. This issue is inextricably intertwined with the whole issue of fiscal responsibility and the huge problems we face because of overspending by this Liberal government and the Conservative governments that went before.

We have a deficit of $40 billion. We have a debt approaching $535 billion. Soon international lenders are going to get fed up. They are going to say that they have had enough and want to find a place where their investment will be safe.

I am concerned the government across the way has not realized that. It does not understand the urgency. While the finance minister may realize it, I think the Prime Minister has failed to grasp it, as has the human resources development minister.

I urge the government to come to grips with the seriousness of the situation, to take another look at its social program reform and to move ahead with serious cuts in the very near future for the sake of all Canadians.

[Old Age Security Act, October 20th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure today to rise and address this bill, but I also wish to address the larger debate that is going on across the country and really the one that has been going on this morning and that is with respect to the social program review that is currently under way.

To have a good understanding of the social program review I think it is very important that we go back and look at the genesis of this idea and the genesis of the debate. Probably the first thing we should do is point out that during the last election campaign the Liberals across the way did not even mention social program reform as an issue. It was as though it did not exist.

There was an interesting article in the Ottawa Citizen from October 14:

During the election, then Prime Minister Kim Campbell stepped on a land mine by declaring a campaign was the "worst possible time" to discuss social policy reform. Jean Chrétien criticized her heavily and tiptoed around the same land mine with the following assurance: "I say that the programs are there and they will remain the same-".

That was a year ago. That is the type of double talk that the Prime Minister used to accuse the Conservatives of using.

The article goes on, quoting the Prime Minister:

"The plan of the party is clear. The social safety net that we have in Canada will remain."

The Liberal's election bible, the red book, made no reference to a major review of social programs or even whether one might be necessary.

I would like to contrast that with how the Reform Party addressed this issue which was to address it head on, recognizing that fiscal problems in this country are directly linked to social policy because social programs eat up almost $80 billion a year and we cannot tackle fiscal problems without making some cuts in social programs.

However, I point out that the approach we took was to start cutting at the top first before we got to social programs. We said that Canadians demand leadership by example. They want to see cuts to the cost of Parliament. They want to see MPs' pensions done away with in the current form. They are concerned with overlap between not only federal and provincial government but also between different departments within the federal government. They want to see subsidies to business and special interest groups trimmed. We would then take a look at social programs in conjunction with the people of Canada.

What we found out in the days and months leading up to the election was that people did believe that there had to be cuts made there in order to achieve a balanced budget which even now the finance minister is beginning to recognize in this country. Hopefully it is not too late.

What we said is that people place a very high priority on maintaining spending for health care in this country and we agreed. We said that health care spending should be maintained. However, we should respect the authority of the provinces and their jurisdiction under the Constitution to have control over health care.

The other thing that people told us was very important to them was maintaining funding for post-secondary education. We proposed various ideas to make that even more effective but maintain the funding.

Some of the other areas where people felt there could be some cuts and changes made were unemployment insurance; a proposal to make unemployment insurance a true insurance program based on the idea that employers and employees who fund the program, who put the money in, should have control over it. In other words, we were proposing to empower individuals to have control over their own lives and create the type of insurance system that would be truly responsive to their needs. They would set the eligibility requirements, the premiums and the benefits. That I will refer to in a little more detail further down the road.

Let us fast forward now to the throne speech of January of 1994, to the budget and to the announcement that there would be a social program review. I think it was January 31 if memory serves. The hon. member from across the way is nodding his head.

On that day it was announced that there would be a social program review and that there would be a final report to the House with recommendations and, I believe, legislation this fall. That has now gone way off track but we will get into that in a moment.

Let us go back to what the budget speech and budget documents were saying about the social program review. On the issue of social security reform, I quote from one of the documents: "The standing committee will seek the views of Canadians on issues and objectives until April. The minister will then table a federal action plan and the standing committee will conduct public hearings on it until September and report in October. As well, federal-provincial territorial activities will take place during this period. The government will table reform legislation in the fall".

It also addressed how it would tackle some of the other social policy areas that are not actually in the social security review right now, things like health care, old age security and Canada pension plan.

For some reason these were not included in a package together and I find that odd because they are inextricably linked and I think we will see if we look at the current green paper that there are contradictions perhaps or at least we are putting the cart before the horse in some cases. For instance, in the green paper there is a reference to unemployed people using RRSPs so that they can get themselves through a period of unemployment.

On the other hand we have not even addressed the issue of Canada's old age security and Canada pension plan yet and what is going to happen with that. Meanwhile the government is floating trial balloons on RRSP taxation and things like that. That is well ahead of any paper that is coming down on the future Canada pension plan and old age security.

Right from the get go the government made a grave error when it did not look at these different areas together.

The idea of the social program reform was to find out what kind of ideas there were out there so we could do two things, make social programs more efficient and save some money.

The government denied that was really the case initially. It wanted to leave us with the impression that this was really an effort to make things more efficient and help people get off unemployment and that kind of thing. Running through this was a growing awareness, certainly from the finance minister if not from the rest of the cabinet, that cuts were going to have to come

in the next federal budget and that we could not go on spending as much money as we have been spending in this country.

Once the social program review was launched there were delays. There were problems right off the bat. There were patronage appointments made to the task force, people being paid big per diems. More delays came along. The thing floundered.

People really wanted to see the social program review succeed. Canadians have been talking about the need for social program review for 10, 12, 15 years and they want this government to succeed. They want it to do well because they know that their interests are at stake. They grew concerned and I would argue that those concerns continue to grow today.

Not only was this program review put on hold continually much to the chagrin of Canadians, but on the eve of the release of the long awaited green paper there was a revelation in the Toronto Star that the social program reform was going to include big cuts, $7.5 billion worth, even though the government had given Canadians the impression that they would be consulted in this before any types of cuts were actually considered.

On the other hand, I am certain there was a printing mistake. When the green paper was released there were no figures at all in it. In other words, Canadians were being asked to choose among all these different programs without knowing how much they would cost and what the costs of the various alternatives were. Obviously that was a mistake, a printing mistake I am certain, because no government would ever put forward a list of proposals without having something so critical in it as the cost of the actual programs.

Every day Canadians make decisions on all kinds of issues. Chief among them I can guarantee is how much they cost, because they know they have to live within their means. Somehow this escapes the government.

Also missing from the various options were many of the options put before the government during the period that led up to the actual presentation of the document in the House. I sat in on some of the HRD meetings and heard some of the presentations that were given. I remember sitting in a committee meeting suggesting that the studies and inquiries from past royal commissions should become part of the official body of information that the government refers to when it is considering the options.

I mentioned specifically the Forget commission report. It talked for instance about unemployment insurance and returning it to the employers and the employees, the people who fund it. That was rejected by the committee because the Liberal majority voted against it for reasons that escape me. There were members who spoke in favour of it. When the whip was cracked they all voted against the proposal. I invite the hon. parliamentary secretary to review the record.

Not all of the various options are in the paper. That is unfortunate because Canadians should have a chance to look at some of the other options that were put before the committee.

Initially this document was put forward as an action plan. That was the wording of the motion. It said-I think on January 31-that the government would be tabling an action plan in the days and weeks to come. Somehow over the course of the last several months the action plan became watered down and diluted to the point where it became a discussion paper.

In other words the minister who has the power to call to heel armies of bureaucrats and all kinds of minions to gather all the wisdom in the country about social policy reform, after all that time, money and the thousands of hours that were spent on it, brought forward a little green pamphlet with scarcely any action at all or any call for action, but merely a few of the options of the many that were discussed. That was a real shame.

We are now in a situation in which other groups around the country have come forward and said: "We have some ideas that the government for some reason did not want to consider".

I point to the Kierans-Robson report from the C.D. Howe Institute in which not only did they come out with options, but they came out with costs. They said: "We will tell you how much money we are going to cut from some of these areas".

These are not what I am suggesting, but they should be in the debate. On the topic of unemployment insurance they suggest that unemployment insurance should be converted into true insurance; there should be a proposal to eliminate regional differences in qualifying periods and benefits and we should eliminate all regional and non-insurance components. The savings from that would be $5.5 billion. They were not ashamed to suggest there would be some savings there.

Under the Canada assistance plan they suggested that we eliminate and divert $2.5 billion to a new child tax credit to low income households. The total savings on that would be $4.9 billion.

They talked about health care, which is something the government has been reluctant to discuss, or at least they are having trouble getting the provinces to come to the table. At this very moment the Prime Minister is delivering a speech to an empty assembly of people called for the health care forum. Not only were the health care ministers from across the country invited and did not show up, but the premiers were invited by the Prime Minister himself. They refused to come for two reasons: first, they know that under the Constitution this is their jurisdiction; second, they resent that although they are the senior partners in this arrangement and they pay the lion's share of the cost for health care-almost double what the federal government pays-the federal government is attempting to set the agenda. It has made a grave error in this. There are other areas including social program reform, GST reform and interprovincial trade barriers where it has made the same errors.

[Department Of Canadian Heritage Act, October 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary was talking about looking for ways to cut spending in government. I would like to offer one right now.

The department of multiculturalism is redundant. Not only do Canadians not want to see a department of multiculturalism but people in various multicultural communities around the country do not want to see it. I refer to a recent article in Saturday Night magazine wherein noted Canadian writer Neil Bissoondath talked about doing away with the whole idea of multiculturalism. He happens to come from the West Indies, but he is a Canadian writer and that is what he calls himself.

There are people in the Liberal caucus who say we must do away with hyphenated Canadianism. I urge the parliamentary secretary to use her influence on the minister, in conjunction with other members of caucus who feel the same way, to do away with the department of multiculturalism which is absolutely and completely redundant in the eyes of the Reform Party, many Liberals, the Canadian public and the ethnic communities around the country.

[Liberal Government, October 6th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the tenth anniversary of Marc Garneau's voyage in space. I am sure all parliamentarians join me saluting this Canadian hero and this milestone for the Canadian space program.

I would also like to draw the House's attention to some other Canadian space travellers who will be celebrating an anniversary later this month. The Liberal government has been on another planet for almost a year now. The human resources minister says he wants us to reach for the moon. That is easy for him to say, he is lost in space.

The Canadian public wants to know when this government is going to come down to earth and actually deal with some of this country's social and fiscal problems. How long before the IMF says beam them up?

While I am on this celestial topic I would like to point out that Canada's debt is reaching astronomical levels. This morning at 0800 hours the national debt was $533,210,978,829. 19. That is a disgrace.

[Federal Debt, September 19th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, this morning at 7.44 a.m. our debt was $531,045,850,207.24. With every passing day the federal debt in this country grows by more than $100 million.

Canadians are alarmed. They are concerned not only for themselves and their futures but for their children and their grandchildren. But what of the government? How concerned is it? Not very apparently when it defines success as going in the hole another $100 billion over the next three years. Even if it achieves that goal, it has failed the people.

I say to the government that it has an obligation to preserve and enhance opportunity, not to spend it away. I say to the government that it has an obligation to do what is right, not what is easy.

In the time that I have taken to deliver this statement I point out that our debt has gone up $80,000.

[National Patriots' Day, June 20th, 1994]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate very much the opportunity to speak to this motion. It is very important that Canadians remember their history and that from time to time there be occasions for considering what has gone before.

The motion the hon. member for Verchères has put forward is a controversial one. He is talking about issues which have never really been settled in history. Canadians will have to make individual judgments about the appropriateness of recognizing that some people are considered to be great patriots and others are considered to be traitors, as he himself mentioned. That is one of the major reasons I cannot support this particular motion.

Although I think it is entirely appropriate for the Government of Quebec or local municipalities to make a decision about this, it is wrong for Parliament as a whole to make a judgment about an event in history that is still controversial in the minds of many Canadians.

I also want to echo the remarks of the member from across the way who talked about the narrowness in scope of this motion and how it does not recognize that a lot of people have made significant contributions to responsible government in this country. I will talk about that in just a moment.

Finally, I speak against it because we do have a day when we can consider what has gone on in the past and the people who have made great contributions to this country. That is Canada Day. The different efforts made over the years to bring responsible government about culminated in Confederation on July 1, 1867. Each year on July 1 we can pay tribute in our own ways and remember these people.

It was just about a year ago to the day when Reformers came to Ottawa. At that point it was as candidates because we knew an election was coming. Our leader took a bunch of us around, about 100 or 150 of us. We were here to check out the House of Commons, choose our seats and that kind of thing. We talked about the big job ahead of us.

I remember extremely well how our leader, the hon. member for Calgary Southwest, showed us the statues of Baldwin and Lafontaine. He pointed out the tremendous contributions these gentlemen had made in bringing about responsible government in Canada. I for one appreciate very much the efforts of those gentlemen.

Even the constitution of the Reform Party pays tribute to many great reformers who have contributed and have helped develop the government and the system throughout Canada's history to where it is today. However it would be a mistake to set aside a specific day devoted to the memory of particular people who have made contributions, particularly ones whose legacies are controversial.

It is accurate to say the patriots had some legitimate concerns, there is no question of that. However, we would be doing a disservice to the idea that we can have free debate and achieve things through peaceful means by implying that we give credibility to the idea that the end justifies the means, that somehow we are giving our tacit approval for the violence which took place during the revolts of 1837 and 1838. Many people were killed during those uprisings. We would certainly not want to suggest that is the proper way to bring about change.

As the member across the way pointed out, in the 1840s and 1850s Joseph Howe fought for responsible government in Nova Scotia. He was one of the people responsible for bringing about responsible government. He did that without having to resort to violence. That is a good lesson.

This motion is too narrow in scope. It does not recognize the contributions of gentlemen like Joseph Howe and others who came after Confederation. I want to talk about them for a moment. I mentioned Joseph Howe. I mentioned Robert Baldwin and Louis Lafontaine. There are others who came after them. There are some of the populist movements which took place during the 1920s.

The Progressives came into this place in 1921, 64 of them. In fact the first Progressive ever elected to the House of Commons was from my constituency of Medicine Hat in a byelection, a coincidence I am sure. In 1921 it was that group of Progressives which brought with them the first woman ever elected to the House of Commons, Agnes Macphail. Those Progressives deserve to be recognized as well.

In the 1930s a couple of groups sprang up. The CCF sprang up in 1932. The founding convention was actually held in Calgary. For years it had been preceded by labour groups. However it was a populist movement. Populism has become an important movement in Canadian politics as evidenced by this Parliament.

In 1935 the Alberta Social Credit movement got under way. William Aberhart played a critical role. The gentleman who followed him in that movement was Ernest Manning, the father of the present leader of the Reform Party.

In 1921 the Alberta wing of the Progressives was headed up by Henry Wise Wood. There were two wings of the Progressives, the Manitoba wing and the Alberta wing. The Alberta wing believed very strongly that MPs had to be accountable to their constituents. That was a novel idea at the time and I would suggest in many quarters of this place it still is today. I hope it is something that will continue to evolve. Hopefully at some point in the not too distant future we will have truly accountable MPs who will be required to do the bidding of their constituents.

Finally I wish to speak on the appropriateness of setting aside yet another day to recognize history. There is Heritage Day, as someone referred to and we can use that day to think back on our history. However, Canada Day recognizes all the history in the development of this country. That means many things. It recognizes the social and historical developments and the contribu-

tions our troops made during the various wars. Of course there is also Remembrance Day.

We can reflect on our history on Canada Day, which is a national holiday. It is entirely appropriate. It is good that Canada Day does not necessarily specify who we should be recognizing. Canadians can make those judgments themselves.

In conclusion although I appreciate the intentions of the hon. member, our party will not be supporting this motion.

[Arts And Culture, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, we have an industry in our country called Canadian culture. It is run by bureaucrats, financed by subsidies, yet virtually unaccountable to the government from which it gets its funding.

This explains why we have what looks like a pile of carpet underpadding on display in our National Gallery and boxes of Brillo pads stacked up to the roof. It is why for years we have subsidized the homosexual theatre group, Buddies in Bad Times, despite the fact that this group advertises violent sado-masochism seminars featuring abduction, guns, knives, forced confinement, blood sports and rape play.

For those of you who say art must be subsidized in order to survive, read your history. The finest theatre in the English language was produced by Shakespeare. His plays were considered popular art at the time, as were Chaucer, Dickens and endless others.

The finest painters or sculptors had patrons, but they at least were accountable. Not in Canada though. Slap something on a canvass, call it Canadian, make friends with the bureaucrats and you will get your funding.

Let us leave these funds in the hands of taxpayers so they can-

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, earlier an hon. member referred to the duty of the opposition when the opposition looks at legislation such as we have before us today.

I think it is incumbent upon the opposition to give the legislation a thorough vetting. When opposition members come across a clause that they are uncomfortable with, they check it out, consult the stakeholders and find out what the different opinions are on it. After having done that if they are satisfied that the stakeholders do not have any particular problem with it, they should not oppose it for the sake of opposing it.

I point out to the members in the Bloc that although the Government of Quebec was invited to come before the HRD committee to talk about this, it did not. It is comfortable apparently with this particular clause of the bill. It has the ability of course and has taken advantage of the ability to opt out of the previous act and presumably this one as well.

It is very important that the opposition picks its time and place to make a big deal about these things. But to cry wolf too often only guarantees that you will have no audience when it is really important.

I was very suspicious throughout the meetings that we had with respect to this bill about some of the intentions of the government. I wanted to ensure that the provinces' rights were not being tampered with, that they were not being infringed upon.

In looking at it, after talking to all the people involved, talking to the ministers' departments and their officials, they do not have concerns.

I do not understand why we are even talking about this, given that even the Government of Quebec does not seem to have any concerns.

In the interests of expediency, I would hope that we will defeat this motion.

[Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, June 16th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to oppose this motion of the Bloc Quebecois.

It seems to me that the provinces have spoken with one voice on this issue. They had a chance to speak up on Bill C-28. They came before the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development to talk about this piece of legislation. In every case they suggested they will go along with this legislation and that they are in support of it.

We cannot start giving carte blanche to provinces including Quebec simply because the members down the way demand it. We must be respectful of what the provinces are saying. Quebec has indicated it is quite comfortable with this piece of legislation. The people in Alberta are happy with it, the people in the maritimes are happy with it.

I do not really understand the paranoia down the way. I can only assume that there are other reasons for this motion coming up than the ones stated.

Having said that, we cannot support this motion. We will be saying more down the road about some of the problems inherent in Bill C-28.