Brent St. Denis

[Vimy Ridge Day, April 9th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with the adoption of Bill C-227, today, April 9 is the very first Vimy Ridge Day. On this day I wish to express my gratitude to everyone for their support of this initiative, including parliamentarians in both the House of Commons and in the other place. In particular, I wish to express my appreciation to Robert Manuel, a Korean veteran and constituent of mine from Elliot Lake, Ontario, who initially inspired this idea and provided many letters and petitions of support throughout the process.

With the passage of the bill, the Parliament of Canada is honouring all veterans, those who lost their lives or were wounded in past wars or peacekeeping missions, and those who now serve or are retired from active service. We thank and honour them all.

The spirit of remembrance is alive and well in our nation but can always be made stronger. Vimy Ridge Day will help us remember the heroism, the tragedy, the valour and the loss associated with war so peace may be our constant goal. Let it be the greatest gift of our fallen soldiers that for us peace be our future.

[Veterans Affairs, April 8th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, with the very recent passage of Bill C-227, starting tomorrow every April 9 will be known as Vimy Ridge Day in Canada and on that day the Peace Tower flag will fly at half-mast.

Could the Minister of Veterans Affairs tell the House the importance of remembrance in Canadian society and how Vimy Ridge Day can help to promote Canada's military and peacekeeping legacy?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I guess it is a matter of perspective. As I said in my remarks, we inherited a huge deficit so clearly we did something right in turning the finances of the country around. He did not give me any specific examples but there were some serious adjustments and cuts in the government's expenditures or we would not have achieved the elimination of the deficit and the long overdue return to surplus.

I would suggest to the member that while no one should ever believe that governments cannot make mistakes, we are not perfect nor is any government, I believe that the citizens of this country have been led by a very responsible government that has managed the resources of the country extremely well in my view and in the view of all those on this side of the House.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I believe it was recently that we had the vote on Bill C-206. While lauding the initiative of the member who proposed that private member's bill, according to my understanding there were several aspects to the bill that were technically impossible to deliver given the current framework.

I would suggest to the member that Rome was not built in a day. I am sure she could find room in her heart to say that the federal government is at least moving in the right direction. In fact, a number of provisions in Bill C-206 were, as I understand it, announced in the budget and that it might have been a duplication of effort and initiative to support that bill.

That said, the member and I are of one mind when it comes to doing what we can to support those who are disabled or the people who support those who are disabled. I believe she will at least agree with me that the initiatives that have taken place under our watch since 1993 have seen remarkable improvements. However we can agree that there is always room to do better, whether it is this file or the other files that constantly face a government.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to share my time with the previous speaker, the member for Halifax West, as we debate the most important piece of work that a government does in the cycle of a parliamentary year, that being the federal budget.

I would like to congratulate the Minister of Finance on his first budget. I believe the broad measures in this budget will benefit everyone. The budget continues the Liberal government's record of strong fiscal management while at the same time making investments in key areas such as health care and support for Canadian families.

Budget 2003 heralds a moment of great opportunity for Canada. Where once we followed the economic performance of other nations, today Canada leads the way in growth, job creation and debt reduction. Canada led the group of seven nations, the G-7, in growth last year and we expect to do the same in 2003.

I would like to point out for the benefit of members, and some of them may have noticed this in their offices a few weeks ago, a scorecard produced each year by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. This scorecard covers the last fiscal year and I expect that next year's card will be even better. If I could, I will just provide members in the House a summary of the results.

We forget sometimes that when we were elected in 1993 we inherited an annual deficit at the time of $42 billion a year. Every year $42 billion was being added to the total debt of the country. Now we are in our sixth budget year that we will have a surplus.

We tend to take for granted the impact that has on the finances of the nation. It allows us to make extra investments in health care. It allows us to support economic development in our regions. It allows us to reduce EI premiums. It allows us to participate in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and now, tragically, the rebuilding that will be needed in Iraq. It gives is the flexibility not only to serve our own citizens better and provide a better future for our children and grandchildren but it also allows us to play a very positive part in the search, as difficult as it might be sometimes, for global peace.

Let me just give members the highlights of the scorecard. The debt to GDP ratio came in at 7.1. All these numbers are out of 10. The Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants says that this is the best score in more than a decade. According to their report, the year's score reflects a meaningful reduction in government debt as a percentage of GDP over the past five years. The surplus to GDP ratio came in at 8.6. Again all these numbers are out of 10. The report goes on to suggest that once again the Canadian economy staying in surplus is still the best result among the G-7 nations.

I will conclude with the fifth item here, which is foreign held debt in relation to net government debt. This came in at a perfect score of 10. Currently only 17% of our national debt is foreign held, a clear indication of strengthened fiscal position. That means the 83% of national debt is held by Canadians and Canadian pension funds. That is very important because 83% of our interest payments on national debt goes to Canadians, whereas at one time our foreign debt was, in percentage terms, very large. That percentage is dwindling and that is thanks to a very aggressive, positive and assertive debt management practice by the government.

I would like to go on by suggesting that Canada's resilient economic performance is thanks to not only the efforts of the government but the sacrifices of all Canadians. It is a testament to the federal government's responsible fiscal record since elected in 1993.

Budget 2003 recognizes the critical link between social and economic policy. This means building the society Canadians value, building the economy Canadians need and building the accountability Canadians deserve. It means making investments in the needs of individual Canadians, their families and communities; remaining fiscally prudent and deficit free, while promoting productivity, innovation, skills and learning; and making government more accountable to Canadians.

Through budget 2003, the government continues to build a society that responds to the challenges we face as a nation and capitalizes on the opportunities available to us all. The budget fosters a successful economy and continues to deliver prudent management of Canada's finances.

I will summarize the broad thrust of the budget. The previous speaker gave an excellent description of the initiatives under health care so I will not go into great detail, but I will underline that the investment of $34.8 billion over five years in support of Canada's health care system will pay significant dividends.

I concur with the member when he says that the public wants accountability. The public wants to know that this new federal investment, plus the provincial commitments to health care, will indeed be spent to improve health care and to bring us closer to improved core funding of our hospitals and move us toward a national home care system and a national system to deal with the catastrophic cost of drugs that some families have to face.

The budget also provides support for families, children, Canadians with disabilities, communities of all sizes and aboriginal communities, and it includes six weeks of EI benefits to allow for the care of a gravely ill family member.

I will say a few things about the initiatives in support of our families, such as the increase to the national child benefit supplement which the federal government, together with the provinces and territories, established in 1997. They established this benefit to help families with children get off welfare. Since that time, the government has seen a reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty.

Budget 2003 announces a significant increase in the benefits to children living in low income families through the Canada child tax benefit. This benefit provides increases to the annual supplement of $150 per child in 2003 and an additional $185 per child in each of 2005 and 2006. This will bring the maximum total child benefit for a first child to $2,642 in 2003, growing to $3,243 in 2007. In fact, assistance to families is projected to reach over $10 billion by 2007, more than double the level of 1996.

All Canadians have an interest in ensuring that all Canadians benefit from our education system, our productivity and our economic growth. We cannot allow any part of our society to be left behind, whether it is on issues of literacy or it is simply an issue of insufficient income to provide the basic necessities, which in their own way prevent some people from taking advantage of those best parts of Canadian life and what this country has to offer. We simply cannot afford to leave anybody behind.

I would go on to add that for those who have members of their family with disabilities and who are caring for children with severe disabilities it imposes a very heavy burden on families. In recognition of this, effective July 1, budget 2003 introduces a new $1,600 child disability benefit. This will be targeted to children with a severe and prolonged mental or physical impairment.

The federal government will also give Canadians with disabilities the tools they need to actively participate in Canadian society. In so doing, the federal government is renewing a funding commitment of $193 million per year to assist disabled persons in strengthening their prospects for employment.

I could go on about the very beneficial impacts that the budget will have on Canadian society but I will conclude by saying that I was very pleased with the new investment in support of our military. We all wish, I am sure, a very quick and peaceful outcome in the Middle East.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member for Halifax West's comments on this very good federal budget. I would just point out a fact of political life in Ontario and ask him to comment in the hope that things are not much different in his province.

Around the time the Prime Minister was negotiating with the premiers and territorial leaders, he tried to impress upon them the importance of accountability. If the federal government was to transfer money to the provinces, money a commitment that was almost historic in its size, he insisted on our behalf that the provinces provide, not to the federal government but to the people of Canada, some accountability so Canadians would know that every dollar of this new federal transfer was going into health care in their provinces. The Premier of Ontario at that time said that he was not sure Ontario would use all the new federal health money for health care, which of course would be a tragedy because of the need for increased investment in health care.

In the experience in his province, is there an understanding by the public of how important the federal investment is in health care, even though it is the responsibility of the provinces to deliver that health care? Does he agree with me that accountability to the public, to citizens, is a key part of the puzzle?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2003, March 27th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member talk about a number of things and I noticed that his remarks focused on equalization.

My riding is in northern Ontario. I would argue that in relation to southern Ontario, it is disadvantaged. Like much of Newfoundland and Labrador, we are a resource based economy and have often raised concerns about shipping our resources south and elsewhere and not always getting back from the provincial treasury what we have felt is our fair share.

The Federal Economic Development Agency for northern Ontario, FedNor, an agency of the federal government, does not and should not provide the southern parts of Ontario with complete assurance that we are getting our fair share, but the federal government is doing its best to balance the scales.

I am sure the member has a sense of fairness. Would he not consider that there are other federal programs such as the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, the Newfoundland and Labrador share of the recent health accord and numerous other federal initiatives that provide his part of this vast country with its fair share of the nation's riches? We are a fortunate nation in that regard. Would he not at least allow a little room to consider that Ontario never benefits from equalization and therefore northern Ontario never benefits from it either, and not to pit one region against another? The federal government does step in in other ways to balance things out. Would the member at least concede a little room that things are not as unfair as he might have suggested in his remarks?

[Assisted Human Reproduction Act, March 26th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, like the member for Scarborough Centre, I abstained on the previous motion but I would like to be recorded as having voted with the government in this vote.

[Situation in Iraq, March 17th, 2003]

Mr. Speaker, like all my colleagues who have spoken this evening and those who will follow, we have chance to speak in this place at a very challenging time for the world.

Just a few minutes ago Mr. Bush, the U.S. president, concluded an important address to not only his own citizens in the U.S., but to people around the world. In that address he basically gave Iraq's leadership 48 hours to decide its own fate. In this next 48 hours we will either see a conclusion of a march to war or, hopefully, a miracle. Lest we drown ourselves in wishful thinking, it appears all too obvious that the chance for a miracle is very remote.

Nonetheless, there will be millions of people around the world, including Canadians, who will be praying and hoping, and others who will be wringing their hands in the very limited possibility that Mr. Hussein will see that the only option it would appear to avoid war is for him to stand down.

As recently as yesterday I actually believed that it was possible to avoid war. However I am sure, like most members in this place, that hope has been severely diminished, but we will see.

I would like to remark, as my predecessor has, on the statement made by the Prime Minister today on behalf of all Canadians and the position, quite frankly, that will resonate with the vast majority, certainly of my constituents but of citizens across the land that we must at this time and in the future put our trust in the UN.

The Prime Minister said today that we believe Iraq must fully abide by the resolution of the United Nations Security Council. We have always made it clear that Canada requires the approval of the Security Council if we are to participate in a military campaign. Over the last few weeks the Security Council has been unable to agree on a new resolution authorizing military action.

Canada worked very hard to find a compromise to bridge the gap in the Security Council but unfortunately we were not successful. If military action proceeds without a new resolution of the Security Council, Canada will not participate.

I fully support the position taken by the Prime Minister. He has taken us through a very difficult time and these times will continue to be difficult. I have little doubt that while Canada's role in a military action will not be there, I do know that Canada's role in the following rebuilding of Iraq will be there. I take great solace in the fact that our Minister for International Cooperation just announced a quarter of a billion dollars to assist Afghanistan in its reconstruction, and I have little doubt that Canada's commitment to a post-war Iraq will be just as strong and just as serious.

My riding of Algoma—Manitoulin was once represented by the late right hon. Lester B. Pearson who, as members will know, left us a great legacy when it comes to peacekeeping and in his work to support the United Nations.

I believe that while the tragedy of a war and the loss of innocent human lives is the greatest tragedy, very close behind that will be the potential loss of whatever credibility the UN has earned itself over the past 50-plus years.

Some will argue that the UN is irrelevant and has always been irrelevant. Others will say, and I am in that camp, that the UN is still a work in progress and that every opportunity we have to build the UN indeed we should take.

This situation with respect to Iraq was one such occasion, an occasion where we as a world, including our neighbours to the south, should have taken as an opportunity to add some more bricks and mortar to the UN as a very important planetary institution. However, the world is a long way from being perfect and we know that.

My only hope is that this particular time period will not see the demise of the UN to a state from which it cannot recover. It will take a very serious body blow but I am confident that men and women of goodwill from all parts of the world will see that this recent time, if nothing else, should require us to bend our shoulder to the wheel and work harder to ensure that the United Nations in situations like this becomes a stronger player in the world.

I am one who believes that we can use worldwide institutions of governance more to bring about a more peaceful world, a world that is more fair for the poor, that is better for the environment and that is a place where the quality of life for everybody each year grows instead of the gap growing.

Where we have put so much confidence in the UN at different times only to have our confidence shattered, and on this day and quite possibly over the next two days have that hope shattered again, this is a time I think for the world, once the dust settles, to step back and rethink the structure of the United Nations and its ability to engage itself in the difficult challenges that face the world. Indeed, I think the very first step the United Nations will take, if the war is a short war, should it happen, is to shortly thereafter rebuild Iraq. Hopefully the world will see that it should never bring itself to this precipice again.

Like all my colleagues here, we had the chance to visit our ridings over the last couple of weeks. We heard much about the issues of the day and in particular the potential war in Iraq. My constituents, with some exceptions but in the great majority, indicated that they would want the United Nations support for our involvement.

We are a nation of peacekeepers. I had a chance, as some of my colleagues have had, to spend a little bit of time in the military. I had the great honour to spend a week in Wainwright, Alberta, last August and then a week in Bosnia in November with the 1st battalion of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, a great program that the former minister of defence had a hand in developing. I had a chance to meet people in our army in particular but our military in general, who I am sure are the finest military people in the world. If we were to ask them about the way they would tell us that, at all cost, peace must be our first objective.

This is not a time for me or the House to condemn our neighbours to the south. They are our friends today and they will be our friends tomorrow, next week and next month. I think we are past picking apart the entrails of the chicken to determine how we got here and where we are going. Mr. Bush will answer to his own citizens and he will of course answer to the stories written about this time which will become part of the history of our planet. That will be as it will be.

The main thing for me is whether this time brings us closer to peace in the world in the long run or further apart? Being the eternal optimist, I would find, even in this difficult time, some consolation that there has been a galvanization in the world about such matters, and that men and women of goodwill will find the way, in the medium and long term, to bring peace to this planet.

[Vimy Ridge Day Act, February 20th, 2003]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the member for Mississauga South, for seconding my motion. It is most appreciated. I just learned a few minutes ago that he has had the privilege of visiting the Vimy Ridge Memorial at Vimy in France. I hope in the near future to have that same privilege.

I am indeed honoured to be the sponsor of Bill C-227, a bill which would establish a day in honour of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and in honour of all the Canadians who fought and won this vital and critical victory for the allies in World War I.

If I may quote from an excellent document produced by the Edmonton Public School Board, written by Douglas Davis, it states:

The Canadian success at Vimy Ridge was the first allied victory on the Western Front since the fall of 1914. Without a doubt, by the spring of 1917, the Canadians were the best equipped, best trained and best led allied troops on the Western Front.

I would point out to members that the bill would create a day of remembrance on April 9 of each year and would provide that on that day the Peace Tower flag be flown at half-mast.

I would also like to underline that it would not create a holiday.This is simply another opportunity that we would provide to Canadians, particularly students, with the tremendous support no doubt of Legions across the country that do a great a job on our behalf to ensure the memory of war remains strong, to reflect on our very important military history and to ensure that we never make the tragic mistake of unnecessary war.

I have a few people to thank and I would like to do that right now.

Robert Manuel, a constituent of mine, came to me in 1999 with this idea of a millennium project, that April 9 be declared Vimy Ridge Day. His initiative and great efforts over the last couple of years have provided tremendous support for this initiative.

I also want to thank the member for South Surrey—White Rock—Langley, who knows very well how much she has helped me with this bill.

I also want to thank the ministers of the Crown, who have indicated their strong support for this bill, the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Command to Pierre Berton to the veterans associations and so many other people and organizations. They all have come forward and have said that this is the right thing to do.

I will not use my entire 20 minutes. I hope, with everybody's co-operation, that we can dispense with this issue today. In fact I believe, based on the response at committee and second reading, that there is a broad consensus to move forward.

I want to continue by asking this question. Why do we want to remember war in any of its forms, not just Vimy Ridge? It certainly is not to glorify war. Rather it is to remember those who sacrificed their lives, their bodies and their minds for freedom. Also we never want to forget the horror, tragedy and the heroism of war, and that forever we think carefully about entering the precincts of war again.

Why pick Vimy Ridge? After all Canadians have been involved in many great battles and in many terrible wars. In the first world war, names like the Somme, Ypres and Passchendaele hold strong memories for many. However Vimy Ridge stands out because it was the first time Canadians from all parts of the country fought together, under a Canadian commander. In fact every region of the country was represented among the 100,000 soldiers who were assembled for the very difficult task of taking Vimy Ridge. I look forward to the comments of my colleague from the riding of Kootenay—Columbia whose grandfather was there.

The fact that we lost 4,000 soldiers, including 10,000 casualties, was a huge number. When we consider that 150,000 French soldiers had been lost in previous efforts to take that ridge, this pales in comparison to the efforts and losses of previous attempts to take Vimy Ridge. It underscores the brilliance with which the Canadians undertook to seize that ridge from the Germans.

I could give my opinion on different things, but I think it is best if I tell the House in the words of people who were at Vimy Ridge, like David Debassige, the father of Gus Debassige, who was an aboriginal soldier from Manitoulin Island. There were people like Duncan McPhee, who came from the small town of Webbwood in my riding. Like all the others, he was a very young man. His town has honoured his memory with a piece in their local history book.

A female friend of his later wrote a beautiful poem in his memory. I will excerpt only a couple of verses at this point. I would point out that Duncan McPhee was actually born in Quebec and moved to northern Ontario with his family in pursuit of a career in the logging industry. She said:

He went on to the battle fields, He fought the deadly foe, Our brave Canadian soldier Was not afraid to go. He left his home and country His friends and all those nigh He gave his life for freedom He was not afraid to die.

This is another verse from this beautiful poem:

A place is vacant in our home Which never can be filled He died out in the trenches 'Twas there Our Saviour willed. He left his home and country To battle for the right, Our brave Canadian soldier Was not afraid to fight.

His female friend had to stay home and learn of the tragedy of his loss through the news or by telegram.

There are other stories. I think it would be appropriate at this time to read a piece from an essay done by a high school student, Joel Ralph from Sudbury, who in 1999 was a grade 11 student at Lockerby Composite School As a young person, he tried to imagine what it was like to be there. I commend the entire essay to the House and hope Joel will forgive me if I can only read a short piece of it right now. In part of his essay, as he helps us to try to imagine what it was like, he says:

The dawn of that cold and snowy April 9th would be greeted by one of the greatest explosions in history. The men in the trenches waiting for the attack to begin heard the sound of a single artillery gunfire and then 982 more heavy artillery pieces and 150 machine guns opened fire in unison. The sound was deafening and can only be described by those who were there.

The unsuspecting Germans, who did not expect an attack for at least a week, were caught completely off guard as the shells fell among them. The Canadians moved quickly forward behind the barrage and were at the summit of Vimy Ridge by noon.

The victory was one of the only decisive victories in the entire war and was to become the model of the final attacks of 1918. The Canadians suffered accordingly: some 4,000 dead of 10,000 casualties. Nevertheless, the attack proved the Canadians to be the best army in the world and they accordingly would form the iron tip of the spearhead that would end the war in 1918.

The day the Canadians attacked Vimy Ridge was the day Canada was born. For those troops who had taken part in the attack, some who had only been in Canada less than a month before signing up to fight, they were all Canadians. The name “Canada” on their shoulders would be the knot that held them together. The troops came from Nova Scotia to Montreal, Ottawa to Winnipeg, Regina to Vancouver, even the Northwest, and everywhere else in between.

These were Canadians who bonded together and found a comradeship that could only be found in the deepest trench or the biggest crater. They would fight together and go home to Canada together, those who survived.

That morning when they set out to seize Vimy Ridge, they were Commonwealth soldiers, but when they reached the summit they were Canadians.

I thank Joel Ralph for that.

I want to allow others to have time to make their comments. I am humbled by this opportunity to have a chance to pursue a citizen's initiative. I really believe that it will be some years before I truly have a chance to appreciate the import of what might seem a token acknowledgement of a great battle. Indeed, as a member of Parliament, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you notice, as I do, that the spirit of remembrance is getting stronger and stronger in this country.

The essay by this young person and the letters which I receive from classes of kids indicate to me that the work done by our veterans and legions deserves this offering that we recognize one important battle, a battle that Canadians first fought together, a battle that we can use as a symbol for all battles.

I very much appreciate the expressions of support from the members in this place. I look forward to hearing what other members have to say throughout this hour.